The Malta business calendar: selling month by month

Every owner in Malta knows the shape of the year without writing it down. A slow start in January. Three holidays in a fortnight around Easter. Festa bands from May. An island that half closes for Santa Marija. Then everyone comes back in September at once, wanting everything by Christmas.

The trouble is that knowing the shape is not the same as planning for it. This guide turns it into a Malta business calendar for selling: the 14 public holidays and their 2027 dates, checked against the law, what each season does to enquiries, replies, follow-up and bookings, a month-by-month list of what to do, and how to plan the year with a short report every Monday. It is written for owner-run businesses: trades, clinics, shops, agencies, schools.

Five things shape the selling year here. Plan for these five and most surprises go away.

Malta's holidays are set by the National Holidays and other Public Holidays Act, Chapter 252 of the Laws of Malta. It names five national holidays and lists nine more public holidays in its Schedule. Sundays are public holidays too, and government offices close on all of them (Cap. 252, articles 2 and 5).

Here are the 2027 dates. Good Friday moves with Easter. Easter Sunday 2027 falls on 28 March, so Good Friday is 26 March.

A holiday on a Saturday or Sunday is not moved to the Monday. Instead, since 1 January 2021, each one gives whole-time employees an extra day of vacation leave in the same year (Cap. 252, article 6(c); Organisation of Working Time Regulations, S.L. 452.87, regulation 8).

In 2027 that is three days: 1 May, 15 August and 25 December. Your staff, and your customers' staff, will have three more days off to take somewhere in the year. Expect more people away in the quiet weeks.

The weekday holidays matter more for selling. St Joseph, Good Friday, Sette Giugno and Republic Day make long weekends. Mnarja and Independence Day fall on a Tuesday, so many people take the Monday too. Count those as short weeks when you plan visits and follow-ups.

Tourism shows the swing most clearly. The NSO estimated 210,305 inbound tourists in February 2025 (NSO, Inbound Tourism: February 2025, NR 059/2025) and 470,643 in August 2025, more than twice as many (NSO figures via Malta Invest). Over the whole of 2025 there were 4,022,310 (NSO, Inbound Tourism: December 2025). If you sell to visitors, summer is your peak. If you sell to residents, summer is when roads, restaurants and ferries are full, and your customers are busy or away.

The working week changes too. The public service works shorter summer hours: from 16 June to 30 September, Monday to Friday, 7.30 to 1.30 in Malta (Public Service Management Code). Anything that needs a permit, a form or a reply from an office moves at summer pace. Many private offices keep similar hours.

We have no official figures on how enquiries rise and fall by month for small firms, and we will not invent them. Your own numbers, kept weekly for a year, are the best seasonal data you will ever have. The patterns below are what owners describe and what we see on the desk.

There is no single best month. There is a best job for each month. Here is the year in six parts, with what changes and what to do.

The first week of January is slow. After that, people plan. Homeowners price the jobs they talked about over Christmas. Clinics see people who promised themselves a check-up. Enquiries in January are often early and unhurried, so a quick, complete reply stands out.

Carnival runs in the days before Ash Wednesday. In 2027 Ash Wednesday is 10 February, the same day as St Paul's Shipwreck, so expect a broken week.

March 2027 is short. St Joseph on Friday 19, Good Friday on Friday 26, Freedom Day on Wednesday 31. Holy Week runs from 21 to 28 March, and many families keep it quietly. April is then a full month, and a good one for booking spring and early summer work.

A follow-up rail breaks easily here. A call planned for a holiday simply does not happen. Move each follow-up to the next working day the moment you set it, not when you notice. Our guide to following up a quote has the full rhythm.

From May the village feasts start, and they run through the summer. Each parish has its own weekend: lights, bands, fireworks, closed streets. Evenings and Saturdays get harder to book in the parish whose feast it is. Workers' Day falls on a Saturday in 2027, Sette Giugno makes a long weekend on Monday 7 June, and Mnarja is Tuesday 29 June.

This is the last stretch before the summer slowdown, so it is a good time to close. Ask the customer when they want the work done. If the answer is “before August”, the decision is now.

July still works, mostly in the mornings. August is different. Santa Marija on the 15th is the centre of the summer, and many local firms close for a week or two around it. Suppliers slow down, and so do decisions. For a business that sells to residents, August in Malta is for answering, booking ahead and getting ready, not for closing.

Enquiries still arrive. Often more of them, because people have time to scroll in the evening. What they want is a reply and a date. A closed week with a firm start date keeps the customer. Silence until September loses them.

September is the second new year. Government offices return to full hours on 1 October, and state schools reopen late in September; in 2026 the scholastic year started in the last days of the month (Newsbook, 2026). Victory Day on Wednesday 8 September and Independence Day on Tuesday 21 September break two weeks.

The Budget comes in the autumn. The Budget for 2027 was set for Monday 26 October 2026 (Malta Independent, 2026). Some customers wait to see what it brings, for grants, tax or allowances. When a customer says “after the Budget”, write the date down and call them the week after.

Early autumn is also the best time to wake up old customers. People are home, in routine, and planning before Christmas. Our customer reactivation service does exactly this. Under S.L. 586.01, you may email your own customers about similar products or services, as long as they can opt out easily every time (S.L. 586.01, regulation 9(2)).

November is busy and steady. December is busy and short. The Immaculate Conception on Wednesday 8 December and Republic Day on Monday 13 December break the first half of the month, and Christmas Day falls on a Saturday in 2027. Most customers want work finished “before Christmas”, and many will not start anything new after mid-December.

Be honest about dates. A promise you cannot keep in December costs you the customer in January.

A calendar tells you what is coming. A weekly report tells you what is actually happening. Every Monday, write down the same few numbers on one page: leads in, replied, booked, won, lost and why. We call it the Monday Number.

Kept for a year, it becomes your own seasonal map. You will see which weeks bring enquiries, how long people take to decide in summer, and whether January or September is your real peak. Next year, you can compare each Monday with the same week last year, and plan staff, stock and follow-ups to match.

Two habits make it work. Mark the holidays and the short weeks on the report itself, so a slow week has a reason. And write the loss reasons in the customer's own words. “Waiting for the Budget” and “away until September” are not lost sales. They are dates.

The same few mistakes cost owners work every year.

If you can answer every enquiry within the hour, all year, and keep a weekly report, you do not need help. Print the holiday list, mark the short weeks, and set a reminder for the first week of September.

If the year runs you rather than the other way round, that is the work our desk does. We are a sales team in Malta for owner-run businesses. The desk runs from eight to eight, seven days a week, so August evenings and festa weekends are covered. We call between nine and one and between four and seven, never on a Sunday. We always say who we call for, and one “stop” ends it. You get the numbers every Monday. See how sales outsourcing in Malta works with us.

Either way, put next year's 14 dates in your diary today. If you would rather someone else kept the enquiries moving through them, talk to our sales team.