Setting up an Irish holding 2026
An Irish holding for your shareholdings.
We structure and form your Irish holding and take on the ongoing support. For entrepreneurs and investors who want to bring their shareholdings together in an English-speaking EU and common law location. €3,470.
Order your Irish holding €3,470Pay by card, by bank transfer or in crypto.
A holding company holds shares, and where it sits decides how holding them and later selling them are treated. Ireland is popular for this role for a reason that goes well beyond tax rates: it is the last large English-speaking member state of the European Union, it has common law, and the contracts that are written in English internationally anyway meet a legal system here that understands them. For €3,470 we form your Irish holding and look after it through the first year.
What the price includes
Included in the fee of €3,470
- Tax advice during the formation phase: in depth, in English and before the first form
- The formation itself: documents from us, filing with the Companies Registration Office in Dublin
- The official fees: included in the fee
- Application for the EU VAT number: so that you can invoice across the whole Union
- Registered office and business address in Dublin: our own premises, on a long-term lease, a real address where Revenue can call in
- Provision of the company secretary: included in all three packages; Irish law requires this second officer, and we fill the role
- Mail forwarding: incoming post by email, important originals weekly by post
- Registers and annual return: constitution, register of members, annual return, appointment of directors, deadline control
- Ongoing support in English: one fixed contact for everything to do with the Irish authorities
- Ongoing tax support: responsible from day one; what arises along the way is listed further down
After formation
Services charged by time spent
The fixed price covers formation and the first year. What your company needs on an ongoing basis after that, we charge by time. All ongoing support is in English, with one fixed contact who knows your file.
Correspondence with the Irish authorities
Revenue, the companies register and the government offices write to us, and we reply.
Support in English
A person answers your questions in your language.
Tax support and advice in English
Ongoing, and always before a decision is due.
Ongoing bookkeeping, including VAT returns
Receipts, accounts and the VAT returns, each on its own cycle.
Financial statements and year-end accounts
Prepared under Irish law and filed on time.
Corporation tax return
Prepared, talked through with you and filed with Revenue.
Why Ireland as the roof
Four things make Ireland the home of many holding companies, and they apply to yours just as much as to the large groups that hold their intermediate companies here. First, the participation exemption: if an Irish holding sells shares in a subsidiary, the gain is exempt from Irish capital gains tax where the statutory conditions are met. Whether your shareholding meets those conditions we look at in the formation consultation, which is included in the fee.
Second, the treaty network: Ireland has a double taxation treaty with most of the states European entrepreneurs deal with. Third, the rate of 12.5 per cent on active trading profits, one of the lowest in the Union; passive income sits beside it at 25 per cent, and what belongs in which pot is explained on the page on the Irish company. Fourth, the soft factors, which weigh most in daily life: English as an official language, a dense market of auditors and lawyers, a formation-friendly register and a country in which a company is up and running within days.
How the formation works
In law your holding is an ordinary Irish limited company, and so its formation runs the same way. We prepare the documents, you check and sign, we file with the Companies Registration Office in Dublin. For registration under its fast-track procedure the CRO states a target of five working days; the complete package takes around ten. Then the certificate of incorporation and documents come to you by email, and the company is domiciled at our office in Dublin. These are our own premises, on a long-term lease, with staff on site, and so a business address that stands up to a visit from Revenue.
The minimum capital is one euro; we form with share capital of €1,000 in 1,000 shares, and the step of paying it in falls away. Shareholders and directors appear in the public companies register, beneficial owners with more than 25 per cent also in the Register of Beneficial Ownership. The company secretary is required by law, and we take on this role, together with the annual return and deadline control. We apply for a VAT number as well where your holding needs one.
The director on the ground
The point that decides the tax rate
By law, one director resident in the EEA is enough. For the 12.5 per cent rate, though, the company must actually be run from Ireland, and that means: by someone who lives in Ireland and makes the decisions there.
The EEA director satisfies company law. In Revenue’s practice something else counts: who actually runs the company, and from where. If it is run from abroad, Revenue treats it as managed from outside, and its profits then face the rate of 25 per cent instead of the 12.5 per cent Ireland provides for active business. The background is on the page on the Irish company.
The good news: the person who runs your company from Ireland is you. You move to Ireland with your family, you live there, and you run your company from your desk in Wexford, Waterford or Cork. That answers the question before any authority asks it, and in the only way that holds for years.
This is exactly what Saol Nua Plan is for: we bring your family and your company to Ireland in the same move, on the same timetable and in the same hand. Your residence, your tax registration and your company’s place of management are then in one place, and that is the state a tax audit wants to see.
From the second year
From the second year the company carries a service package of €2,650 a year. It includes the same services as the first year: business address in Dublin, company secretary, mail forwarding, keeping the registers, annual return and deadline control. Bookkeeping, year-end accounts and the corporation tax return we charge by time spent; for a pure holding, experience shows that far less of this arises than for a trading company.
If your company is to do business itself rather than hold shares, the Irish Limited is the right route. If you are moving to Ireland as a non-dom and your profits are to run through a second company, take a look at the Limited with a UK holding.
Support on the ground
For everything that happens on the ground in Ireland, you have Marc as your fixed contact on the ground in Ireland, who leads your project; behind him are Irish solicitors, tax advisers and accountants whom he coordinates for your case. How this support works is explained under Your contact in Ireland.
Order
Irish holding company for €3,470
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