How to apply for Family Reunification

If you have been granted refugee status in Malta, and you were separated from your family before or during your flight from your home country, you can apply for family reunification so that your family can join you in Malta, under specific conditions. You can find the national legislation for family reunification here. 

➡️ Applications for family reunification can be submitted online in the Non-EU Applicants section of the Expatriates Unit within Identità.

Family members eligible for family reunification purposes are:

• Your spouse (who shall be twenty-one years of age or over engaged in a monogamous marriage by law)
• Your and your spouse’s unmarried minor children, including children adopted in a manner recognized by Maltese law
• In special situations, unmarried adult family members who are fully dependent on you. For such cases, you must provide relevant evidence substantiating the dependency status.

If you are an unaccompanied minor, eligible family members are:

• first-degree relatives in the direct ascending line(ie, your parents)
• legal guardian or any other member of the family, if there are no relatives in the direct ascending line or such relatives that can be traced

For your application for family reunification to be considered, you need to provide the following documents:

1. Refugee status certificate (issued by IPA)
2. Official documents attesting to the family relationship
3. Full copies of the family members’ passports
4. Proof of accommodation in Malta (lease agreement) and evidence that your accommodation is regarded as normal for a comparable family in Malta and meets the general health and safety standards in force in Malta
5. Sickness insurance
6. Proof of stable and regular financial resources sufficient to maintain the family without recourse to the social assistance system in Malta

If your family relationship pre-dated your entry into Malta, you will not be required to provide documentary evidence for accommodation, sickness insurance, and stable and regular financial resources.

If you want to apply for family reunification, you should do so as soon as possible after being granted refugee status in Malta.

If you apply within three months of obtaining your refugee status, you do not need to fulfil the material conditions set out in 4-6 above.

However, if you apply after three months of obtaining your status, or if your family relationship post-dates the grant of your status, you will need to provide all the documents listed in the above section.

The Director for Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs shall give you a written notification of the decision no later than nine months from the date on which the application was lodged, which can be extended in exceptional circumstances.