Timor-Leste and Sovereign Order of Malta established full diplomatic relations on 18 September 2006 when Mrs Adaljiza Magno, Timor-Leste’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Ambassador of the Sovereign Order of Malta for South-east Asia and the Far East, James Dominguez AM, signed an agreement in Dili. This initiative was made possible by the support of H.E. Jose Ramos Horta, Timor-Leste President and was to bear fruit three years later when in 2009 the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and the Sovereign Order of Malta formally exchange ambassadors.

In 2008, the President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste José Manuel Ramos-Horta was received by the then Grand Chancellor of the Order of Malta Jean-Pierre Mazery and by members of the Sovereign Council in Palazzo Orsini, one of the Order’s magistral residences in Rome.

The government of the Sovereign Order of Malta appointed Mr David Scarf as the Order’s first Ambassador. Subsequently, Collin Yap served as Ambassador from 2018 to 2019. On 11 November 2021 the present Ambassador Terence Tobin presented his credentials to the President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Francisco Guterres.