Budget 2027: what changes for people moving to Ireland

The framework in one paragraph

The overall framework had been fixed since the Summer Economic Statement of 22 July: €7 billion of additional spending and €1.5 billion of tax measures. On Budget day Jack Chambers put the additional spending at €7.1 billion and Simon Harris put the income tax package alone at €1.3 billion; the detail is in the Tax Policy Changes laid before the Oireachtas on 6 October. In his Budget speech the Minister for Finance, Simon Harris, also gave the new forecasts: a surplus of €6.7 billion for 2026 and €9.5 billion for 2027, plus an additional billion for the Future Ireland Fund.

Income tax and USC: the package for pay

The largest item is income tax. The Department puts it at €1.29 billion in the first year and €1.48 billion in a full year, the lion's share of the €1.5 billion. The changes apply to the 2027 tax year.

The rates themselves stay: 20 per cent in the standard rate band, 40 per cent above it. In USC only the boundary between 2 and 3 per cent moves, so that a full-time worker on the new minimum wage of €14.94 does not slip into the higher rate. The other USC thresholds are not on the list of measures; the 8 per cent rate therefore still begins above €70,044, as shown by Revenue for 2026.

What is left in your pocket? In his speech Harris gave a saving of over €700 in income tax and USC for an income of €50,000, and €1,500 for a couple earning €100,000 between two incomes. The Department's tables are more honest, because they deduct the simultaneous rise in social insurance.

The reason for the gap between speech and table is PRSI. The employee contribution rose from 4.2 to 4.35 per cent on 1 October 2026 and rises to 4.5 per cent on 1 October 2027; the Department has built both into its figures. For employers, the weekly threshold for the higher employer rate rises from €552 to €600, to cushion the effect of the higher minimum wage. How the three deductions work together on an Irish payslip is under income tax, USC and PRSI.

Capital gains tax: 31 instead of 33 per cent

The second change hits the wealthy directly. The standard rate of capital gains tax falls from 33 to 31 per cent, for all disposals from 7 October 2026, the day after the Budget. Development land stays at 33 per cent. Harris justified the step as rewarding entrepreneurship and risk.

For people moving in, the rate matters more than it first appears. Once tax resident in Ireland, you are in principle taxed there on gains from selling shares, holdings or property. The basics, the annual exemption and special cases are under capital gains tax in Ireland. The new rate applies only to disposals from the cut-off date; if you sold before it, you stay at 33 per cent.

Funds and ETFs: 35 instead of 38 per cent, the eight-year rule stays

Fund investors get a cut of their own. The tax on Irish funds, on equivalent foreign funds from EU, EEA and OECD states with a tax treaty, and on life assurance products falls from 38 to 35 per cent. That includes ETFs that fall under this regime. Harris gave 1 January 2027 as the date.

What does not go is the rule under which a fund holding is treated as sold every eight years. The government wants to keep working on this eight-year rule; it has not abolished it. How the regime works in detail is under ETFs and funds; until 31 December 2026 the rate stays at 38 per cent.

The new Investment Account

This is the real novelty of the Budget. From 1 July 2027 banks, investment firms, fund managers and insurers will offer a new investment account to which the existing investor taxes do not apply, but a flat levy instead.

The Minister's sum is simple: with a value of €52,000, €2,000 is above the exemption and the tax is €20. The provider pays the tax over; no separate return to Revenue is needed for it. For a family moving in whose wealth sits mainly in funds, that changes little, because €12,000 a year takes in only a small part of a larger portfolio. For the regular savings of a household earning in Ireland, on the other hand, the account is a real alternative to the fund regime.

Inheritances and gifts: higher thresholds

The rate of capital acquisitions tax on inheritances and gifts stays at 33 per cent. The thresholds rise for everything given or inherited from 7 October 2026.

Whether Ireland taxes an inheritance at all depends, among other things, on where the person who dies and the heir are resident. For a family moving to Ireland with assets, this is therefore one of the questions settled before the move, not after.

Housing, family, energy

On housing there are four changes, of which newcomers will mainly notice one. The rent tax credit for tenants rises by €150 to €1,150 for one person and by €300 to €2,300 for jointly assessed couples, for 2027 and 2028. If you rent for a while, you get a slightly larger credit. The exemption for letting individual rooms in your own home rises from €14,000 to €16,000 from 1 January 2027.

The Help to Buy grant for first-time buyers of a new home rises from €30,000 to €35,000 from 7 October. It refunds, however, at most the income tax and DIRT paid in Ireland in the four years before the application, and so is aimed at people who have been working in Ireland for some time.

A new tax on derelict buildings arrives. It is 7 per cent of the self-assessed value and applies in its first year in 107 towns with at least 4,000 inhabitants, in its second year in 171 places from 2,000 inhabitants. Local authorities record the buildings in 2027, the provisional registers appear on 1 September 2027, and the first payment is due on 23 June 2028. If you buy an old house in the south-east to renovate, know that renovation is exactly the route by which owners are meant to avoid the new tax.

For families with young children, one figure from the speech by Jack Chambers matters most. The maximum fee parents pay for childcare falls from €735 to €550 a month for children up to and including senior infants, the second year of primary school, a saving of €2,220 per child per year. The student contribution falls permanently by €150.

And there is relief on heating. Carbon tax on home heating oil and natural gas falls to €48.50 per tonne and, according to the Tax Policy Changes, is to stay at that level until 2030. The increase on motor fuels is postponed to 1 May 2027; the reduced excise on petrol and diesel applies until 28 February 2027 and is phased back by the end of June 2027.

For newcomers with a car, one line on vehicle registration tax counts: from 1 January 2027 the rates for cars emitting more than 80 grams of CO2 per kilometre rise by 1 per cent, according to the Department, and the relief for electric cars runs two years longer, to the end of 2028. When a car you bring with you on moving is exempt from VRT is under bringing your car to Ireland.

What stays the same: SARP and the remittance basis

Two rules that matter more to many newcomers than any band threshold do not appear in the Tax Policy Changes.

The Special Assignee Relief Programme, SARP for short, stays as the Finance Act 2025 framed it. With the Budget, Revenue published its annual SARP report. It confirms that for employees assigned to Ireland by their employer between 2026 and 2030: the minimum salary is €125,000, and 30 per cent of income above €125,000 is exempt from income tax, up to a ceiling of €1 million. USC is still due on the exempt part. In 2024, 2,658 people at 599 employers used the relief, at a cost to the state of €55.3 million. The conditions in detail are under SARP.

The remittance basis of taxation for people not domiciled in Ireland is not mentioned in the document either. If you move in with income and assets outside Ireland, you keep planning with the rules that applied before the Budget; the mechanics are under non-dom in Ireland.

And at home: how the UK taxes capital gains and inheritances

The two cuts, on capital gains tax and on capital acquisitions tax, invite a comparison. It does not come out the way many expect, and it comes out differently for each tax.

On capital gains, Ireland stays dearer than the UK even at 31 per cent. In the UK, for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, Capital Gains Tax is 18 per cent on gains that fall within the basic rate band once added to taxable income, and 24 per cent above it and for higher and additional rate taxpayers. The annual tax-free allowance is £3,000.

On inheritances the comparison turns round. UK Inheritance Tax is a tax on the estate of the person who has died: 40 per cent on the part above a threshold of £325,000, which can rise to £500,000 where the home goes to children or grandchildren. What goes to a spouse or civil partner is normally free of tax, and an unused threshold can pass to the surviving partner. Ireland taxes the recipient instead: 33 per cent, above a threshold that each child has for themselves, now €420,000, counted over their whole life. The rate is lower, and the threshold belongs to each heir rather than to the estate.

One rule matters more than either rate for a British family moving with assets. Since 6 April 2025, UK Inheritance Tax on assets outside the UK follows long-term UK residence, meaning UK tax residence in at least 10 of the previous 20 tax years, and not domicile. That status can last for up to 10 tax years after you leave the UK: three years after 10 to 13 years of residence, five after 15. For the first years in Ireland, the British estate and the Irish inheritance can both be in play, and that is the question to settle before the move.

What applies when

Many measures take effect on different dates, and for planning the date counts more than the headline. From 7 October 2026 the lower capital gains tax, the higher thresholds on inheritances and gifts and the higher Help to Buy grant apply. From 1 January 2027 the new tax bands, credits, the USC ceiling and the 35 per cent fund tax apply. On 1 July 2027 the Investment Account starts, and on 1 October 2027 PRSI rises again.

Most of it becomes law through the Finance (No. 2) Bill 2026, which the Tax Policy Changes name expressly for several points, among them the Investment Account, the derelict property tax and the fund tax for exchange-traded Irish funds. For a family moving in 2027 that mainly means: you can calculate with the new bands and credits now, when selling securities before or after the move it pays to look at the cut-off date, and for inheritances and wealth the most important question remains residence, not the threshold.