The kitchen is the most expensive room per square metre in any Maltese renovation — and the quotes are the hardest to compare, because "a new kitchen" bundles furniture, appliances and three trades into one number. Unbundle it and the pricing gets rational fast.
The three bands
| Scope | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Refresh: new doors/worktop on existing carcasses, taps, paint | €1,500 – €4,000 |
| New kitchen, same layout: carcasses, worktop, install, connections | €5,000 – €12,000 |
| Full remodel: layout change, moved services, walls, premium finishes | €10,000 – €25,000+ |
The bundle splits roughly: carpentry (carcasses, doors, worktop) is half or more of the budget; appliances their own line you control completely; trades — plumbing, electrical, tiling, painting — €1,000 to €3,500 across the bands; and the wildcard is moving services: shifting the sink or hob across the room drags drainage and circuits with it, the same chased-through-concrete economics as the bathroom version.
Where the money hides
- The worktop can cost more than the cabinets. Laminate to quartz to stone spans €50 to €500+ per linear metre. Decide the worktop tier before comparing kitchen quotes or the comparison is meaningless.
- Moved services. Every relocated water or gas point, every new dedicated circuit for the oven and hob, is chasing and making-good — legitimate cost, but it belongs itemised, not discovered.
- Old-building surprises: uneven floors that complicate carcass levelling, walls off-square enough to need scribing everywhere, and the old wiring that a kitchen's appliance load finally exposes. In older stock, have the electrician look before the carpenter measures.
- Extraction done lazily. A recirculating hood in a Maltese kitchen is a humidity machine — proper ducting out is worth its cost every time, for reasons the damp guide makes clear.
Sequencing and the timeline truth
Design and order (the long pole — imported kitchens run 4–10 weeks lead time) → strip-out → first-fix plumbing and electrics → walls, floors, paint → carcass installation → worktop templating and fitting (stone adds a 1–2 week measure-to-fit gap with the kitchen usable but topless) → appliance connections → snagging, with the snag-list discipline agreed up front.
Realistic occupied-home timeline from strip-out: three to six weeks, dominated by the worktop gap and trade coordination. The classic mistake is booking strip-out before the kitchen has a confirmed delivery date.
Getting comparable quotes
Fix your decisions first — layout staying or not, worktop tier, appliance list, who supplies what — then get three itemised quotes against that identical spec, per the accurate quotes method. For the trades portions, Qabbad routes each job to approved providers covering your locality with visible track records.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a new kitchen cost in Malta?
A new kitchen in the existing layout typically runs €5,000 to €12,000 in 2026 including installation and connections; refreshes land under €4,000, and remodels with moved services run €10,000 to €25,000+.
How long does a kitchen renovation take?
Three to six weeks from strip-out in an occupied home — after a design-and-order lead time of four to ten weeks for the kitchen itself. Stone worktops add a measure-to-fit gap mid-project.
What adds the most cost to a kitchen project?
Moving the services: relocated sinks, hobs and new circuits mean chasing through Maltese masonry and making good. Keeping the wet and hot points where they are is the single biggest budget protector.