DriveHub

Mileage log requirements in Malta

What your records have to contain to survive a check by Malta Tax and Customs Administration (formerly the Office of the Commissioner for Revenue), and the rate DriveHub applies.

The rate

€0.35 per km

In force 2008-01-01 onwards.

The rule that governs it

Fringe Benefits Tax Guidelines, under the Fringe Benefits Rules (S.L. 123.55).

What every trip has to record

A logbook is named explicitly — all reimbursable travel must be recorded in one, kept readily available at any time for verification by the authority — and three fields are prescribed: S.L. 123.55 r. 18(5)(c), verbatim, "the employer has logged the details to which any such reimbursement refers, including the purpose, destination and distance of each journey". The other two conditions are that the travel is business use and that 0,35 €/km is not exceeded.

How long to keep them

Six years for the employer's mileage log, and it is hard law rather than the Commissioner's guidelinesS.L. 123.55 rule 48(3): "All records referred to in this rule and all supporting documents… shall be kept for a period of not less than 6 years." Rule 48(2)(a) sweeps in the rule 18(5)(c) log. A self-employed person keeps their own records nine years, and the clock is per transaction, not per yearITMA art. 19(5), "after the completion of the transactions, acts or operations to which they relate". Malta therefore requires records for four years longer than it can assess on them (assessment is time-barred after five, art. 31(6)), and a VAT-registered sole trader runs both periods, the VAT one restarting on a correction (VAT Act art. 48(4)). The sanction is not a fine but inadmissibility: under art. 31(5)'s proviso, a person who fails without reasonable excuse to produce records within thirty days of a written notice "shall not be allowed to produce such records… before the Administrative Review Tribunal or in any Court of law." A log produced late is not late — it is unusable.

What it costs to get wrong

Absolute rather than proportional: fail any one of the three conditions and the entire reimbursement is a fringe benefit, valued under the car-reimbursement rules — not just the excess over the ceiling.

Where this comes from

The requirements above are quoted from Malta's own tax authority. DriveHub keeps them, and the rate, under version control and re-checks them against the authority's pages — this page is generated from that record, not written separately from it.

DriveHub records this automatically. It tracks each drive in the background, keeps the start and end, the distance and the route, and exports a report in the shape a tax office expects.

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