Malta is not a budget destination, but it is not as expensive as western European capitals either. It sits somewhere in the middle — cheaper than London or Paris for food and drink, pricier than you might expect for a small Mediterranean island that markets itself heavily on sun and sea. The cost of your trip depends less on the islands themselves and more on the choices you make: where you eat, where you sleep, and whether you treat every boat trip and heritage site as unmissable.
This guide gives you real euro figures for a real trip — not best-case scenarios. It covers the three main budget bands, what transport actually costs (including bus fares that changed in 2025), where restaurants quietly extract far more than they should, and which attractions are genuinely worth your money. For a broader overview of getting around, see our guide to getting around Malta, and for entry requirements and practical logistics, travel basics has you covered.
These figures cover accommodation, food, local transport, and a couple of paid attractions spread across the trip. They assume two people travelling together and splitting costs where relevant. Solo travellers should add roughly 20–30% for the accommodation share.
This means a guesthouse or budget hotel outside the main tourist strips, bus travel everywhere, a pastizz and coffee for breakfast, a ftira or cheap lunch at a local café for €4–6, and a simple evening meal at a non-harbour restaurant for €12–16 a head including a drink. One or two paid attractions per week rather than daily. Entirely achievable, but it requires discipline in Valletta and St Julian's, where prices rise sharply the closer you get to the water.
A comfortable three-star hotel or well-rated apartment in Sliema or the Three Cities, restaurant meals twice a day, a hire car for part of the trip, and a mix of paid and free sights. This is where most visitors actually land, and it reflects what Malta genuinely costs without trying to do it on the cheap or splashing out unnecessarily.
A four or five-star hotel, harbour-view dinners, private boat trips, and a car for the full stay. Malta has a strong luxury offer, particularly in Valletta and the Grand Harbour area, and prices at that end are comparable to similar-tier hotels in southern Spain or Portugal. See our where to stay guide for a full breakdown of the accommodation market.
Malta's bus network covers most places visitors want to reach. A single journey in summer (14 June–18 October) costs €2.50. In winter (19 October–13 June) the same ticket costs €2.00. Night buses (N routes), the Tallinja Direct services (TD routes), and the X300 all cost €3.00 regardless of season. There is no 24-hour bus pass. For regular use, a 12-journey card costs €19, which works out at just under €1.60 per trip — useful if you are staying a week and travelling daily but not constantly. For longer stays or heavy use, the 7-day Explore Card at €25 gives unlimited travel and is usually the right call. Check current fares and route maps at publictransport.com.mt.
Routes X1, X2, X3 and X4 were all discontinued on 20 April 2025. The airport-to-Valletta service is now the TD4 Airport Direct, which takes approximately 12–25 minutes depending on traffic and costs €3.00. From Valletta, route 15 runs to Sliema Ferries; route 41 goes to Ċirkewwa for the Gozo ferry; and routes 81 (daily) and 85 connect Valletta to Marsaxlokk. If you are travelling between Ċirkewwa and Sliema directly, route 222 makes that connection.
The official white airport taxis operate on fixed fares: approximately €17 to Valletta. To Sliema or St Julian's you will pay more; check posted fares at the rank inside arrivals at maltairport.com. Bolt and other app-based services are available and often cheaper for journeys around the island, though surge pricing applies on summer evenings.
Car hire starts at around €18–28 per day for an economy car in shoulder season. Factor in fuel (Malta is small but traffic is heavy) and the near-certainty of spending time looking for parking in most towns. Driving in Malta is not relaxing; many visitors hire a car for one or two specific days rather than the whole trip.
The Gozo Channel ferry foot-passenger return fare is around €4.65. The crossing from Ċirkewwa to Mġarr takes about 25 minutes. Check the latest timetable and fares at gozochannel.com.
A pastizz — the flaky pastry filled with ricotta or mushy peas that you will find at every pastizzeria — costs €0.35–0.50 at a local shop. Tourist-area cafés may charge €0.60–0.75. They are worth seeking out at their proper price; at the inflated price, less so. A ftira (Maltese bread sandwich, often with tuna, capers and olives) runs €3.50–5.50 and makes an excellent lunch.
Coffee at a local bar costs €1.50–2.50. At a tourist café, expect €3.00 or more, sometimes significantly more. This gap is not subtle and it compounds over a week.
A lunch main at a non-tourist local restaurant costs roughly €10–20 including a soft drink. Dinner mains at a mid-range restaurant run €14–22. At a harbour-front tourist restaurant — think Spinola Bay in St Julian's, or the Valletta waterfront — dinner mains can reach €30–40 per person before wine. A bottle of wine at a mid-range restaurant costs €15–25.
A pint of Cisk (Malta's perfectly decent lager, brewed locally) costs €2.50–5.00 depending on where you are sitting. The gap between a bar stool in Ħamrun and a terrace seat in Paceville tells you everything you need to know about Malta's two-tier pricing.
Heritage Malta manages most of the major archaeological sites. Full up-to-date prices are listed at heritagemalta.mt. Current adult admission for key sites:
A shared group boat trip to Comino and the Blue Lagoon costs roughly €20–45 per person depending on the departure point — cheaper from Bugibba (approximately €13–30), more expensive from Sliema (approximately €25–45). A basic ferry crossing runs about €10–15 return. Since May 2025, a free timed landing pass must be booked in advance; do this at the official booking system before you sort out the boat. Without it, you will not be allowed ashore. The system is at blcomino.com.
Most visitors underestimate drinks. A couple of coffees, a bottle of water, a mid-afternoon beer and wine with dinner adds €20–30 per person per day without much effort, particularly in tourist areas where every price is set accordingly. Food is the line item that most reliably overshoots a budget — not because individual meals are outrageous, but because the cumulative gap between eating locally and eating conveniently is large.
Taxis are the other quiet drain. Malta is small but its public transport is infrequent in the evenings, and after a long day you will reach for your phone and order a car. A few of those journeys per week at €8–15 each adds up. The bus is almost always a viable alternative if you plan slightly ahead.
Paid attractions, if you approach them without a plan, can easily absorb €50–80 per person over a week. That is not unreasonable given the quality of what Malta has, but it is worth deciding in advance what you actually want to see rather than paying entrance fees on impulse.
Mdina Dungeons is a theatrical walk-through attraction aimed squarely at children and tourists who have already ticked off the real sights. At around €10 per adult, it is not ruinously expensive, but the content is thin and you will spend 25 minutes in it and feel vaguely cheated. Mdina itself — the Silent City — is free to walk around, genuinely atmospheric, and historically far more interesting than anything inside the Dungeons attraction.
Tourist road trains that trundle around Valletta or Mdina offer a narrated circuit at prices that buy you a decent lunch. Valletta is a small, flat, walkable city — end to end in 15 minutes on foot. The road train solves a problem you do not have.
Overpriced boat trips that bundle Comino with "caves" and a brief Gozo stop are widely sold from kiosks in Sliema and Bugibba. If you want to see the Blue Lagoon, do that properly (and book your landing pass in advance). If you want Gozo, take the ferry and spend a full day. The combined day-tour version satisfies neither properly and costs more than doing both separately.
Souvenir shops in Valletta's main tourist corridor sell the same Maltese cross keyrings and luzzu fridge magnets at prices three or four times what you will pay in a market or a less prominent shop a street away. The products are identical.
A realistic mid-range budget for one person over seven nights — accommodation, food, transport and two or three paid attractions — is roughly €840–€1,190, or around €120–€170 per day. Budget travellers can manage on €60–90 per day with discipline.
Usually yes, if you are staying a week and plan to move around daily. At €25 for unlimited travel on standard routes, it pays for itself after ten single journeys at the summer rate of €2.50 each.
A shared boat trip costs roughly €20–45 per person depending on where you depart. Since May 2025 you also need a free timed landing pass booked in advance at blcomino.com — without it you cannot land on the island.
At least 2–3 months ahead if you are visiting in July or August, when slots sell out. Check availability the moment your travel dates are confirmed. Entry is €35 per adult.
It depends entirely on where you eat. A ftira sandwich costs €3.50–5.50; a lunch main at a local restaurant runs €10–20. A dinner main at a harbour-front tourist restaurant can reach €30–40 per person before wine. The gap between those two experiences is significant.
The TD4 Airport Direct bus costs €3.00 and takes approximately 12–25 minutes. The official white taxi on a fixed fare costs approximately €17.