Below is the updated Country Sheet for Malta as at 16th March 2018:-

Malta (2018 eInvoicing Country Sheet)

Legislation

There is no eInvoicing B2G legislation in place in Malta, yet. The Ministry for Finance, in liaison with Department of Contracts within the same Ministry, is in the process of finalizing the drafting of subsidiary legislation to be enacted under the Financial Administration and Audit (Cap. 174) to implement Directive 2014/55/EU. Amendments to the Local Councils (Financial) Regulations (S.L. 363.01) will also be introduced,

The Maltese government promotes the adoption of eInvoicing in its Digital Malta national strategy entitled: Digital Malta 2014-2020. The central government's action to promote the adoption of eInvoicing is an encouragement for local actors' implementation of eInvoicing.

eInvoicing platform and eInvoicing management solutions

There is currently no eInvoicing platform in place in Malta. The Treasury Department, within the Ministry for Finance, is currently in the implementation process for the Corporate Financial Management Solution (CFMS) across central government. The Solution being implemented is Unit4 Business World. This will cater also for the processing of eInvoicing across central government. The implementation of eInvoicing will be in two phases. Phase 1, which is planned to go live in January 2019, will enable eInvoicing in ten earmarked pilot sites. eInvoicing shall be implemented across all central government in Phase 2, when the remaining sites go live, and this is planned for January 2020.

The Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) will be supporting the Treasury throughout this implementation.

Approach for receiving and processing eInvoices

Currently there is no formalised process in place for submitting, receiving and processing eInvoices.

NEW SECTION TO BE COMPLETED FOR 2018

Status on the implementation of the European Standard on eInvoicing (EN)

The eInvoicing committee made up of government stakeholders in Malta agreed that all elements as listed in the EN16931-1 standard will be included.  It is understood that elements will be grouped according to the relative type of invoice.

A clear understanding of the contents of the elements is needed to eventually determine the finite attribute of the element, and to provide the proper guidelines to the suppliers to submit the right expected data.

Prior to committing to Malta’s status, the eInvoicing Committee is currently awaiting the following direction from CEN:

1. Government of Malta ICT Policies seeks to adopt to the maximum extent possible open and royalty free standards. Guidance on which Standard is to be adopted - either UN/CEFACT or UBL2.1;
2. Information on whether other Member States are adopting out-of-the-box specification or implementing custom formats.   In such cases, information on the availability of a gateway that facilitates a standard to MS format translation;
3. The adoption level of Web Services (including SAOP / REST etc);
4. The translation of these into the XML schemas for UN/CEFACT or UBL 2.1 and their clear definition and whether these can be used as-is through the specifications published by UN and OASIS;
5. Assistance from CEN in establishing the standard to be used by Malta, and tools, services that can facilitate the implementation;

       6. Other considerations required in view of the adoption.

Additional information

The Maltese government established a committee to discuss the transposition and implementation of the Directive 2014/55/EU.