Y-plate tracking in Malta, fitted to the rule.
Every Y-plate vehicle has needed a working tracking device since 2020. Since July 2026 Bolt, Uber and eCabs have to collect your device details before they onboard you, which is why you are being asked now. Here is what the rule actually says, and what we do about each part of it.
Tracker included from €6.50 per vehicle per month on a 12-month term, excluding VAT.
The rule is six years old, not six weeks old
This catches operators out. The requirement to carry a working tracking device has been law since 2020. The 2026 reform did not touch it. Its only mention of tracking is one line making booking platforms collect your device details, so nothing about your obligation changed. The person asking you about it changed.
The penalty for breaching the tracking rule is €100 for the operator and €100 for the driver, which is small enough to look ignorable. The exposure that is not small is the declaration you already signed on your licence application, which says every vehicle is fitted with a tracking device kept in good working order. A false declaration made to get a licence carries a fine of up to €12,000, or up to six months, or both, and the court is directed to revoke the licence.
The whole picture, licence categories through to penalties, is in our guide to the Y-plate requirements in Malta. This page is only the tracking part of it.
What the rule asks, and what we do about it
Six obligations sit in regulation 36. They are operational rather than technical, which is lucky, because no technical specification has ever been published. Here they are against what we actually provide.
| What the rule requires | What that means in practice | What we provide |
|---|---|---|
| A tracking device fitted in every vehicle on the licence | Every car on the licence, not most of them. A vehicle you added last month counts from the day it went on. | Teltonika hardware, supplied and fitted here in Malta. On the tracker-included plan the device comes with the subscription and you keep it across renewals. |
| Kept in good working condition at all times, with faults reported immediately | You are expected to know a device has stopped, not to find out at the next service. | Offline and power alerts by email and push, so you hear about a device that stops reporting on the day it goes quiet, not at the next renewal. |
| No tampering, by you, by your drivers or by anyone else | The rule contemplates a physical seal on the device. Something a driver can unplug in a second sits badly with that. | A hardwired FMB120 or FMC130 class unit behind the dash, wired to permanent power so it cannot be unplugged from the cabin. Plug-in units stay available for hire cars, where moving one between vehicles matters more. |
| A defective device takes the vehicle off the road until it is fixed | This is an availability problem rather than an IT one. A dead tracker is a car you are not allowed to work. | The same alerts, plus we fit and maintain the hardware ourselves, so the person who installed it is the person who picks up the phone. |
| Records and transmits, and you retain the data | Nothing has ever been published about what it must record or for how long. The trip-log rule next to it sets one year. | Position every 10 to 30 seconds while a vehicle moves, and a year of history on the entry plan, which is the benchmark that trip-log rule implies. The plans above it keep longer. |
| You hand the data over on request, in any reasonable form | The obligation sits with you. If you cannot get the data out of the system, that is still your exposure. | Trip, trail, movement and driver reports, exported to PDF or Excel, and any trip replayed along its route. |
The details a platform will ask you for
Before a booking platform onboards a fleet operator it has to collect, in the regulation's own words, details regarding the tracking device of all vehicles. Details is not defined anywhere, so the safe answer is the full set, per vehicle, on one sheet.
We have put that sheet together as a one-page PDF you can print and write on. Fill it in once per vehicle and you have the platform's answer ready before they ask for it.
Free download, no email required
The one-page Y-plate tracking checklist
Every field below, laid out to print and fill in, with the six obligations and the key dates on the same sheet.
Download the checklist (PDF)Per vehicle, you want to know
- Registration number
- Device make and model
- Serial number or IMEI
- Installation date
- Who installed it
- Whether it is reporting right now
With Yipii the make, model and IMEI sit against the vehicle in the platform, and the fitting date and the installer are ours because we fitted it. So the answer is a matter of asking us rather than tracing whoever wired the car three years ago.
Nobody is Transport Malta approved
The regulation says the device must record and transmit such information as the Authority prescribes, retained for such period as it prescribes, meeting technical specifications it establishes. None of that has ever been published. There is no data list, no transmission frequency, no retention period, no sealing procedure and no approved device or supplier list.
So no supplier in Malta can honestly claim to be Transport Malta approved or TM certified for Y-plate tracking, because there is nothing to be approved by. That includes us. If a vendor tells you otherwise, ask them to show you the specification.
What we do instead is meet the six obligations as they are written, and work to the defensible defaults where the law is silent. If a specification is published, we will say what it means for the devices we have already fitted.
What it costs
Most Y-plate operators run one to four cars, which is an LPTV1 licence and, on our side, Yipii Go. There are two ways to buy it, and the one most operators setting up a vehicle want is the first.
€6.50
per vehicle per month, excluding VAT
€78 per vehicle per year on a 12-month term, billed annually up front. The hardware comes with it and you keep the device across renewals. Fitting is €30 one-time either way, and a wired unit is what we would fit to a Y-plate vehicle. If you would rather have the plug and play unit instead, swapping costs €45 one-time.
€5.50
per vehicle per month, excluding VAT
No minimum term. This is the software and the SIM on a device you have already got or buy outright, so it is worth asking about if you are switching supplier rather than fitting a car for the first time. What the device itself costs depends on the model, so that one we quote.
The plans above Yipii Go are quoted for your fleet, because they move with sensors, retention and how many people need a login. The full price list is published, so you can hold it against anyone else you ask.
What a tracker does not cover
Four parts of Y-plate compliance that no tracking device handles, whoever supplies it. They sit with the booking platform, your own booking records and where you garage the vehicles.
It is not the 12-hour clock
The driving limit runs on booking platform login and logout, proved from Transport Malta's own monitoring system. Your tracking data is not what they look at.
It is not the rank geofence
The geofencing that keeps drivers away from taxi ranks runs on the booking app on the driver's phone. The distance rules still apply to you whether or not an app is enforcing them.
It is not the whole trip log
The trip log wants hirer names and details, and those live in your booking records. A tracker covers the date, time, route and vehicle side of it.
It is not a licence or an approval
No tracker makes an operation compliant on its own. Garaging is where enforcement has actually landed, and no device helps you there.
What operators ask us
Yes, and it has since 2020. The requirement sits in regulation 36 of the light passenger transport regulations, it was not amended by the 2026 reform, and it applies to every vehicle on your operator licence. What changed in July 2026 is that booking platforms must now collect your device details before they onboard you, which is why the question is suddenly being asked after five quiet years.
The regulation says platforms must collect details regarding the tracking device of all vehicles, and it does not define details. In practice, have this per vehicle on one sheet: registration number, device make and model, serial number or IMEI, installation date, who installed it, and whether it is currently reporting. Fleets that keep that current answer an onboarding request in an afternoon.
No. No technical specification, data list, retention period or approved supplier list has ever been published for Y-plate vehicles, so there is nothing for a device to be approved against. That means no supplier in Malta can honestly claim to be Transport Malta approved, including us. If a vendor tells you otherwise, ask them to show you the specification. Transport Malta went to market in May 2026 asking suppliers what was possible, so one may be coming.
Yipii Go is €6.50 per vehicle per month with the tracker included, on a 12-month term billed annually, which works out at €78 per vehicle per year. If you already own a tracker, the same plan is €5.50 per vehicle per month with no minimum term. Both figures exclude VAT. A wired installation is €30 one-time. The plans above Yipii Go are quoted for your fleet, because they move with sensors, retention and the number of people who need a login.
For a Y-plate vehicle we would fit a wired unit. The rule prohibits tampering and contemplates a seal on the device, and a tracker that comes out of the diagnostic port in one second sits awkwardly with both. A plug-in unit is quicker and moves between vehicles, which suits hire cars, but it can be unplugged, and what you get then is an alert telling you the car went quiet. Fitting is €30 one-time either way.
We fit it here in Malta. A wired unit goes behind the dash and onto permanent power, which takes an appointment and about an hour per vehicle. A plug-in unit goes into the diagnostic port and takes under a minute, with no tools. Either way the device is configured and tested before it leaves us, and you get the make, model and IMEI for your records so the platform question is already answered.
Yes. Harsh braking, harsh acceleration and harsh cornering are detected and scored, and Yipii Go carries driver reports and a fleet score on the live dashboard. Scores sit on the vehicle by default, so three drivers sharing a car average into one figure. Fit an iButton or a Bluetooth tag and every trip lands on the driver who made it instead, which is what you want before you raise a score with anyone. The thresholds behind the score, and the deeper per-driver analysis, are on our driver scoring page.
Yes. Any trip replays along its exact route with a speed chart beside it, which is what settles a passenger complaint weeks later. On Yipii Go you get trip, trail, movement and driver reports, exported to PDF or Excel, and a year of history. The plans above it add scheduled delivery, more report types and longer retention.
Yes. You can draw a circle or a polygon around a place that matters, an airport rank or your own yard, and get told on entry and exit. There are alerts for movement, ignition, geofences, power and a device going offline, delivered by email and push. The trail can gap briefly on the Gozo ferry crossing until the device reconnects, and it fills in when it does.
Both, and the mobile side runs as a progressive web app, so it opens in any phone browser with nothing to install from a store. The desktop portal is where the reports and the geofences live. The entry plan includes up to three users.
No, and be careful with anyone who says it does. The rank geofencing Transport Malta requires runs on the booking platform's app on the driver's phone, which blocks jobs to a driver sitting inside the prohibited distance. It does not run off your tracking device. The distance rules still apply to you regardless, at 250 metres from the airport and ship berth ranks, 100 metres from other ranks and 15 metres from any bus stop.
Not as the legal clock. The 12-hour driving limit is measured from the moment a driver logs into the booking platform's app until they log out, and Transport Malta proves it from its own monitoring system fed by platform data. Your tracking data is not what they look at. Yipii shows you trips and driving time, which is useful for running the roster, but the compliance clock is the platform's.
The tracker-included plan is a 12-month term billed annually up front. The own-tracker plan has no minimum term. You keep the device across renewals: they last five to ten years, so a renewal does not mean a new unit unless you ask for one and pay for it. Termination terms are in the agreement we send with the quote.
We do, from Malta. We have built and supported tracking here since 2010, on Teltonika and Cellocator hardware we fit and maintain ourselves, which matters mostly on the day something stops reporting and you want the person who installed it to pick up. Warranty terms come in writing with your quote.
Start with what is already in the cars
Before you buy anything, write down what is fitted in each vehicle today and find out which of them are still reporting. Most operators turn up one surprise doing that, and it is much better found now than in the middle of a platform onboarding. Tell us what you find and we will tell you what is missing.
The statements of law on this page are current at 19 August 2026 and are a summary of published rules, not legal advice. We update them when the rules change. Verify anything load-bearing with Transport Malta before acting on it.