A note before we start: we are a software vendor, not a law firm or a licensing consultancy — this article organises the official material, it does not replace legal advice. For binding questions, talk to the ELT Council directly or to a Maltese lawyer.

In short: anyone who wants to establish, keep or operate a school teaching English to speakers of other languages in Malta needs a licence from the ELT Council; the legal basis is the English Language Teaching Council Regulations, 2015 (L.N. 221 of 2015). The licence runs for a maximum of four years, the renewal application is due no later than four months before it expires, and between renewals the school is monitored against the Council’s quality framework — including its academic records, staff qualifications, premises and student welfare.

Malta is one of the few destinations where English language teaching is regulated by national legislation: the ELT Council, which grew out of the EFL Monitoring Board set up by the Ministry of Education in 1996, describes Malta as “practically the only language learning destination in the world with legislation that assures every school maintains a national quality standard” (ELT Council: The Industry). According to the Council, more than 85,000 foreign students come to Malta every year to learn English, spread across 38 licensed schools in Malta and Gozo — the Council publishes the list of licensed ELT schools.

Who needs the licence

The regulations distinguish several licences and permits, all issued by the ELT Council:

  • ELT school licence — regulation 9 of L.N. 221 of 2015 reserves establishing, keeping or operating a school, and presenting yourself as licensed to do so, to schools duly licensed by the Council.
  • Distance Learning Provider licence — for providing English language teaching from Malta by electronic means to students who do not physically attend.
  • Home Tuition Provider permit — for teachers hosting and teaching up to four students, principally at the teacher’s or student’s residence.
  • ELT Permit for every teacher — regulation 10: no school may employ a teacher without an ELT Permit; Schedule 1 sets the qualification route (a recognised international ELT certificate at MQF/NQF level 5 or the Council’s own TELT plus methodology certificate, a speaking proficiency certificate, and a recent police certificate of good conduct).

Marketing is covered too: regulation 14 prohibits promoting or describing ELT courses and services unless the provider is licensed — and requires that every depiction of the school, its classrooms and its services is “a faithful and accurate representation” of what is actually provided.

The path to a licence

The Council describes the application on its page Application for an ELT School Licence. Applicants must address four areas:

  1. Structure plan — new schools should be located where demographic projections indicate a need, with good accessibility and a safe environment.
  2. Site — among other criteria: safe access to the arterial or distributor road network, a location where the existing provision of ELT schools permits additional development, no take-up of good-quality agricultural land or sites of ecological or archaeological importance, and adequate land for buildings, recreation and open space.
  3. Business plan and needs analysis — “The applicant shall submit a Business Plan covering the first three years of the operation”, including a needs analysis of the employment, business and tourism opportunities generated.
  4. Legal provisions and quality of education — the requirements of L.N. 221 of 2015 and its Schedule 1, which the school must satisfy from day one.

Schedule 1 is where the licence becomes concrete. Among other things it requires:

  • a Director of Studies with approved postgraduate-level ELT qualifications and between 1,000 and 2,000 certified ELT contact hours depending on the qualification route, appointed on an exclusive basis and present on the premises whenever formal tuition is running;
  • a named person responsible for non-academic services and student welfare, including the approval and monitoring of board and lodging and — for students under eighteen — a 24/7 emergency communication service;
  • premises that meet health, sanitary, fire and safety regulations, with an up-to-date health-and-safety and fire risk assessment and classrooms offering at least 1.75 square metres per student, at least half of them naturally lit.

The completed application goes to the Chief Executive Officer of the ELT Council (Ministry for Education and Employment, Great Siege Road, Floriana). The fee schedule in L.N. 221 of 2015 (Schedule 2) lists €200 for a new school licence and €15 per ELT Permit; check current amounts with the Council before budgeting. Once issued, a licence is valid for a period not exceeding four years (regulation 9(3)).

The ongoing duties

The licence is not a one-off hurdle — most of the regulations describe how a licensed school has to operate:

  • Renewal — the application is due “no later than four months prior” to the licence expiring, subject to the quality assurance standards the Council determines; there is an online renewal service. The renewal fee in Schedule 2 depends on the school’s size in student weeks, from €100 (up to 2,400 student weeks in the preceding year) to €400 (more than 12,000) — which means the school needs reliable student-week figures every year.
  • Monitoring visits — under the Council’s Monitoring Visits (MV) Policy, effective 2026, each licensed school is reviewed approximately once every two years in three phases: a pre-visit digital submission (teacher portfolios, academic administration, quality assurance, welfare and premises evidence, largely due 28 days before the visit), on-site verification of academic standards and of management and compliance, and a final report about four weeks after the visit.
  • Attendance and certificates — the MV framework expects a documented attendance procedure: definitions of present, late and absent, alert thresholds and escalation steps, aggregated attendance reports, and a Certificate of Attendance that requires at least the Council’s 75% minimum attendance. L.N. 221 of 2015 requires the certificate to be issued over the signature of the Director of Studies, stating the course title and level, the dates of attendance and the hours actually attended.
  • Teacher permits and CPD — ELT Permits are valid for up to four years; the Council’s CPD Policy sets out the approved forms of continuing professional development for renewals.
  • Minors — beyond the 24/7 emergency line, the Council publishes a dedicated policy on Safeguarding Minors in ELT Malta Schools.
  • Sanctions — non-compliance is an offence: regulation 15 provides for fines of up to €1,164.69 (plus €11.65 per day for continuing offences, capped at €4,658.75) or up to three months’ imprisonment, and regulation 17 adds administrative fines of up to €1,165 — after the Council has allowed a period to comply.

Common pitfalls

Four patterns stand out when you read the regulations and the monitoring framework side by side:

  1. The renewal deadline. Four months before expiry is earlier than most annual planning cycles — a licence that quietly lapses is the most avoidable failure of all.
  2. Attendance data that does not add up. The monitoring framework asks for aggregated attendance reports and certificates whose percentages match the registers. Attendance kept on paper or in scattered spreadsheets rarely survives that comparison; the policy even recommends printing certificates on the final day of tuition so the recorded hours are accurate.
  3. Roles on paper only. The Director of Studies must be exclusive to one school and present during tuition; annexes need an approved School Annexe Manager. A licence structure that only exists in the org chart shows up quickly in a focus group with teachers.
  4. Marketing that outruns reality. Regulation 14’s “faithful and accurate representation” applies to photos of classrooms and accommodation as much as to course descriptions.

Where management software helps

None of this is a software problem first — but a school that runs its administration in one system has most of the monitoring evidence as a by-product. Concretely, with a system like Fidelo School: teachers record attendance, class content and progress through their own login; daily or weekly attendance turns into warnings, progress reports and certificates instead of being reconciled by hand; classes sit on a visual roster where teachers are assigned by availability and qualification; homestay and residential providers are managed with rooms, board types and matching criteria; and the reporting module compiles the student and occupancy statistics that categorise the school for its renewal fee. If you are comparing systems, our selection checklist covers the questions that matter for a regulated school.

The licence itself is earned in classrooms, staffrooms and host families. But the paperwork that proves it — registers, certificates, reports, renewals — is exactly the part you can decide to make easy.