Family reunification is the route by which a third-country national already living in Malta brings their family to join them.
It is a defined legal process with conditions attached to the person already here. It is not an automatic right that follows from being resident.
What has to be in place first
The conditions apply to you
Income, accommodation and the length of time you have been resident all have to satisfy the requirements before an application will succeed.
Get these in order first. An application filed too early is a refusal rather than a delay.
Your own permit
Your housing has to be adequate and documented
A registered lease or proof of ownership, and somewhere large enough for the family you are bringing.
This is checked, and an informal arrangement will not pass.
Renting here
Spouse and children first
The core route covers a spouse and dependent children. Other relatives are harder and subject to additional conditions.
Every person needs their own documents, and translations and legalisation take longer than the application does.
Schools
What you need depends on the sponsor
The person already in Malta is the sponsor, and their status governs everything. Whether reunification is available, and on what terms, depends on the permission they hold and how long they have held it. It also depends on whether their residence is expected to continue. Someone on a short-term or tightly conditioned permit is in a very different position from a long-term resident.
What has to be demonstrated
The usual conditions
- Accommodation
- Housing regarded as adequate for the size of the family, meeting the general health and safety standards applied in Malta.
- Sickness insurance
- Covering the sponsor and the arriving family members for all risks normally covered for Maltese nationals.
- Stable and regular resources
- Sufficient to maintain the family without recourse to the social assistance system, evidenced rather than asserted.
- Relationship evidence
- Marriage and birth certificates, legalised or apostilled and translated where they are not in English or Maltese. This is where most delays originate.
- A qualifying relationship
- Reunification is directed at the immediate family. Extended family members are treated differently and are not generally within it.
Getting a foreign marriage or birth certificate legalised, apostilled and officially translated routinely takes longer than the application itself. Begin collecting them before you begin the process, and check the format Identita requires rather than assuming a document is acceptable as issued.
This is not your route. Family members of EU nationals exercising free movement come under the free movement rules instead, which are more generous and work differently. See moving to Malta as an EU citizen.
Family reunification is administered by Identità, which publishes the eligibility conditions, the document checklist and the format required of foreign documents. The conditions turn on your specific status, so confirm them for your own case rather than relying on a general description.