IRELAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Philip Tully, Emma Doherty, Geraldine Carr, Simon Shinkwin and Carlo Salizzo, Matheson LLP
An individual will be considered resident in Ire - land in a year of assessment if they are present in Ireland for at least 183 or 280 days in that year and the preceding year when taken together (provided that the individual has been present for at least 30 days in each of these two years). An individual will be regarded as ordinarily resident in Ireland for tax purposes if the person has been resident in Ireland for three consecutive years immediately preceding the year of assessment. Different income tax rate bands apply depend - ing on an employee’s circumstances. The cur - rent standard rate of income tax is 20%, which applies to the first EUR44,000 per year earned by a single person without children and to the first EUR53,000 per year earned by a married person or a person in a civil partnership. A higher 40% rate is applied to any remaining balance. PRSI PRSI is Ireland’s equivalent of social insurance or social security contributions. Subject to certain limited exceptions, anyone employed in Ireland is generally subject to PRSI and payments are generally collected by the employer through the PAYE system. The amount of PRSI paid by an employee depends on the employee’s income and the PRSI class of the employee. The most common PRSI class for private sector employees in Ireland is Class A (employees in industrial, commercial and service-type employ - ment with gross earnings of EUR38 or more in a week). A Class A employee’s PRSI contribution will generally be 4.1% of all “reckonable earn - ings” (including employee share-based remu - neration and any benefit in kind). The employer must separately make a PRSI contribution of 8.9% on weekly earnings up to EUR527 and 11.15% on weekly earnings over EUR527. From
1 October 2025, the rate of PRSI (employer and employee) will increase by 0.1%. USC Employees in Ireland are also subject to a fur - ther tax payable on total income, known as USC. For 2025, the first EUR12,012 of an individual’s aggregate annual income will be taxed at a rate of 0.5%, the following EUR15,370 at 2%, the following EUR42,662 at 3% and the remaining balance at 8%. An additional surcharge of 3% applies to individuals who are self-employed or whose non-employment-related income exceeds EUR100,000 in a year. 5.2 Taxes Applicable to Businesses The primary Irish taxes applicable to businesses are corporation tax on income and chargeable gains, VAT, withholding tax and stamp duty. Corporation Tax A company resident in Ireland for Irish tax pur - poses will be subject to corporation tax on its worldwide profits and gains regardless of where those profits arise. A company that is not tax resident in Ireland is liable to corporation tax in Ireland if it carries on a trade in Ireland through a branch or agency. A non-Irish tax resident company may be sub - ject to corporation tax on gains realised on the disposal of Irish-situated assets used for such a trade carried on in Ireland or realised on the dis - posal of certain specified Irish assets, including Irish land or buildings or shares in a company that derive the greater part of their value from Irish land or buildings. Where a non-Irish tax resi - dent entity sells Irish patent rights in return for a capital sum, a charge to Irish tax at a rate of 25% can also arise.
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