News Releases

Business Demography: 2024

NR 218/2025
Release Date: 26 November 2025
Cut-off Date: 12 November 2025

business demography
  • Malta had 60,856 active enterprises, supporting an employment of 275,357, in 2024.
  • In 2024, enterprises in the Wholesale and retail trade (G), Professional, scientific and technical activities (M) and Construction (F) covered 41.3 per cent of total enterprises and supported 32.9 per cent of jobs.
  • In 2024, 73.2 per cent of active enterprises were sole proprietors and partnerships while 26.4 per cent were limited liability companies and plc.
  • Provisional figures indicate that there were 20,152 employer enterprises in Malta in 2024.

Business Demography: 2024

Business Demography: 2024

NR 218/2025
Release Date: 26 November 2025
Cut-off Date: 12 November 2025

Provisional figures for 2024 indicate that there were 60,856 active enterprises in Malta, supporting an employment of 275,357 persons.
business demography

This news release is compiled using the statistical unit ‘enterprise’. An enterprise may consist of one or more legal business units, producing goods or services, which has a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making (Methodological Note 6). Provisional figures for 2024 show that there were 60,856 active enterprises in Malta, an increase of 3.1 per cent, or 1,843 active enterprises, over 2023.

The Wholesale and retail trade (section G) accounted for 16.0 per cent of the active enterprises. Professional, scientific and technical activities (section M) accounted for 15.3 per cent, while Construction (section F) accounted for 9.9 per cent (Table 1, Chart 1). 

 

Compared to the situation a year earlier, micro enterprises employing between 0 and 9 persons increased by 2.9 per cent, while small enterprises employing between 10 and 49 persons, increased by 7.3 per cent.  Medium-sized enterprises employing between 50 and 249 persons increased by 9.7 per cent. Enterprises employing more than 250 persons decreased by 2.5 per cent (Table 1, Chart 2).

Chart 1. Enterprises and employment by NACE Section in 2024

Chart 2. Enterprises split by employment size class for 2024

Micro: 0 – 9 employees
Small: 10 – 49 employees
Medium: 50 – 249 employees
Large: 250+ employees

In 2024, 73.2 per cent of the enterprises were sole proprietors and partnerships, 26.4 per cent were limited liability companies or public limited liability companies, while 0.4 per cent were cooperatives, corporations, branches or joint ventures (Table 2, Chart 3).

Provisional figures indicate that there were 20,152  employer enterprises in Malta in 2024, an increase of 6.3 per cent, over the previous year (Tables 3 and 4).  In 2024, 56.1 per cent of the employer enterprises were limited liability companies or public limited liability companies, while 43.1 per cent were sole proprietors and partnerships (Chart 3).

In 2024, Wholesale and retail trade (Section G) accounted for 16.0 per cent of employment in Malta, Administrative and support services (Section N) accounted for 11.5 per cent, and Accommodation and food services (Section I) accounted for 10.4 per cent (Tables 5 and 6).

Chart 3. Enterprises and employer enterprises by type of legal organisation

Notes:
1. Data for 2024 is to be considered as provisional.
2. Employer enterprises refer to enterprises with more than one employee.

Tables

Tables

Table 1. Structure of active enterprises by year, employment size and NACE 

Table 2. Structure of active enterprises by year, type of legal organisation and NACE 

Table 3. Structure of employer enterprises by year, employment size and NACE 

Table 4. Structure of employer enterprises by year, type of legal organisation and NACE 

Table 5. Employment structure by year, employment size and NACE 

Table 6. Employment structure by year, type of legal organisation and NACE 

All Tables

Methodological Notes

1. The Business Demography data is covered by Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics which came in force on 1st January 2021. It stipulates that business demography data is to be based on the concept of active enterprises in a reference year. Active enterprises had either turnover or employment at any time during the reference period.

2. The data is classified by economic activity according to the NACE (Nomenclature Statistique des Activités Économiques dans la Communauté Européenne) Rev.2 classification of economic activities in the European Union.

3. Other types of legal structures include public corporations, cooperatives, joint ventures and branches. Public corporations are all the government-controlled units that are often established by government as market producers principally engaged in the production of goods, non-financial and financial services, and as such they are classified in non-financial and financial sectors.

4. New business registrations are mainly identified through Value-added tax (VAT) registrations as well as through Malta Business Registry (MBR) new companies registrations.

5. Updates in the Statistical Business Register are ongoing and all figures reported are subject to revision. Data for 2024 are to be considered as provisional.

6. The business demography 2023 news release includes a break in series, and as such, the data presented are not directly comparable to those in previous Business Demography News Releases. The break in series results from a shift in the statistical unit used for data compilation. Whereas prior releases were based on active business units at legal unit level, the current data are derived using the enterprise as the statistical unit (refer to definition). This methodological change aligns with updated statistical standards and aims to provide a more comprehensive representation of the business economy. The table below highlights the percentage changes in figures that may be attributed to this methodological transition.

NACE Section % Change in number of units % Change in Employment
A0.00.0
B0.00.0
C-1.80.1
D-3.7341.9
E-1.8-0.3
F-1.63.0
G-1.34.3
H-1.24.2
I-1.44.6
J-3.9-1.9
K-18.9-4.7
L-9.30.0
M-2.1-8.8
N-4.4-11.6
P-0.8-0.3
Q-0.6-0.1
R-2.919.6
S-0.8-0.9
T0.00.0
U0.00.0
Total -2.8 0.0

7. More information relating to this news release may be accessed at:

Statistical Concepts
Metadata
Classifications

8. A detailed news release calendar is available online.

9. References to this news release are to be cited appropriately. For guidance on access and re-use of data please visit our dedicated webpage.

10. For further assistance send your request through our online request form.

Definitions

The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise may consist of one or more legal units. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations (Figure 1).

The number of persons employed is defined, as the total number of persons who work in the observation unit (inclusive of working proprietors, partners working regularly in the unit and unpaid family workers), as well as persons who work outside the unit who belong to it and are paid by it (e.g. sales representatives, delivery personnel, repair and maintenance teams). It excludes manpower supplied to the unit by other enterprises and persons carrying out repair and maintenance work in the enquiry unit on behalf of other enterprises.

A worker is considered to be an employee of a particular unit if he or she receives a wage or salary from the unit regardless of where the work is performed (even from remote locations). A worker from a temporary employment agency is considered to be the agency’s employee and not that of the business unit to which he or she is assigned.

Part-time workers, seasonal workers, persons on strike or on short-term leave are all considered employees, while volunteers or workers on long-term leave are excluded.

Employer enterprises refer to enterprises with more than one employee.

The following are the definitions of the employment size class breakdowns shown in Table 1, Table 3 and Table 5:

Size class Persons employed
Micro 0-9
Small 10-49
Medium 50-249
Large 250+

The following are the definitions of the legal forms:

Sole ownership is defined as enterprises owned exclusively by one natural person.

Partnership is defined as an association of persons who conduct a business under a collective name.

Limited liability companies refer to enterprises comprising joint-stock companies, private limited companies.

Public corporations are all the government-controlled units that are often established by government as market producers principally engaged in the production of goods, non-financial and financial services, and as such they are classified in non-financial and financial sectors.

Cooperatives are bodies set down by law that observe a number of general principles; for example profits are often distributed in proportion to members’ dealings with the society.

Total Registered Business Units

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