Applying for an MFHEA provider licence: stages, timeline and fees

Which MFHEA licence category do I need?

The level you want to teach decides the category. Maltese regulations draw the line at MQF Level 4. Up to and including Level 4 is further education, and Level 5 upwards is higher education. So a provider running a Level 5 diploma and nothing lower applies as a Higher Education Institution. Add Level 3 or Level 4 certificates and you move into the combined Further and Higher Education Institution category, which costs 1,000 euro more in administration. A Further Education Centre is the category for an individual, not a company, and a Tuition Centre covers courses that are not pegged to the framework at all. Most of the UK providers we speak to want Level 5 to Level 7, so they are looking at the Higher Education Institution row in the table below.

There is also a University category, with a 10,000 euro administrative fee and a two-day visit charged at 4,300 euro. MFHEA's form adds that the words University and Higher cannot appear in your name unless you hold the matching licence category.

Source: MFHEA Fee Structure for Provider Accreditation and Licensing, effective 1 January 2024. Checked 5 October 2026. Totals are our addition of the published fees and exclude the extras described below.

What does an MFHEA licence cost on top of the main fees?

The table gives the minimum. Four extras can move the total. If the panel needs a second day on site, MFHEA charges 2,150 euro for each extra day. If you teach online or blended, a fourth reviewer joins the three-member panel and the review fee goes up by 700 euro. Since 1 July 2024 there has also been a charge for evaluating your digital platform: 500 euro for a higher education or combined institution and 400 euro for a further education institution. And where MFHEA brings in a reviewer from abroad, you pay a per diem of 205 euro plus the flight at cost.

Take a Higher Education Institution teaching blended programmes on its own learning platform, with a one-day visit and local reviewers. It pays 700, 2,000, 2,150, 700 and 500 euro, which comes to 6,050 euro. The 700 euro application fee goes in with Part A and pays for the financial due diligence. The rest is invoiced only after Part A succeeds. MFHEA states that fees paid are non-refundable, so a withdrawn or failed application does not get its money back.

One line in MFHEA's fee update of 1 October 2024 deserves a question before you budget. It says a 25 per cent non-refundable administrative fee of the total amount applies to invoices for programme accreditation, licences and external audits. The communication does not make clear whether that is added to the invoice or is the part of it that MFHEA keeps if you pull out. Ask MFHEA to confirm which it is, in writing, when your invoice arrives.

What are the stages of an MFHEA licence application?

Higher education applicants have gone through a two-part process since 1 January 2024. Nothing in Part B is looked at until Part A has passed.

Part A is the eligibility and financial check, and the 700 euro application fee is paid with it. The forecast and the business plan have to agree with each other, because MFHEA runs financial due diligence on both.

• Proof that the applicant is a body corporate, with its statutes or memorandum and articles
• A certified passport or identity document and a signed, up-to-date CV for every shareholder, beneficial owner and director
• An organigram showing involvement and percentage ownership
• A business plan
• Three-year income and expenditure projections, projected statements of financial position and quarterly cash flow forecasts for three years

Part B is about the institution itself: who heads it, where it teaches and how it judges its own quality.

• The head of institution's identity document, CV and certified qualifications
• A self-assessment report against MFHEA's provider standards
• The deed or lease for the premises
• A health and safety declaration no more than two months old
• Declarations from a warranted architect and a warranted engineer, and accessibility compliance

Once both parts are in, a peer review panel of three reads the file and comes to see the premises. The decision is taken by MFHEA's Quality Assurance Committee. Regulation 4(4) says a committee decision needs adoption by the Authority before it is valid, so the committee's vote is not the last step.

Further Education Institutions, Further Education Centres and Tuition Centres do not use Parts A and B. They fill in a single, shorter form, and its main requirement is an internal quality assurance policy that addresses all eleven of MFHEA's standards.

How long does an MFHEA licence application take?

MFHEA's provider licences page says the process should take approximately 6 to 12 months from filing to conclusion. The same page gives the steps inside that window. MFHEA acknowledges an application in about 5 to 10 working days, and its invoice is issued within about two weeks. It then takes roughly 20 working days to come back with its first feedback. Each time it writes to you, you get up to 20 working days to reply.

Two things stretch the timetable. One is silence on your side: if MFHEA hears nothing from you for three months, the application is treated as null and void and the fees are gone. The other is the programme. A new provider has to file its programme accreditation application together with the provider application, and a qualification takes longer to evaluate than the licence paperwork does. We cover that timetable on the page about programme accreditation by level.

The regulations do contain a 30 working day limit, in regulation 8(10), but it only covers the final step of issuing the licence once provider and programme accreditation are both in place. It is not the length of the whole process.

Can a UK company hold the licence, and can it teach fully online?

Foreign ownership is allowed. Regulation 5(2) says a provider has to carry on its activity in Malta to be eligible, and adds that the regulations do not preclude foreign ownership. What MFHEA does insist on is a presence in Malta. The legal representative of a licensee must be based in Malta, and the Part A form says the main office address is to be based in Malta.

On the company itself, the form accepts a body corporate and, for a foreign company incorporated in the EU, asks for a good standing certificate or certificate of incumbency. A UK company is no longer an EU company, and we have found no published MFHEA route for a non-EU company applying directly. That is why UK providers normally apply through a Maltese company they own. Our page on Malta company formation covers that step and its costs.

The bigger change is about online delivery. On 24 February 2026 MFHEA announced that, with immediate effect, it will no longer accept applications for licences to operate as fully online institutions. Blended applications are still accepted, and the communication caps a blended programme at 60 per cent online delivery with at least 40 per cent physical delivery. The communication still allows a fully online programme, on one condition. For each one, the provider has to offer a physical or blended programme of the same kind as well. An award is matched with an award and a full qualification with a full qualification. None of this touches providers that held a licence before the announcement, or applicants whose first application had already started.

If your plan was a Maltese licence for a purely online school, it needs redrawing around premises you actually teach in.

What else should I budget for besides MFHEA's fees?

MFHEA's invoice is only one line of the budget. Four other costs sit beside it.

The first is programme accreditation, charged per ECTS credit and by MQF level. A 60 ECTS undergraduate diploma at Level 5 comes to 2,680 euro on the published scale, and we set out the sums for every level on the programme accreditation page.

The second is the Maltese company. Its share capital has to be at least 1,164.69 euro under the Companies Act, with a minimum of 20 per cent paid up. We also checked the registration fee, which is 100 euro for a company with authorised capital of up to 1,500 euro as long as you file electronically. You will also pay a corporate service provider for the registered office, the company secretary and the annual filings.

The third is the premises and the people. The licence needs a real teaching address with the architect's and engineer's declarations, a head of institution with the qualifications to match, and a legal representative based in Malta.

The fourth is preparation. Somebody has to write the business plan, the forecasts, the quality assurance policy and the self-assessment report, and get them to agree with one another. That is the work we do, and we quote it in writing after a scoping call because it depends on what you already have.

Apollo Accreditation is a consultancy. It is not a regulator or an awarding organisation and does not award qualifications. Fees and rules change, so confirm them with the body named before you act on them.