Guide
SSC rates Malta: Class 1 social security and the ceiling
Updated
Maltese social security is charged weekly, on basic wage only, at the same percentage from both sides, and stops at a ceiling. Each of those four facts changes the arithmetic.
Email me this result
We will send you these figures and a link back to them. One email, nothing else unless you tick the box.
How this calculator works
- Income tax is computed from the tables in article 56(1) of the Income Tax Act (Cap. 123) as consolidated on 10 March 2026 (legislation.mt: Cap. 123). The Act writes each band as a rate less a fixed subtraction; computing them as marginal slices gives the same answer to the cent.
- Single: 0% to €12,000, 15% to €16,000, 25% to €60,000, then 35%. Married: 0% to €15,000, 15% to €23,000, 25% to €60,000, then 35%. Parent: 0% to €13,000, 15% to €17,500, 25% to €60,000, then 35%.
- Social security is Class 1 at 10% of basic weekly wage from each side, employee and employer. It is set by Part I of the Tenth Schedule to the Social Security Act (Cap. 318) (legislation.mt: Cap. 318). Both sides pay the same amount. Overtime and the statutory bonuses are not basic wage.
- Verify the weekly maximum before running payroll. The maxima used here are €53.23 a week for a person born on or after 1 January 1962 and €42.31 for a person born earlier. Below a basic weekly wage of €213.54, the category B flat rate is €21.35.
- These are the figures in the Tenth Schedule as consolidated on 10 March 2026. Legal Notice 10 of 2025 substituted that schedule with effect from 1 January 2024, and no later amendment appears in the consolidated Act. Malta revises the ceiling by legal notice, so check it against the current year's rate sheet.
- The employer also pays a maternity fund contribution of 0.3% of basic weekly wage under Part IV of the Tenth Schedule. That is between €0.64 and €1.60 a week for a person born on or after 1 January 1962 (€1.27 for earlier cohorts). Same consolidation date, same verification point.
- The calculator assumes an employee aged 18 or over in ordinary insurable employment for a full 52 contribution weeks. Under-18 rates, student-worker schemes, part-time elections and any year treated as 53 contribution weeks are outside it.
- Not modelled: the statutory bonus and weekly allowance, cost of living adjustment, fringe benefits and non-resident rates. Also not modelled: the 15% flat rate for qualifying highly skilled individuals under separate rules, tax credits, and any final withholding tax on other income.
How Class 1 works
Part I of the Tenth Schedule to the Social Security Act (Cap. 318) sets Class 1 contributions for employed persons as a weekly amount in five lettered categories.
For an employee aged 18 or over in ordinary employment, the rate is 10% of basic weekly wage, calculated to the nearest cent. The employer pays the same again. Below a basic weekly wage of €213.54, category B substitutes a flat €21.35 a week from each side. A part-time employee may elect 10% of actual pay instead.
Above the top of category C the schedule again substitutes a flat weekly amount, which is what produces the ceiling. Because the ceiling is a cash amount rather than a percentage, the contribution stops growing while the salary does not, and the effective rate falls steadily as pay rises.
Contribution on basic wage, not on everything
- Basic wage or salary is the measure. The schedule refers throughout to the basic weekly wage or the weekly equivalent of the basic monthly salary, so overtime and the statutory bonuses sit outside it.
- Two birth cohorts, two ceilings. The schedule splits categories C and D by whether the person was born on or before 31 December 1961 or on or after 1 January 1962. The later cohort has the higher ceiling because its maximum pensionable income is higher.
- Employees under 18 on low pay sit in category A at a flat weekly amount, and student-worker schemes have their own capped categories, E and F.
- The employer pays a maternity fund contribution too, 0.3% of basic weekly wage under Part IV of the same schedule, subject to its own small floor and ceiling. It is separate from the 10% and is not matched by the employee.
The self-employed pay differently
Class 2 contributions, in Parts II and III of the Tenth Schedule, are charged on annual net earnings at 15% between category thresholds, not 10% of weekly pay. Flat weekly amounts apply at the bottom and top of the scale. A self-employed person therefore carries what is, in effect, both halves of the employed contribution.
The calculator on this site is a Class 1 tool and does not model Class 2.
Verify the figures before you run a payroll. The weekly amounts in the Tenth Schedule as consolidated on 10 March 2026 come from Legal Notice 10 of 2025, which took effect on 1 January 2024. No later amendment to that schedule appears in the consolidated Act.
Malta adjusts these amounts by legal notice, so confirm the ceiling in particular against the current year's rate sheet from the Department of Social Security. The 10% rate itself has been stable; the cash amounts are what move.