Working in Ireland: what is different before you have the contract
As a British citizen, or as a citizen of the EU, the EEA or Switzerland, you need no work permit in Ireland. What you need is a CV Irish employers read, an answer to their interview questions and a registered job before your first salary arrives.
For people from Britain, Scandinavia and the Low Countries, Ireland is one of the easiest labour markets in Europe, once you know it. English is the working language, many international companies have their European base in Dublin or Cork, and a second European language is a sought-after extra there. What still slows applicants down is rarely their qualifications. It is the forms. The CV is too long, the interview is treated as a conversation instead of an assessment, and the first payslip arrives with a tax deduction nobody explained.
This page takes those three points in turn and closes with what your home country wants to know when you switch. What is left of the gross salary is worked out on the page Salary after tax.
Working without a permit
British citizens live and work in Ireland under the Common Travel Area, without a work permit and without a residence permit. Citizens of the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, Nordic and Benelux readers included, work in Ireland without a permit under free movement. How that works in detail, and when the stamp system does reach a family after all, for instance through a partner without a British, EU or Swiss passport, is set out under Residence rights and stamps.
What you need from your first working day is a PPS number, the Irish personal public service number. Income tax, social insurance and every state benefit hang on it. You apply online in MyWelfare after you arrive, and for that you need proof of your Irish address. Anyone who starts out in a hostel or in a room without a tenancy of their own has their first problem right there; a letter from the employer can help. Which documents the Department of Social Protection accepts is set out on gov.ie.
The Irish CV
British applicants will find the Irish CV familiar. It runs to two pages at most, it opens with a short profile, and it tells your career backwards, most recent job first. A cover letter is usual but short: three paragraphs saying why you suit exactly this job.
What is left out tends to strike applicants from elsewhere first: no photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no religion, no children. There is a legal reason for that. The Employment Equality Acts prohibit discrimination in recruitment and employment on nine grounds, among them gender, civil status, family status, age, religion and race. An employer who never sees these details cannot be accused of deciding by them. British readers know the logic from the Equality Act 2010, which also names nine protected characteristics. The details are not banned from an Irish CV; they are simply unusual and look out of place.
The second difference is tone. Where a CV that lists duties says “responsible for customer service”, the Irish one wants to see results: what you achieved, ideally with a number. “Managing key accounts” becomes “grew key account revenue by 18 percent in two years”. Written references play little part; in their place come referees, two former managers whom the new employer phones. Ask them beforehand and tell them a call may come.
| Point | Usual in Ireland |
|---|---|
| Length | two pages at most |
| Photo, date of birth, marital status | left out |
| Structure | most recent job first, profile at the top |
| Content per job | results, ideally with a number |
| Evidence | two referees who will be phoned |
Source: Citizens Information, Equality in the workplace (nine protected grounds, recruitment included); otherwise common practice among Irish employers. As of: page edited 31 July 2023, retrieved 6 November 2026.
The interview
Many Irish employers, the public service included, hold competency-based interviews. The questions sound harmless: tell us about a time you had a difficult customer. Tell us about a project that was in danger of going wrong. Each time they mean the same thing: a real example, cleanly structured, with your own contribution at its centre.
The structure the panel expects is called STAR: Situation (what was going on?), Task (what was your job?), Action (what did you do?), Result (what came of it?). The panel often scores the answers against a fixed scheme, and most of the marks go to the Action. Anyone who just talks gets lost in the Situation; anyone who has practised STAR reaches the Result within two minutes.
Before the interview, prepare five or six examples that cover different competencies: teamwork, conflict, initiative, a mistake and what you learned from it, working under time pressure. A mock interview with someone who gives you feedback does more than any list. And expect the last question to be yours: “Do you have any questions for us?” A sharp question about the team or about the first ninety days is no courtesy there, it is part of the assessment.
Recruiters and LinkedIn
A large share of the jobs for speakers of other European languages runs through recruitment agencies in Ireland. International companies building customer service, sales, finance or technical teams for European markets hire agencies that search specifically for language skills. The agency is normally paid by the employer who hires it.
The second stage is LinkedIn. Irish recruiters search there actively, and a profile that states your languages and names Ireland as the location you want gets found. Profile and CV should tell the same story, with the same numbers.
With jobs through agencies, expect a two-step process: first a call with the recruiter, who checks your language skills, often in that language, then the actual interview with the company. Keep the contacts in your own hands and note which agency put you forward to which company; two agencies sending the same CV to the same employer looks unfortunate.
The first payslip
Before your employer can pay your first salary correctly, Revenue has to send them a Revenue Payroll Notification, or RPN: the notice of which tax credits and rate bands apply to you. There is no RPN until your job is registered with Revenue. Without one, the employer has to use emergency tax: no tax credits at all, the highest USC rate and, after four weeks, the top rate on everything.
The fix takes a few minutes. For your first job in Ireland you register it yourself, in Revenue myAccount under Jobs and Pensions, with your PPS number and your employer’s registration number. Revenue then sends the RPN to your employer, and whatever was overdeducted comes back through the following payslips.
| Situation | Deduction |
|---|---|
| Employer has no PPS number for you | income tax at 40 per cent on everything, no tax credits, USC at 8 per cent |
| PPS number given, job not yet registered with Revenue, weeks 1 to 4 | 20 per cent up to €846.16 a week, 40 per cent above that, no tax credits, USC at 8 per cent |
| the same situation from week 5 | income tax at 40 per cent on everything, USC at 8 per cent |
| job registered, RPN received | normal payroll with your own tax credits |
Source: Revenue, Emergency tax rules (published 24 February 2026) and Emergency basis (9 January 2026); weekly band 2026 = €44,000 divided by 52; Citizens Information, Minimum wage (page edited 9 October 2026). As of: retrieved 6 November 2026.
The minimum wage in 2026 is €14.15 an hour for employees aged twenty and over; a rise to €14.94 has been announced for 2027 and still needs a statutory order. How income tax, USC and PRSI work together is set out under Income tax, USC and PRSI. If you rent, the Rent Tax Credit gives you part of the rent back at the end of the year, also through myAccount.
The home side
When you work in Ireland you also change social insurance system: from your first Irish working day you pay PRSI. What it means for pensioners and for families without earnings is on the page Health cover when you leave.
- United Kingdom. Under the two countries’ Convention on Social Security, Irish and British citizens keep the right to benefit from social insurance contributions made in either country, according to the Irish Department of Social Protection. To keep your National Insurance record growing from abroad: from the 2026 to 2027 tax year HMRC accepts only voluntary Class 3 contributions for periods abroad, and its guidance NI38 asks for ten continuous years of UK residence or another qualifying condition. And according to GOV.UK, UK nationals who move abroad permanently may lose free NHS care, while in Ireland, once ordinarily resident, you have public healthcare on the same basis as an Irish citizen.
- The Nordics and the Benelux. European coordination, Regulation (EC) No 883/2004, assigns every worker to the state where they work; Norway and Iceland apply it through the EEA. Your insurance periods at home are kept and added to your Irish ones when entitlements are worked out. If you move to Ireland from unemployment to look for work there, you can take your unemployment benefit with you for a limited time under the conditions of Article 64 of the Regulation; settle that with your public employment service before you leave. Your health cover at home ends with the switch to Irish work, not with the move as such.
And on tax: once you move and work in Ireland, you will as a rule become resident in Ireland. In the year of the switch, split-year treatment helps on the Irish side, as explained under Your first tax year. On the British side, the statutory residence test and its own split-year rules decide in which tax year you stop being UK resident.
The order of things
Before you leave: the Irish CV, the LinkedIn profile, the referees and five practised STAR examples. In the first weeks: an address, the PPS number, a bank account with an Irish IBAN for your salary, and as soon as the contract is signed, the job in Revenue myAccount. At the end of the first year: the tax credits you are entitled to.
If you want to work for yourself instead of an employer, read Self-employed in Ireland first; different rules apply there for tax and social insurance.
Your CV, cover letters, a mock interview and an overview of the market and salaries come at a fixed price in the Job search package Ireland, €2,000.
Ask someone who lives and works there
Marc moved to Ireland with his wife and five children and lives there. In a consultation he goes through your CV, your industry and your first weeks with you.