A Maltese company has two numbers you will meet on invoices and in contracts. They get confused constantly, though the difference is simple.

Registration number

The number the Registrar assigns when an entity goes on the register. In Malta it is a letter prefix and digits, not digits alone: C for a company, P for a partnership, OC for an overseas company, SV for a shipping vessel company, SE for a Societas Europea, EEIG for a European Economic Interest Grouping. Every entity on the register has one.

It never changes — not on a change of name, address or ownership — and it is not reissued after a company is struck off. That is what makes it a reliable way to identify a company years later.

VAT number

A Maltese VAT number is MT followed by eight digits. It is issued by the Commissioner for Tax and Customs on registration under the Value Added Tax Act (Cap. 406), not by the Registrar, and it has no relationship to the registration number: neither can be derived from the other, and the digits are not the same.

Not every company has one. A company only has a VAT number once it registers, and the Act has more than one kind of registration. Under article 10 a taxable person registers normally: they charge VAT on their supplies and claim back the VAT they are charged. Under article 11 a business small enough to qualify under the Sixth Schedule registers as a small enterprise instead. Both hold a number; they do not do the same thing with it.

So

Every registered entity has a registration number, from the day it is registered and for good. A VAT number is a separate thing, issued by a different authority, held only by those who have registered for it, and carrying different obligations depending on which article they registered under. Being quoted a VAT number tells you the number exists — it does not by itself tell you what that business is registered to do.

How to check them

Check a registration number in the Malta Business Registry: enter it and see whether the company that comes back is the one you expected. Check a VAT number in VIES, which answers for the whole EU and tells you whether the number is valid right now. Both are free and take seconds.