How many people in Malta shop online, what do they buy, where do they buy it from, and how many Maltese businesses actually sell online? This page collects the numbers in one place, taken from official sources: Eurostat, the National Statistics Office (NSO), the European Central Bank, the Malta Communications Authority and the European Commission.
Most figures compare Malta with the EU average, because on their own the Maltese numbers say little. Next to the EU they tell a clear story: Maltese shoppers buy online as much as other Europeans, they buy more often, and they buy from abroad far more than anyone else. They also run into more problems than any other country in the EU.
Last updated: September 2026. Consumer data refers to the 2025 Eurostat and NSO surveys, the latest published. Business data comes from the 2025 enterprise survey, whose sales figures refer to 2024. We will update this page when Eurostat releases the 2026 figures.
In 2025, 71.4% of people in Malta aged 16 to 74 bought something online in the previous 12 months, and 62.5% did so in the previous three months. Both figures are close to the EU average (73.6% and 62.4%). Malta ranks 14th of 27 member states on the 12-month measure. Ireland leads with 95.1%, Bulgaria is last with 51.2%.
The NSO puts the same trend in people: 279,006 internet users ordered goods or services online in the three months before the 2025 survey, 65.1% of all internet users. That is up from 254,164 in 2023 and 265,191 in 2024. Seven in ten of them (70.9%) are aged 16 to 44.
| Bought online in the last 12 months | Malta | EU |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 52.5% | 53.9% |
| 2019 | 57.8% | 59.8% |
| 2021 | 64.6% | 67.1% |
| 2023 | 68.7% | 69.6% |
| 2024 | 68.9% | 71.8% |
| 2025 | 71.4% | 73.6% |
There is still a group that has never bought anything online: 18.4% of adults in Malta, against 15.3% across the EU. As the next section shows, most of them are over 55. Looking ahead, the European E-commerce Report 2026 by Ecommerce Europe and EuroCommerce forecasts that the share of e-shoppers in Malta will reach 74% in 2026.
Age is the biggest divide. Young Maltese shop online more than young people almost anywhere in Europe: 81.1% of 16 to 24 year olds bought online in the last three months, fifth in the EU and well above the EU average of 69.5%. From 35 upwards Malta falls behind, and the gap widens with age. Only 21.9% of people aged 65 to 74 shopped online, against 35.1% in the EU.
| Group (bought online in last 3 months, 2025) | Malta | EU |
|---|---|---|
| Aged 16–24 | 81.1% | 69.5% |
| Aged 25–54 | 71.6% | 72.4% |
| Aged 55–74 | 31.8% | 44.4% |
| Women | 64.3% | 62.7% |
| Men | 61.0% | 62.0% |
| Students | 87.4% | 69.4% |
| Born in Malta | 61.6% | 62.9% (native-born) |
| Born abroad | 63.9% | 57.0% (foreign-born) |
Two other details stand out. Women in Malta shop online slightly more than men, the opposite of the EU pattern. And people born abroad, a large part of the population, shop online more than people born in Malta. Across the EU it is the other way round.
The older group is catching up quickly. Among Maltese aged 55 to 74, online shopping went from 20.3% in 2020 to 31.8% in 2025, the fastest growth of any age group.
Maltese shoppers do not just shop online, they shop online a lot. In 2025, 33% of Maltese online shoppers made more than 10 purchases in three months. That is the highest share in the EU, more than double the EU average of 15.3%, ahead of Ireland (23.7%) and the Netherlands (22.2%). More than half of Maltese online shoppers (53.2%) made six or more purchases in three months, against 32.2% in the EU.
They also spend more per head. The latest spending data Eurostat has published is from 2021: that year 68.6% of Maltese online shoppers spent €100 or more in three months (EU: 59.6%), and 11.6% spent €1,000 or more (EU: 7.3%).
The Maltese online basket looks different from the European one. Food delivery and travel dominate.
Delivery platforms confirm the trend from the other side. Wolt reported 2,363 partner businesses and over 2,100 active couriers in Malta in August 2026, and Bolt says food orders are 35 times what they were in its first month on the island, six years ago.
This is the number that makes Malta unique in Europe. In 2023, the latest year Eurostat measured it, 82.8% of Maltese online shoppers bought physical goods from a seller in another country, against 40.2% across the EU. Only Cyprus is higher (87.9%).
| Bought physical goods from (share of online shoppers, 2023) | Malta | EU | Malta's rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sellers in Malta | 76.5% | 83.0% | 22nd |
| Sellers in other EU countries | 63.4% | 32.8% | 4th |
| Sellers outside the EU | 54.2% | 20.1% | 1st |
| Any foreign seller | 82.8% | 40.2% | 2nd |
The share buying from outside the EU jumped from 41.4% in 2020 to 61.0% in 2021, and has stayed above 54% since. Local sellers are not being abandoned, though: three out of four Maltese online shoppers still buy from Maltese sellers. Most people simply do both. A 2024 survey carried out by misco for the Malta Chamber found that 37% of online shoppers buy mostly from foreign retailers, 11% mostly from local ones and 52% from both.
The big international platforms are part of daily life. Temu launched in Malta in October 2023 and in February 2025 signed a partnership with MaltaPost for local delivery. In SEO tool Ahrefs' estimate of organic search traffic to shopping sites in Malta (August 2026), Shein, Amazon, Temu and AliExpress all appear in the top 11, next to local names.
Buying from abroad has a cost. In 2025, 63.9% of Maltese online shoppers had at least one problem when buying online, the highest share in the EU (EU: 35.4%). The Netherlands comes second with 57.9%.
Malta's figures on problems move a lot from one survey to the next (65.8% in 2021, 47.1% in 2023, 63.9% in 2025), partly because the national sample is small. The ranking, though, is consistent: Maltese shoppers report problems far more often than the EU average in every edition.
Complaints data points the same way. In 2025 the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (MCCAA) handled 1,556 consumer complaints, with product quality and delivery delays among the main issues. The European Consumer Centre in Malta received 819 cross-border complaints: 294 from Maltese consumers and 525 against Maltese traders. The same year, 66 of the 77 toys ordered online that were inspected at the border were blocked as unsafe.
All those orders arrive as parcels, and the postal data shows it.
Malta is a cash country in physical shops and a card country online. According to the ECB's SPACE 2024 study, 67% of point-of-sale payments in Malta are made in cash, the highest share in the euro area (euro area: 52%). Yet online payments are growing fast: they went from 3% of Maltese day-to-day payments in 2019 to 19% in 2024 by number, and from 8% to 32% by value.
| How Maltese consumers pay online (share of online payments by number, 2024) | Malta | Euro area |
|---|---|---|
| Cards | 53% | 48% |
| E-payment solutions (PayPal, wallets, apps) | 23% | 29% |
| Instant payments | 7% | n/a |
| Credit transfers | 6% | n/a |
| Direct debits | 5% | n/a |
On the merchant side, NSO card data for 2024 shows that about 11% of the value of card payments in retail in Malta went through online channels. The other 89% was paid at the till. These figures only cover locally licensed card acquirers, so purchases on foreign platforms are not included. NSO figures tabled in Parliament also show that 87.6% of active enterprises in Malta did not have a card terminal in 2024.
Online card payments carry most of the fraud risk. Across the European Economic Area, about 83% of card fraud in 2024 happened on remote (card-not-present) payments, mostly online, even though these are only about 28% of card payment value, according to the EBA and ECB's 2025 report on payment fraud.
On the business side, Malta is one of the most active online sellers in the EU. In the 2025 Eurostat survey, 35.5% of Maltese enterprises with 10 or more employees made e-commerce sales in 2024, against 23.6% in the EU. Counting only firms for which online sales are at least 1% of turnover, Malta has 32.1% against 20.3%, fourth in the EU. In 2016 the figure was 18.4%.
| Enterprises with 10+ employees (survey 2025, sales in 2024) | Malta | EU |
|---|---|---|
| Made e-commerce sales | 35.5% | 23.6% |
| Made web sales (website, app or marketplace) | 32.9% (2nd in EU) | 20.7% |
| Made web sales to consumers (B2C) | 29.8% (1st in EU) | 17.2% |
| Sold through their own website or app | 30.5% | 17.7% |
| Sold through online marketplaces | 10.7% | 9.3% |
| E-commerce share of total turnover | 15.8% | 19.5% |
| Web sales share of total turnover | 9.0% | 8.4% |
There is a twist. Many Maltese firms sell online, but for most of them online sales are a small part of the business. E-commerce accounts for 15.8% of total turnover, below the EU's 19.5% and 20th in the EU. Across the EU, most e-commerce turnover (56.9%) comes from automated B2B ordering systems (EDI); in Malta the share is 43.3%, and sales to consumers weigh more: B2C makes up 63.7% of web-sales turnover, against 48.2% in the EU.
In money terms, Maltese enterprises with 10 or more employees made €5.0 billion in e-commerce sales in 2024: €2.84 billion through websites, apps and marketplaces and €2.17 billion through EDI. Web sales to consumers were worth €1.81 billion.
Own website first: 92.7% of Maltese web sellers sell through their own website or app, against 85.7% in the EU. Only 32.4% also use marketplaces (EU: 45.0%), and just 7.3% sell only through marketplaces. The share of Maltese firms selling on marketplaces fell from 13.1% in 2024 to 10.7% in 2025. For most local businesses the online shop is their own website, which is why ecommerce development in Malta usually starts with the store itself rather than with marketplaces.
Maltese consumers buy from all over the world, but Maltese businesses sell abroad less and less. Among Maltese firms that make web sales, 23.4% sold to customers in other EU countries in 2024, against 43.1% across the EU. In 2017 the Maltese figure was 54.0%.
The firms that do sell to other EU countries say it is hard. In the 2025 survey, 93.7% of them reported at least one difficulty, the highest share among the 16 countries that published data.
| Difficulties selling online to other EU countries (Maltese firms that do, 2025) | Share |
|---|---|
| High delivery or return costs | 55.1% |
| Language | 35.6% |
| VAT system of other EU countries | 26.5% |
| Handling complaints and disputes | 19.7% |
| Restrictions from business partners | 15.2% |
| Adapting product labels | 11.5% |
The base is small (7.7% of Maltese enterprises sell online to other EU countries), so these figures are indicative. Language, though, fits another number: only 14.3% of Maltese business websites are available in two or more languages, against 29.5% in the EU. Both major shop platforms can handle several languages and currencies; our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison explains how each one does it.
Maltese businesses are very present online, especially on social media.
The infrastructure is not a barrier. Nearly every household is online and the island is fully covered by fast networks.
| Indicator | Malta | EU |
|---|---|---|
| People aged 16–74 using the internet (last 3 months, 2025) | 96.0% | 93.8% |
| Households with internet access (2025) | 97.8% (3rd in EU) | 94.8% |
| Households covered by fibre to the premises (2025) | 90.4% | 74.1% |
| 5G coverage (2025) | 100% | 96.8% |
| Gigabit subscriptions, share of fixed internet (Q1 2026) | 28.4% | – |
| Mobile subscriptions (Q1 2026) | 827,776 (140% of population) | – |
Shopping happens on phones. According to the NSO, 98.6% of Maltese internet users go online with a mobile device, and mobile data use grew 38.5% year on year in the first quarter of 2026 (MCA). For a shop, this means the mobile version of the website is the main version.
No official source publishes the value of Maltese consumers' online spending. Ecommerce Europe estimates B2C e-commerce turnover by country, but the Malta figure is only in the members-only edition of its report. Private estimates disagree widely because they measure different things:
The official figures that do exist cover what Maltese businesses sell (€5.0 billion in e-commerce sales by firms with 10+ employees in 2024, including B2B and sales abroad), not what Maltese consumers spend. Treat any single "market size" number for Malta with caution.
Our guide to selling online in Malta explains the practical side of these rules: registration, VAT thresholds, payment providers and shipping.
Taken together, the data describes a market with a clear opening for local businesses.
If any of this sounds like your business and you want a second opinion on your shop or your plans, get in touch: we are happy to look at the numbers with you.
All figures were checked against the original sources in September 2026. Eurostat figures cover people aged 16 to 74 and enterprises with 10 or more employees (excluding the financial sector). The EU figure is the EU27 average.
Caveats: Malta's national survey samples are small (the NSO collected 1,725 household questionnaires in 2025), so year-to-year changes in detailed indicators can be large. Eurostat has not published the origin of sellers after 2023, spending bands after 2021 or a breakdown of physical goods for 2025, so for those we show the latest available year. In the enterprise survey, sales figures refer to the year before the survey. In March 2026 the NSO revised its household weighting for 2023 and 2024; the figures on this page use the revised data.
You are welcome to use the figures and charts on this page in articles, reports and presentations. Please credit AM WebLab with a link to this page, for example: Source: Malta eCommerce Statistics 2026, AM WebLab (amweblab.com), based on Eurostat data. Journalists who need a comment or a specific breakdown can reach us at info@amweblab.com.
In 2025, 71.4% of people in Malta aged 16 to 74 bought something online in the previous 12 months, close to the EU average of 73.6% (Eurostat). In the previous three months the figure was 62.5%, in line with the EU's 62.4%.
Mostly from both local and foreign sellers. In 2023, 76.5% of Maltese online shoppers bought from sellers in Malta, 63.4% from other EU countries and 54.2% from outside the EU. That last figure is the highest in the EU, where the average is 20.1%.
35.5% of Maltese enterprises with 10 or more employees made e-commerce sales in 2024, against 23.6% in the EU. Malta is second in the EU for the share of firms selling through websites and apps, and first for the share selling online to consumers.
There is no official figure for Maltese consumers' online spending. Private estimates for 2025 are around US$450 million (ECDB, Mordor Intelligence). On the business side, Maltese firms with 10 or more employees made €5.0 billion in e-commerce sales in 2024, including B2B and sales abroad (Eurostat).
In 2025, 63.9% of Maltese online shoppers had at least one problem, the highest share in the EU. The most common were foreign sellers refusing to sell to Malta (35.7%), slower delivery than promised (27.8%) and wrong or damaged goods (18.2%).
Yes. Since 1 July 2026, goods from outside the EU in parcels worth up to €150 pay a flat EU customs duty of €3 per item category, plus VAT. The measure applies until 1 July 2028.
