How many companies are registered in Malta? The register, counted

The short answer: 121,029 companies, partnerships and other entities have been entered on Malta's company register, and 52,360 of them are active today — 43%. The rest have left the register, are being dissolved, or sit in one of a few smaller statuses. These are Overit's counts of the Malta Business Registry's own data, and the section at the end says exactly what they can and cannot tell you.

Active, struck off, and in between

Every entity on the register, by the status the register gives it:

So 65,091 entities — more than half of everything ever registered — have left the register, and another 3,151 are being dissolved. “Active” is the register's own word: it means the company is on the register in good standing, not that it is trading, employing anyone or filing accounts on time.

What form they take

Nearly nine in ten active companies are one of three kinds of private limited liability company:

The single-member private exempt company — one shareholder — is the commonest form by a distance, and nearly half of all active companies take it. After the big three come 2,104 private single-member companies, 1,660 partnerships, 1,192 companies registered simply as private limited companies, 797 companies continued into Malta from elsewhere, 552 overseas companies and 240 SICAVs. One form shows how different the active register is from the historical one: 5,698 shipping entities have been registered, and 10 are active.

Where they are

Active companies have their registered office in 92 localities, but they are concentrated: the top five towns hold 43% of them.

Birkirkara has the most active companies, but Valletta has had by far the most registered — 23,786, nearly twice Birkirkara's — and only about one in four of them is still active, the lowest share among these ten. The register records where a company's registered office is, which is often the office of whoever handles its paperwork, not where it does business.

How old they are

The median active company was registered in June 2018. Nearly two in three — 33,451, or 64% — were registered in 2016 or later, and more than a third (18,218) since the start of 2021. Only 4,851, fewer than one in ten, date from before 2000.

Read that table as what it is: companies registered in each year that are still active, not the number registered that year. The register does not give a registration date for most companies that have since been struck off, so the full yearly totals cannot be counted from it, and older years look smaller partly because more of their companies have gone. Even so, the year with the most active companies today is 2018, with 3,863, and 2025 is close behind with 3,725.

What they do

The register records a line of business for 68% of active companies — for 99% of those registered since 2016, and for only about one in eight of the older ones. Among active companies, the commonest lines are:

Holding is first by a wide margin — the holding companies are counted in detail here. Second is a catch-all: “n.e.c.” means not elsewhere classified, so those 7,322 companies recorded a heading that says little about what they actually do. Beyond the top two the field is spread thin, and shipping, gambling and professional services all feature in the top ten.

How many are struck off each year

Being struck off as defunct is the second largest route off the register, and the only large one the register dates often enough to count by year — for 93% of cases:

These come in waves rather than a steady stream: 11,115 in 2020 alone, then smaller peaks in 2023 and 2025. The register records when each company was struck off; it does not record why the numbers rise and fall, and this article does not guess. The other large group, companies simply “Struck Off”, is dated in only about half of cases, so it is given as a total above and not by year.

What these numbers can and cannot tell you

Every figure here is an Overit count of the Malta Business Registry's data as Overit loaded it on 22 August 2026 — the latest registration in it is dated 21 August — and counted in September 2026. None of it is an official statistic, and the Registry may publish figures that differ.

Statuses are the register's own. Active means on the register in good standing. It says nothing about whether a company trades.

Registration years cover survivors. Because struck-off companies mostly carry no registration date here, every count by year of registration is a count of companies still active.

The line of business is self-declared, recorded when the company registered, and mostly missing before 2016.

The register shows what, not why. Nothing here is a statement about law, tax or the economy. To look at the companies themselves, walk the whole register, or start from the company directory.