Licence A vs B: who can legally wire your home in Malta

If you have arrived from the UK, the mental model you brought with you is wrong in one specific way. There, competence is evidenced by membership of a scheme — NICEIC, NAPIT, and so on — and the scheme is a private body. In Malta, the authorisation is statutory. It comes from the Regulator for Energy and Water Services (REWS) under S.L. 545.24, the Electrical Installations Regulations, and it comes in classes. An electrician either holds the class that covers your installation or they do not.

Two classes, one distinction

Regulation 5 of S.L. 545.24 sets out the classes of authorisation. The practical difference between them is the supply:

That is the whole of it. Class B is not "better wiring" and class A is not a trainee grade — they are scope limits tied to the supply the installation draws. Most domestic work turns on which one you have, so establish that before you book anyone. If the intake and the main switch are single phase, an A-authorised electrician's scope covers the job. If the property is three phase, you need B.

People use the word licence in conversation. The regulations and REWS use authorisation, and the person holding it is an authorised provider. If you are searching or asking around, both words will get you to the same place.

How someone becomes authorised

REWS publishes the route on its application page. It requires an examination and a period of documented practical experience — the page states 12 months and 24 months — and lists application fees of €12, €35 and €70.

What the published page does not do, at least not in a way we can reproduce honestly here, is tell you which of those fees and which of those experience periods attaches to class A and which to class B. If that distinction matters to you — say you are assessing whether a contractor's stated grade is plausible — ask REWS directly rather than infer it from the fee.

The relevant point for a homeowner is simpler: authorisation is examined and time-served, and it is granted by the regulator, not bought as a membership.

Only an authorised provider can certify

Regulation 12 of S.L. 545.24 deals with certification of electrical installations. This is the load-bearing rule in the whole framework. Work can be carried out by many hands; the certificate can be signed by very few. If the person who did the work cannot certify it, you do not have a certified installation — you have a bill.

Regulation 14 requires a completion form. Regulation 25 provides for an identification card, which is worth knowing about because it is the thing you can ask to see on the doorstep before anyone opens your distribution board. Regulation 26 provides for a public register of authorised persons, which is what makes the check below possible.

Checking the list before you commit

REWS publishes Electrical Installations Authorised Providers on its website. The page sets out three categories of provider and offers downloadable lists — including a list of authorised electricians, dated 6 August 2026 when we read it, and a separate list of warranted engineers.

Do this before the first invoice, not after the first problem:

1. Get the electrician's full name as it would appear on an official document, not the trading name on the van.
2. Download the current list from the REWS authorised providers page.
3. Search for the name and note the class recorded against it.
4. Compare that class to your supply — A for single phase, B if three phase.
5. On the day, ask to see the identification card issued under regulation 25.

A company name on a website is not an authorisation. Authorisations attach to people. A firm may employ several authorised electricians, apprentices and labourers; the question is always which named authorised provider is putting their name to your certificate.

What you should end up holding

Two documents, kept together with the deed and the condominium papers:

• The completion form required by regulation 14, signed by the authorised provider who certifies the installation under regulation 12. Not a handwritten receipt, not a WhatsApp message saying it passed.
• A wiring schematic of the installation as built — what circuits exist, what protects them, what they feed.

The schematic is the document you will be grateful for in five years, when you are adding an air conditioner, selling the flat, or trying to explain to a buyer's electrician why there is a spur behind the kitchen units. Ask for it in the quotation stage, so it is a deliverable rather than a favour. Note that the sources here do not prescribe a format for it — there is no published template we can point you at — so agree what you expect to receive before work starts.

Where the handyman line falls

This matters more in Malta than most arrivals expect, because handyman services are widely advertised and the boundary is rarely spelled out in the advert.

A handyman can swap a fitting — replace a light fitting or a socket faceplate on a circuit that already exists and already works. That is the limit. New circuits and rewiring require a licensed electrician. And certification is narrower still: only an authorised provider certifies, under regulation 12.

So the failure mode is not usually a handyman electrocuting someone. It is a handyman doing competent-looking work that nobody can certify, on a property you later try to sell or let, leaving you to pay an authorised electrician to inspect, remediate and only then certify what should have been done once.

Shell form and the timing of all this

Property here is commonly sold in shell form, which means the first electrical installation in your new home is yours to commission, not something you inherit. That is an advantage: you choose the authorised provider, you specify the schematic as a deliverable, and the certification lines up with the finishing works rather than being retro-fitted to somebody else's decisions.

Check the class against the supply, check the name against the REWS list, and get the regulation 14 form and the schematic before the final payment leaves your account. Everything else — condominium consent for works in the common parts, the supply application, the ferry timetable if the property is in Gozo — is a separate problem, and one these regulations do not answer.