It's the most-asked question about tattooing in Malta and the one artists are worst at answering. Usually because the honest answer — "it depends" — sounds like a dodge. It isn't. But "it depends" is only useful if someone tells you what it depends on, so here's the whole structure.
I've deliberately not put euro figures on this page. Rates vary enormously between studios on the island, they move year to year, and a number I quote here would be out of date or wrong for someone else's chair within months. What doesn't change is what drives the number — and once you understand that, you can read any quote you're given and tell whether it's fair.
The two ways studios charge
By the hour. Common for ongoing work, cover-ups and anything where the end point is hard to predict. Transparent, but it puts the risk on you: a slower artist costs more for the same result.
By the piece. A flat price for the whole tattoo, agreed before you start. More common for custom work, and generally better for the client — you know the number, and the artist absorbs the risk of it taking longer than expected. It's how I quote: per project, once I've seen the idea, the placement and the size.
Neither is inherently better value. What matters is that you know which one you're being quoted, and what's inside it.
What actually drives the price
- Size and detail density. Not just how big, but how much is happening per square centimetre. A large piece with open negative space can take less chair time than a small, dense one.
- Placement. Ribs, sternum, hands, feet, necks and inner arms are slower — more difficult to stretch, more breaks needed, more care required. Expect them to cost more than a forearm of the same size.
- Design time. This is the invisible one. A genuinely custom piece involves hours or weeks of drawing before the session. Flash costs less precisely because that work was done once and is reused.
- Colour versus black. Colour generally takes longer to pack and often needs more passes.
- Cover-ups and rework. Almost always more than fresh skin — the design is constrained by what's underneath, and it usually needs more saturation.
- The artist's experience and waiting list. The straightforward part. Demand prices itself.
Minimum charges
Nearly every studio has one, and it surprises people asking about tiny tattoos. A minimum exists because the fixed costs of a session don't shrink with the design: setup, sterilisation, fresh needles, cartridges, ink caps, barrier film, the booking slot itself. A two-centimetre symbol consumes most of the same overhead as something ten times its size.
This is why "it's tiny, can you do it cheap?" rarely lands. It isn't the artist being awkward — the consumables and the chair time cost what they cost.
Deposits
Standard practice, and a good sign rather than a bad one. A deposit secures your date, and for custom work it pays for the design time that happens before you sit down. It normally comes off the final total.
What to check: whether it's refundable, how much notice you need to give to move an appointment, and whether it's forfeited if you cancel. A studio taking a deposit with no booking system and no design phase is worth a second look.
What a quote should include
Ask explicitly, because studios differ:
- Custom design time and revisions
- The stencil and any redraws on the day
- Aftercare wrap and initial products
- A touch-up, and the window for booking it
- Whether a multi-session project is priced per session or in total
A lower headline rate that excludes design time and touch-ups is not the cheaper quote. Compare like for like.
The cheapest tattoo in town is the most expensive decision in tattooing. Removal costs multiples of the original, and a cover-up limits every design choice you'll ever make on that skin.
Why chasing the cheapest quote backfires
Laser removal runs to many times the price of the tattoo it's erasing, and takes multiple sessions over a year or more. A cover-up is cheaper than removal but permanently constrains what can go on that patch of skin — darker, denser and bigger than you'd otherwise have chosen.
Which means the real comparison isn't between a cheap tattoo and an expensive one. It's between an expensive tattoo and a cheap one plus the cost of fixing it. Pick the artist whose healed work you'd be happy wearing, find out what they charge, and save for it if you need to.
Can you get a tattoo at 17 in Malta?
No. Reputable studios across Malta tattoo over-18s only and will ask for photo ID. Some will decline even with parental consent, because the liability and the ethics both point the same way. If a studio is willing to tattoo a minor, that tells you what it thinks of every other rule it's meant to follow — and you should not be in that chair at any age.
Tipping
Not obligatory in Malta and not expected the way it is in the US, but it happens and it's appreciated — particularly on long custom projects. Nobody will treat you differently for not tipping. A review and a referral are worth more to most artists anyway.
Getting a real number
Any artist can give you a meaningful quote once they know four things: what the design is, roughly how big, where on the body, and whether there's existing work involved. Send those and you'll get a number rather than a range.
What you shouldn't expect is a price for "a mandala on my arm" with nothing else attached. That could be a three-hour piece or a thirty-hour one, and any figure quoted against it is a guess that one of you will regret.
If you're flying in for it, read the guide to getting tattooed abroad first — the timing of the session within your trip matters more to the outcome than anything on this page.