Ireland is not a low-tax country. For international wealth it can still be exceptionally interesting.

As a non-dom, foreign income and gains held outside Ireland can stay free of Irish tax for as long as they are not remitted. For families whose capital is already built, that alone can change the sums.

Straight to the topics:Non-dom The 33 per cent trap Ordinary residence Two homes The Irish company Irish Limited while UK resident Income tax, USC and PRSI The UK compared with Ireland The account before 1 January The year of arrival ETFs and funds Capital gains tax Self-employed in Ireland Registration and deadlines Rental income Crypto VAT SARP Domicile levy

Four girls in school uniform stand talking together on the pavement.

You have sold your business. You hold capital outside Ireland. You draw returns from investments, shareholdings or property. Perhaps over the years you have built up gains that are no longer tied to the country you live in today.

And now you are thinking of moving to Ireland with your family. Behind the tax question stands a bigger one: what happens to everything you have built when your life moves?

The answer is why Ireland can be so interesting on tax for families with wealth from Britain, the Nordics and the Low Countries.

According to the Heritage Foundation, the freest economy in the EU in 2026. Ireland scores 83.3 points in this index; the next EU state is Luxembourg with 79.7. What it measures is economic freedom, not the level of tax, and worldwide Singapore and Switzerland rank ahead of Ireland. For a family bringing its capital, the score still says something: this is a country built around property, freedom of contract and open markets.

Source: Heritage Foundation, Index of Economic Freedom 2026, table “All Country Scores” (as of February 2026) and Executive Highlights. As of: rechecked 17 September 2026.

If you are non-domiciled in Ireland for tax, a non-dom, foreign income and foreign gains can stay outside Irish tax for as long as you do not bring them into Ireland. Ireland taxes that foreign income and those gains only when they are remitted.

And unlike the United Kingdom, Ireland has not abolished this system. There is no annual charge you have to pay to use the remittance basis. There is no rule that ends it after four years, and no fifteen-year period after which it disappears automatically. The Irish remittance basis is open-ended.

For a family whose wealth is already built and whose income arises internationally, that can make the difference between a home that makes no sense on tax and one that is exceptionally interesting.

But only if you understand how the system works. Because Ireland is no tax haven. And a remittance can happen much faster than you think. Sometimes a card at a supermarket till is enough.

Non-dom and the remittance basis

Two sheep walk along a road that runs between rock and water.

The word “non-dom” is used so often in marketing that it is easy to forget what is actually interesting about it. The point is not the label. The point is the remittance basis.

You can live in Ireland. Your children can go to school there. You can own a house in the south-east, and the centre of your life can be in Ireland. And still your foreign income and foreign gains are not automatically taxed in Ireland for that reason alone. As a rule, they are taxed when you remit them to Ireland.

That is a completely different starting point from a tax system that pulls all your worldwide income and gains into the annual charge the moment you move. For a family that needs its whole income every month to live on, the difference may be limited. For a family with capital it can be enormous. Because wealth lets you decide which money you actually need in Ireland.

Then comes the decisive point: the system has no expiry date. You do not buy the remittance basis afresh each year, and you will not find after a few years that an attractive tax window has closed just as your children have truly settled in Ireland. There is no four-year cliff and no fifteen-year cliff.

That is exactly what suits the family for whom we find Ireland interesting. A family move is not a four-year project. The children should settle, make friends and make English their everyday language. Perhaps you want to build up the residence needed for an Irish passport. Perhaps you want to stay long after the children are grown.

A tax advantage that only works during the settling-in phase solves the wrong problem. A system becomes interesting when it also fits a long life.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

Why Ireland has become more interesting since the British reform

Hoar frost on grass, bushes and a row of trees on a clear winter morning.

For many years the United Kingdom was the obvious address when wealthy international families talked about non-dom. If you live in Britain, you have watched that world come to an end from close up.

The United Kingdom has abolished its old non-dom regime. In its place is the FIG regime: foreign income and gains are protected for four years, and then that window closes. And after ten years, worldwide inheritance tax applies.

Ireland has taken a different road. The Irish remittance basis is still open-ended. For a family with substantial capital, that can make the decisive difference from the fifth year on.

This matters all the more because this kind of family does not usually want to move to Ireland for three years. It brings children. It may buy a house. It builds a new life and thinks about citizenship. For this family, time is not a side issue. A tax system that gets fundamentally worse in year five sits badly with a family plan whose whole value lies in working for the long term.

That is why today we would never compare Ireland and the United Kingdom on tax using the old picture. The relevant question is not which country used to have the more famous non-dom regime. The question is which country offers the more interesting long-term position today.

And for a family with substantial capital, Ireland often wins that comparison from year five.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

A remittance happens faster than you think

A garden table with chairs and a folded parasol on a patio behind the house.

This is where the pleasant part ends. Because the remittance basis does not mean that foreign money can never become taxable in Ireland. It means that the moment of remittance becomes decisive. And in real life that moment often looks far less dramatic than people expect.

Many picture a large international bank transfer. You sell something abroad, the money lands in a foreign account, and then you transfer a large sum to your Irish account. Of course you recognise that transaction as a remittance.

The problem is the transactions that do not feel like a remittance at all.

You are standing in the supermarket. You take a card out of your pocket. You pay. And for tax purposes you may just have brought foreign money into Ireland.

Because if you pay in Ireland with a card that draws on a foreign account, that payment can count as a remittance. The money did not have to land in your Irish bank account first, and you need not have made a transfer marked “Ireland”. What decides it is the economic use in Ireland. The coffee can be a remittance. The weekly shop. The hotel bill. A larger purchase.

Perhaps you are thinking: then I simply won’t transfer anything and will take the cash out with my foreign card. That does not solve the problem either. If you withdraw money from a foreign account at an Irish cash machine, that can also count as a remittance. The form does not automatically change the tax effect. Transfer, card payment, cash withdrawal: what decides it is that foreign money is used in Ireland.

That does not mean you may not use a foreign card in Ireland. It means you should know which money stands behind that card. Because that is exactly where the planning begins.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

The most dangerous account is the one that holds everything

A river winds through a town, old buildings on either side, a bridge in the distance.

The classic structural mistake is the mixed account.

You hold a foreign account. Capital sits there, foreign income arrives there, and perhaps gains land there too. And from the same account you eventually pay your expenses in Ireland. On screen it looks like one account. For tax purposes it can hold completely different kinds of money. And as soon as you bring money from it into Ireland, the question arises of what exactly you have remitted.

That is why, with a family holding international wealth, we do not wait until after the move to ask: which accounts do you actually have? By then the story has already been written. By then money may already be mixed, cards may already have been used, sums may already have been brought into Ireland.

If you live in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands or Scandinavia today and want to move to Ireland, you therefore have an enormous advantage: you can put your starting position in order before Ireland becomes your everyday life. You are not yet paying in Waterford in the morning with the wrong card. You are not yet withdrawing cash in Wexford from an account whose make-up will later have to be reconstructed. You can still work out which money sits where, and which job each account should do after the move.

Your tax residence can change with your life. Your account history does not change retrospectively. Separating your accounts before the move is easier than reconstructing them after it.

That sentence is less exciting than “non-dom”. But in practice it is probably worth more.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

Ireland is not a low-tax country

A tractor ploughs a wide field under low cloud, fresh furrows in the foreground.

Now for the other half of the truth.

If your income arises in Ireland, Ireland can be expensive. Income tax on Irish income can be high. Anyone looking for a home where every kind of ongoing income is taxed as lightly as possible should therefore not choose Ireland because of the word “non-dom”. Non-dom does not turn Ireland into Dubai. Irish income stays Irish income.

The remittance basis is interesting because it applies to foreign income and foreign gains. How attractive it is therefore depends directly on what your financial life looks like. An entrepreneur who, after selling the business, lives mainly on existing capital and international investments starts from a different place from someone who earns their whole working income in Ireland after the move. The same country can be excellent on tax for one family and disappointing for another. That is no weakness of planning. It is the reason planning is needed at all.

For a family that has already built up wealth, two further points matter.

First: Ireland levies no general wealth tax. Your family’s existing net wealth is therefore not subjected to a general wealth tax every year simply because it exists. With existing wealth, the tax on income is not all that counts. What counts is whether wealth is taxed merely for being held, how foreign returns and gains are treated, and what happens when money is actually brought into Ireland. It is exactly in this combination that the Irish non-dom position starts to become interesting.

Second: Ireland is famous for its corporate tax. The corporation tax rate is 12.5 per cent. That is a relevant part of the Irish tax system, but no reason to derive a finished company structure from this one number. We deliberately do not do that. A company is not a tax rate, and whether and how a business belongs in an international plan depends on the actual situation. The 12.5 per cent exists. What follows from it for you is another question.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

ETFs and funds are where Ireland can really hurt

The walls of a ruined monastery with two high crosses on mown grass.

Now comes the drawback we do not want to hide in a footnote.

If you come to Ireland with a large fund or ETF portfolio, Ireland can become very unattractive on tax. Since 1 January 2026 the relevant Irish tax on funds has been 38 per cent. On top comes a deemed disposal every eight years.

That is no small matter. And for the family with an existing ETF portfolio, the problem does not begin at some point in year six. It is relevant from year one.

The deemed disposal breaks an intuition investors normally rely on: that a tax on a gain arises when the gain is actually realised. With the funds concerned, a disposal is assumed for tax purposes after eight years. So you need not have actually sold for the tax to bite. For a long-term ETF investor that is a considerable disadvantage.

This matters because many wealthy families are invested in exactly this way. Business sold, property sold, capital put into a broadly diversified portfolio, ETFs bought. And now the family home is to move to Ireland. Anyone who only hears “non-dom” might conclude that this portfolio automatically fits beautifully into Irish tax planning. That can be a very expensive assumption.

We say this so plainly because otherwise the rest of the story would not be credible. Ireland is not good for capital across the board. Thanks to the remittance basis it can be exceptionally interesting for certain kinds of international income and gains, and at the same time unpleasant for certain fund investments. Both are true.

Your portfolio helps decide which Ireland you get on tax. That is why we look at the wealth before we judge Ireland on tax. Not just at its total value. At its make-up.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

Three different “exit taxes” that must never be confused

A sheltered cove with clear water below a wooded green slope.

If you do your own research, sooner or later you come across the term “exit tax”. And then the confusion starts, because in Ireland three different mechanisms go by that name.

The first concerns individuals who leave Ireland. Here there is no general deemed disposal merely because you leave. There is, however, a five-year anti-avoidance rule.

The second mechanism concerns companies. For companies, an exit tax of 12.5 per cent has applied since 10 October 2018.

And the third mechanism is the tax on funds just described. Since 1 January 2026 it has been 38 per cent, combined with the deemed disposal every eight years.

Three mechanisms. One English term. Mix them up and within ten minutes you can reach three completely wrong conclusions about Ireland. For a family with capital, what matters above all is knowing which mechanism actually touches its own wealth.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

The clocks: ordinary residence, inheritance and gifts

A tall town house with a pale door, sash windows and a drainpipe on a quiet street.

Not every tax consequence of your move begins on the first day. Some come with a clock.

Ordinary residence begins from year four. And if you later leave Ireland again, this status can linger for three years. That belongs in a long-term plan, but it is neither the reason we find Ireland interesting nor a reason to fear the move. It is a clock we know about before it runs out.

The second clock concerns Irish inheritance and gift tax. It does not belong at the top of your list of worries either: for a newly arrived non-dom, as a rule only Irish assets come within Irish reach before the sixth year. For many families that means, in practice, mainly the Irish house and an Irish account. The family’s worldwide wealth is not automatically drawn in full into Irish inheritance and gift tax on the first day of the move.

But anyone who has been resident in Ireland for five consecutive years comes within Irish reach with their worldwide assets from year six. The rate is then 33 per cent. That matters. But it can be planned. Nothing to fear on arrival. Something that should be in order before year six.

And that is exactly why succession planning belongs on the map before the move. A family moving to Ireland has enough to do in the first years: house, school, accounts, business, a new life, perhaps the road to citizenship. It would be very human to keep pushing succession back. Not every transfer has to happen at once, and nobody should be hurriedly giving wealth away the day before departure. But you want to know which year carries which consequence.

Year one is not year four. Year four is not year six. And a family that knows this in advance makes different decisions from one that discovers the rule only after the clock has run out. International tax planning does not work with surprises. It works with a calendar.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

The domicile levy is probably not your problem

A patchwork of green and russet fields stretches to the coast.

Almost every detailed article on Irish tax mentions the domicile levy at some point.

It requires, all at once, worldwide income of more than €1 million, Irish assets of more than €5 million and Irish income tax paid of less than €200,000. For 2023, 15 people paid it.

The four conditions, and the one scenario in which the levy does become relevant, are on the page Domicile levy. For our purposes that is enough said. There are tax rules that sound interesting. And there are tax rules that actually affect your family. We would rather spend our time on the second kind.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

What Ireland can really cost a family with capital

An adult walks along a harbour pier holding two children by the hand, a choppy sea to the right.

If you are only looking for a tax rate, you will misread Ireland. Ireland is not a country for the simple headline “0 per cent tax”.

Irish income can be heavily taxed. Funds, with 38 per cent and the eight-year deemed disposal, can be a real drawback. Ordinary residence begins later and lingers. And from year six, worldwide inheritance and gift tax has to come into the plan too. All of that is real.

But the other side is just as real. There is no general wealth tax. Corporation tax is 12.5 per cent. And above all: a non-dom’s foreign income and foreign gains can stay outside Irish tax for as long as they are not remitted to Ireland. No annual charge. No four-year end. No fifteen-year end. Open-ended.

For the right family, that is exactly the point. Two families can hold the same wealth and end up with completely different Irish tax positions after the move. What decides it is what that wealth consists of and how money from it flows into your Irish life. Is capital held abroad? Does foreign income arise, foreign gains? Is the wealth mostly in ETFs and funds? Which sums do you actually need in Ireland, which accounts will be used for them, which cards are in your wallet?

These are not details to settle after deciding on Ireland. They are part of the decision. Because the value of the remittance basis is not created on paper. It is created when your financial life fits its rules.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

The most important tax decision comes before the move

A black dog stands on wet sand and looks into the camera.

If you only start thinking about non-dom after you arrive in Ireland, you have already let the most valuable moment pass.

Before the move, your financial life is not yet mixed up with Ireland. The accounts can be put in order. The origin of the money can be cleanly separated. An ETF portfolio can be checked for its Irish treatment. The routes for remittances can be fixed, and the later clocks for ordinary residence and inheritance and gift tax can be built into the long-term plan.

And above all, one question can be answered before you change your life: is Ireland really attractive on tax for exactly your wealth?

Not for any non-dom. Not for a sample client. For you.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

Advice on your tax position in Ireland

Wide green fields under low cloud, a low mountain range behind them.

Before you move to Ireland with your family, we should know which money is to come with you for tax purposes and which is not.

In the consultation we look at your foreign income, your gains, your existing capital, your funds, your accounts, and at how much money you actually need for your life in Ireland.

Then we can judge what the Irish remittance basis is really worth to your family, which mistakes to avoid before you arrive and which later clocks already belong in your plan today. The work that follows, registering with Revenue and the first Irish return, is covered by the tax registration as a non-dom.

Because non-dom is no magic word. Properly prepared, it can be the reason Ireland works on tax at all for a family with international wealth.

👉 Book an appointment Back to contents

In depth

The topics in detail

The treaty with the UK, on a page of its own

Everything in this section describes the Irish side. What Ireland may take from you is decided alongside it by the double taxation treaty with the country you are leaving, and for British readers that is the UK-Ireland convention of 1976. It has its own page in Expert knowledge.

The UK-Ireland treaty: residence in Article 4, where the permanent home decides first when both countries could claim you; a private pension taxed in the country you live in under Article 17, a government pension as a rule in the country that pays it under Article 18; and a remittance clause of its own in Article 6.

How the two tax systems compare as a whole is on the page The UK compared with Ireland.