Where to Live While Studying or Teaching in Malta

Malta is well known for teaching English and almost unknown for everything else it teaches — which is odd, given that a Russell Group medical school runs a full UK degree here, and the national university has been going since the sixteenth century. If you are arriving for a semester, a fellowship, a clinical block or a doctorate, this is the practical picture.

In short: Malta’s higher-education sector runs on English, which is what makes it work for international students and visiting faculty alike. The University of Malta’s main campus sits at Tal-Qroqq in Msida, immediately inland from the harbour towns, with Mater Dei Hospital beside it. Queen Mary University of London teaches the Barts and The London MBBS from a campus in Gozo. Several private institutions fill in around them. For stays of one to six months, furnished serviced apartments in Gzira, Ta’ Xbiex or Sliema are the sensible base — walkable or a short bus ride from campus, and far better suited to work than a hotel room.

Who teaches what, and where

The University of Malta is the anchor — a publicly funded university of roughly eleven thousand students, several hundred of them international, with its main campus at Tal-Qroqq in Msida and smaller campuses in Valletta and Gozo. Its Faculty of Medicine and Surgery teaches in English, with clinical training at Mater Dei Hospital next door. Tuition for local and EU students is minimal, which is part of why the place is quietly competitive.

Queen Mary University of London is the headline for anyone looking from abroad. Since 2017 its Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry has run a campus in Victoria, Gozo, teaching the same MBBS curriculum as in London, delivered by Barts staff and local clinicians, to a deliberately small intake. It is a UK degree earned in the Mediterranean, and it attracts applicants worldwide.

Around those two sits a wider licensed sector than most visitors expect. Higher education here is regulated by the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority, which took over from the NCFHE in 2021 and maintains the public register of licensed institutions — worth checking directly if you are weighing up a private provider, since licensing status is the thing that matters and it does change.

Medicine is where the private sector has grown fastest, and two names matter. ACS — Asomi College of Sciences — teaches Medicine and Dentistry in English from an educational campus in Pembroke and a second in Swieqi, beside St Julian’s, with degrees awarded by the Medical University of Plovdiv; it has held an MFHEA licence since 2020 and also runs health programmes including physiotherapy. MediCampus Europeo, licensed in June 2024, teaches a six-year English-language MD from Casa Leone in Floriana — a restored historic building a few minutes outside Valletta — in partnership with Trakia University in Bulgaria.

Both follow the model where a Malta-based school teaches to a foreign parent university’s degree, which any applicant should understand properly before committing. What they mean for the island is straightforward: a growing cohort of international medical students on six-year programmes, plus the families who visit them, plus the visiting clinicians who teach them. Alongside those sit the European Forensic Institute, teaching and running laboratory work out of the Malta Life Sciences Park, and the University of Malta’s own research centres — among them the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Biobanking and the Centre for Biomedical Cybernetics.

Beyond medicine: the American University of Malta in Cospicua; the European Graduate School and Triagon Academy in Valletta; the London School of Commerce, also in Valletta; Global College Malta at SmartCity in Kalkara; MCAST, the national vocational and technical college, with its main campus in Paola and a wide course list across both islands; and the Institute of Tourism Studies near the airport with a sister campus in Qala, Gozo. The University of Malta also hosts the IMO International Maritime Law Institute on its Msida campus, which brings postgraduate lawyers from across the world for a year at a time — exactly the kind of stay this island under-serves.

Which institutions are actually near Gzira

If you are choosing where to live, this is the only list that matters. From Gzira:

Next door — the University of Malta at Tal-Qroqq, the Ġ.F. Abela Junior College and the IMO International Maritime Law Institute, all in Msida, with Mater Dei Hospital just beyond them. Walkable for the energetic, a few minutes by bus for everyone else.

A short hop — the Malta Life Sciences Park, and the Valletta institutions (European Graduate School, Triagon, London School of Commerce), a ten-minute ferry from the Sliema side. MediCampus Europeo at Casa Leone in Floriana sits immediately outside the Valletta gates, so it lands in the same bracket: ferry across, short walk, done. ACS is the other direction — its Pembroke and Swieqi campuses are a straight run up the coast road from Gzira, roughly fifteen to twenty minutes by bus, past Sliema and St Julian’s.

A proper commute — MCAST in Paola, the American University of Malta in Cospicua and Global College at Kalkara, all reachable by bus or a ferry-plus-walk, but not a five-minute trip. The Institute of Tourism Studies is out by the airport.

And a different island — Queen Mary’s campus in Victoria, Gozo, which needs the ferry from Ċirkewwa and is a stay in Gozo rather than a commute from Malta. Worth saying plainly: if you are doing the Barts MBBS, you live on Gozo. Gzira is where your visiting family stays.

Why Gzira sits where it does

Look at a map and the logic is immediate. Tal-Qroqq is inland of Msida creek; Gzira is on the other side of it. Mater Dei is a little further up the same road. What that means in practice is that a good portion of the university’s academic and student population lives in the harbour towns — Msida, Gzira, Ta’ Xbiex, Sliema — and commutes in on foot or by a short bus ride.

It also means no car is required, which matters more than it sounds: parking near the campus is competitive, and a visiting academic on a three-month contract really does not want to be arranging a hire car. Add the ferry to Valletta for the archives, the Three Cities for the weekend, and the airport half an hour away for conferences, and the geography does most of the work.

What an academic stay actually needs

This is where most accommodation gets it wrong, because a visiting fellowship is neither a holiday nor a tenancy.

A desk that can hold a laptop, a monitor and a stack of papers at once — a real workstation, not a console table. Wired internet as well as wifi, for the seminars you’ll be giving remotely and the datasets you’ll be moving. Quiet, because marking and writing are not compatible with a party block. Somewhere to read that isn’t the bed. A kitchen, since three months of restaurants is both expensive and grim. And a lease shape that matches an academic term rather than a year.

For students, add one more: a building where nobody minds that you keep odd hours during exams, and where the internet doesn’t buckle at nine in the evening. For medical students on clinical rotations, blackout and genuine quiet matter more still — sleeping at wrong hours is part of the job.

The parents’ version of this question

A large share of the enquiries in this category come from families rather than students. If you’re funding a medical degree abroad, the accommodation question is really a safety-and-standards question: who runs the building, who else is in it, is it warm in winter and cool in summer, and will someone answer if something breaks at an awkward hour.

Our honest advice, whoever you book with: ask those four questions before you look at photographs. In a small, personally managed building, the answers are specific. In a large one, they tend to be policies.

If you’re the one doing the placing

A good share of this demand never comes from the student at all. It comes from a faculty administrator with three visiting lecturers arriving in November, a department head hosting an external examiner for a fortnight, or a school’s operations manager who has to house incoming staff and would rather not do it one Airbnb at a time.

If that’s you, the things that usually matter are unglamorous: a single point of contact instead of five hosts, written confirmations and proper invoices for your finance office, a real workspace in each apartment so nobody complains about the desk, dates that can flex when a term shifts, and the confidence that whoever you send will be met at the door and looked after rather than sent a code.

Small buildings have an advantage here that larger operators don’t: several apartments can be held for the same institution, in the same building, so a visiting cohort ends up together without sharing a kitchen. We’ve had that used for a group of couples; it works just as well for a teaching team.

Rates for repeat institutional placement are worth discussing directly rather than booking through a platform — it’s a different conversation from a one-off holiday reservation, and it should be.

Formats and costs

Semester and fellowship stays fall squarely into the mid-term bracket — one to six months, furnished, with utilities and internet included and no twelve-month commitment. Institutional housing exists but is limited and usually aimed at undergraduates; most visiting faculty and postgraduates end up in the private market. Our monthly rentals guide explains how to compare offers without getting caught out, and the real cost of a month in Malta sets the wider budget — remember that a serviced apartment folds in bills, cleaning and internet that a bare let will charge you for separately.

One timing note: the academic year and the tourist year collide. September and early October are simultaneously peak arrival season for students and the tail of the summer rush, so the good mid-term stock goes early. Book further ahead than feels necessary.

Frequently asked questions

Can you study medicine in Malta in English?

Yes. The University of Malta's Faculty of Medicine and Surgery teaches its medical degree in English at the Tal-Qroqq campus in Msida, with clinical training at Mater Dei Hospital. Separately, Queen Mary University of London runs its Barts and The London MBBS at a campus in Victoria, Gozo — a UK medical degree taught entirely in Malta.

Where is the University of Malta and what is nearby?

The main campus is at Tal-Qroqq in Msida, immediately inland from the harbour towns. Mater Dei Hospital, the national teaching hospital, sits alongside it. Gzira, Ta' Xbiex and Sliema are the neighbouring residential towns, which is why so much academic and student accommodation clusters there.

Where do visiting academics stay in Malta?

Usually in furnished serviced apartments in the central harbour towns rather than hotels, since visiting fellowships and teaching blocks typically run one to six months. The practical requirements are a proper desk, reliable wired internet, quiet, and walking or short-bus distance to campus — which points to Gzira, Ta' Xbiex or Msida itself.

Morrison Court is five self-contained serviced apartments in Gzira, a short hop from the Tal-Qroqq campus and Mater Dei: a proper desk and wired Ethernet in every one, quiet screened neighbours, everything included, and terms from three nights to six months. Enquire about an academic stay at morrisoncourt.com.