19 September 2026
Can my property get a green loan? What green home loans are, and how to check
What a green home loan actually is, how banks in Malta decide which properties qualify, and how an energy performance assessment can show what — if anything — would get yours there.
For most people, buying a property is the biggest financial commitment they'll ever make. If a “green” loan at a better rate is on the table, it's worth understanding — not just what it is, but whether the property you're looking at would actually qualify, and what that's worth finding out before you sign anything.
What is a green home loan?
Several banks in Malta now offer a “green” version of their home loan alongside the standard product. In broad terms, the idea is the same across lenders: if the property is energy efficient — or is being bought or renovated to become so — the bank offers a preferential interest rate, usually for a fixed initial period, rather than for the life of the loan.
The exact terms vary a lot from bank to bank: which energy rating counts as qualifying, how long the preferential period lasts, what rate applies afterwards, and whether the loan covers the purchase alone or renovation costs too. There's no single, standard “green loan” product — each bank sets its own criteria, so it's always worth checking directly with the lender you're considering for their current offering.
How do you find out if a property qualifies?
Eligibility is generally tied to the property's energy performance rating — the same rating shown on its Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). An assessor visits the property, looks at the building fabric — walls, roof, floors, glazing — along with the heating, cooling, and hot water systems, and works out an overall rating. That rating is what a bank will typically want to see to decide whether the property meets its criteria.
If the property already has a recent, valid EPC, that may be enough to check eligibility straight away. If it doesn't, or the existing certificate is old, a fresh assessment is the way to find out. The useful part is that the same assessment doesn't just produce a pass or fail — it also lists the specific upgrades that would move the rating, so you know exactly where the property stands and what closing the gap would actually involve.
There's no guarantee
It's important to be upfront about this: not every property will be eligible, and some won't be able to reach a qualifying rating at all, or only at a cost that isn't worthwhile. A property with no access to its own roof, for instance — common in apartments and maisonettes — may not be able to install solar panels or a solar water heater, and that can rule out some of the easiest points to gain. An assessment tells you where a property realistically stands — it doesn't promise a particular outcome, and a bank's final decision is always its own.
Why it's worth checking before you commit
Given the size of the commitment, it makes sense to know your options before rather than after. An assessment carried out before you finalise a purchase tells you, in plain terms, whether the property is already likely to qualify, or what specific work would be needed to get it there — and roughly what that's worth weighing against the saving on offer.
That information is also something you can act on during negotiations. If an assessment shows a property falls short, but identifies clear, achievable improvements, that's something you can raise with the seller — for example, agreeing as part of the promise of sale (the konvenju) that certain works are carried out, or that the price reflects the cost of doing them yourself afterwards. Either way, you're negotiating from a position of knowing the actual numbers, rather than guessing.
Want to know where a property actually stands before you commit to it? Request a free quote for an assessment, and we'll let you know what the rating looks like and what — if anything — would improve it.