Fiscal Receipts Lottery Malta: The Complete Guide

The fiscal receipts lottery Malta runs every month is a free, government-organised draw in which ordinary shop and restaurant receipts become lottery tickets. You write your name, ID card number and phone number on the back of a fiscal receipt, send it in before the deadline, and if your receipt is drawn you win one hundred times its value \u014f a minimum of \u20ac233 and a maximum of \u20ac11,647. Officially it is the Fiscal Receipts Lottery, but most people in Malta call it the VAT receipts lottery, because the receipts involved are the VAT-compliant ones that businesses are legally obliged to issue.

This guide covers what the lottery is, where it comes from, how the monthly draw works, how to enter properly, what you can win, and how to check whether your ID card number appears in the results.

What the fiscal receipts lottery is

Malta’s fiscal receipts lottery is a consumer-compliance scheme. Its purpose is not entertainment but tax collection: by giving shoppers a reason to ask for and keep their receipts, the state makes it harder for businesses to under-declare sales. Several European countries have run similar schemes, and Malta’s is one of the longer-running examples.

The mechanics are refreshingly simple:

• Every fiscal receipt issued in Malta is a potential entry.
• Entry costs nothing beyond a stamp or a short trip to Marsa.
• There is no ticket to buy, no numbers to choose and no subscription fee.
• Prizes are paid in cash, and the amount depends on the value of the receipt drawn.

Because the receipts in question come from VAT-registered businesses using fiscal cash registers, the names vat receipts lottery, vat receipt lottery and vat fiscal receipts lottery all describe the same draw. The official name used by the Ministry for Finance and the Public Lotto Department is the Fiscal Receipts Lottery.

The legal basis behind the draw

The obligation that makes the lottery possible sits in Malta’s value added tax legislation. VAT-registered businesses must issue a fiscal receipt for supplies made to consumers, and customers are expected to take it. The rules on how fiscal receipts are produced, what they must show and which businesses must use fiscal cash registers form part of the Value Added Tax Act (Chapter 406 of the Laws of Malta) and its subsidiary regulations, administered by the Commissioner for Tax and Customs.

The lottery itself is run by the Public Lotto Department, under the Ministry for Finance. The Ministry publishes the official list of winning identity card numbers after each draw on its fiscal receipts lottery results page. That PDF is the authoritative record; everything on this site is a republication of it in a friendlier, searchable format.

One point that surprises visitors: eligibility is not restricted to Maltese nationals or residents. All fiscal receipts are eligible regardless of the holder’s nationality, so a tourist who eats out in Sliema and posts the receipt with their identity document number on the back has the same chance as anyone else.

How the monthly draw works

The draw takes place roughly on the 15th of each month at the Public Lotto Department and covers receipts issued during the previous calendar month. The mid-March draw handles February receipts, the mid-April draw handles March receipts, and so on.

The sequence for any given month:

1. You shop. Any purchase from a business that issues fiscal receipts counts \u014f groceries, fuel, a coffee, a haircut, furniture, a hotel bill.
2. You prepare the receipt. On the back, write your full name, your identity card (or passport/ID document) number and a contact phone number.
3. You send it in before the closing deadline, typically noon a few days before the draw date.
4. The draw is held and receipts are selected at random from the entries received.
5. Results are published as a list of winning ID card numbers, with the value of each winning receipt and the prize due.

There is no cap on how many receipts one person may submit. Households often collect a month’s worth, write the same details on all of them and post them together in one envelope. Each receipt is a separate chance.

According to our dataset of official results, the average draw produces around 26.9 winners, though the number varies considerably from month to month. The most recent draw in the dataset, August 2026, produced 41 winners.

How to enter the VAT receipts lottery

There are two accepted routes, both free apart from postage.

By hand:

Fiscal Receipts Lottery, Qasam Industrijali, Marsa MRA007C

By post:

Fiscal Receipts Lottery, P.O. Box 288, Valletta

A few practical points worth getting right:

• Write clearly. If the ID number cannot be read, the entry cannot be matched to a winner. Block capitals help.
• Use the back of the receipt itself, not a separate sheet stapled to it.
• Do not cut or trim the receipt in a way that removes the printed value or the fiscal details.
• Watch thermal paper. It fades in heat and sunlight, so keep receipts in a drawer or envelope rather than on a car dashboard.
• Mind the deadline. Receipts arriving after the cut-off are generally rolled into the following draw only if they still fall within the eligible period, so posting early is safer than posting late.
• Keep a note of what you sent. Prizes are matched to the receipt value, so knowing which receipts you entered makes checking simpler.

Prizes: the \u20ac233 to \u20ac11,647 rule

The prize formula is the part people most often get wrong, so here it is plainly:

Prize = receipt value \u00d7 100, subject to a minimum of \u20ac233 and a maximum of \u20ac11,647.

A very small receipt still pays the floor amount, and a very large receipt is capped. In practice, a receipt worth about \u20ac116.47 is the smallest one that reaches the ceiling.

Receipt value	Calculated prize	Prize actually paid
\u20ac1.20	\u20ac120	\u20ac233 (minimum)
\u20ac2.33	\u20ac233	\u20ac233
\u20ac9.50	\u20ac950	\u20ac950
\u20ac47.80	\u20ac4,780	\u20ac4,780
\u20ac116.47	\u20ac11,647	\u20ac11,647
\u20ac480.00	\u20ac48,000	\u20ac11,647 (capped)

The cap is reached more often than you might expect. Our dataset of official results records 115 capped wins of \u20ac11,647. Recent examples include a receipt of \u20ac186.50 drawn in July 2026, receipts of \u20ac136.70 and \u20ac175.00 in June 2026, \u20ac156.50 in May 2026 and \u20ac127.95 in April 2026 \u014f all paying the same maximum amount.

The largest receipt value in the dataset is \u20ac10,645, from the December 2022 draw. Multiplied by one hundred that would have been more than a million euro, but the cap applied and the winner received \u20ac11,647. Beyond roughly \u20ac116, a bigger receipt does not improve the prize \u014f only the chance of being drawn at all.

Checking the results

After each draw, the Ministry for Finance publishes a PDF listing the winning identity card numbers. Reading a PDF of numbers is not the friendliest experience, which is why this site exists.

On vatlottery.com you can:

• See the latest results as soon as they are republished.
• Browse all draws by month going back through the archive.
• Search for an ID card number rather than scrolling through a list.
• Sign up for email notifications when a new draw is published.

If your number appears, contact the Public Lotto Department about claiming. Always treat the Ministry for Finance PDF as the final word: this site is an independent, editorial republication and is not the government.

A brief history and what the numbers show

Malta’s fiscal receipts lottery has run in its current recognisable form for many years. Our dataset of official results covers 116 draws from November 2016 to August 2026, with 3,116 winners in total.

Winners by year, according to that dataset:

Year	Winners
2016 (part year)	46
2017	300
2018	283
2019	350
2020	286
2021	306
2022	309
2023	289
2024	331
2025	351
2026 (to August)	265

The pattern is steady rather than dramatic: roughly 280 to 350 winners a year across twelve monthly draws. The dip in 2020 is consistent with a year of reduced retail and hospitality activity. What the table really shows is reliability \u014f the draw happens month after month, and a few hundred people a year receive a cheque for a purchase they had already made anyway.

Is it worth entering?

That depends on how you value your time. Writing your details on a receipt takes seconds; posting a month’s collection takes one envelope. Against that, the minimum prize is \u20ac233, the maximum is \u20ac11,647, and around 27 people win in a typical month.

There is also a quieter benefit. The scheme encourages everyone to ask for a receipt, which supports fair competition between businesses that declare their sales and those that might not. Entering costs you nothing and nudges the system in the right direction.

To know when the next set of results is published \u014f without checking a government PDF every month \u014f subscribe for monthly results by email and we will send them as soon as they are out.