Capital gains in Ireland: 31 % is only half the story.

Rate and exemption

On gains from the disposal of assets, Ireland has levied capital gains tax since 7 October 2026 at a standard rate of 31 per cent; for development land it stays at 33 per cent. There are no holding periods after which a gain becomes tax-free, and no reduced rate for holding long. What there is, is a small annual exemption: the first €1,270 of gains stay tax-free per person per year.

If you come from the UK, the idea of an annual exemption is familiar; at home it is £3,000 for 2026 to 2027. The step is in the rate. In the UK, gains are taxed at 18 per cent where they fall within the basic rate band and at 24 per cent above it, so a higher-rate taxpayer pays 24 per cent on every gain over the exemption. In Ireland there is no band that softens it: 31 per cent is the rate, full stop. For a family selling a business or a large shareholding, those seven percentage points over the British higher rate are real money.

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The proceeds, not the gain

With ongoing income, you remit income. With capital gains, the measure is a different one, and the difference costs money if you overlook it: what is remitted is the proceeds of the sale, not the gain.

An example makes it concrete. You sell shares abroad for €300,000 that cost you €200,000. The gain is €100,000. If you now transfer €150,000 of the proceeds to Ireland, you have not remitted half your gain, but part of the proceeds, and those proceeds contain gain. How much of it arrives in Ireland as taxable is a calculation that should be done before the transfer, not after.

In practice this means: proceeds from sales belong in an account of their own, not in the general pot. It is the same discipline described for income on the page The account before 1 January, only with a different measure.

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Tax taken at source at home

A short note that belongs here because it concerns the same securities. On ongoing dividends, many countries withhold more at source than their treaty with Ireland leaves them in the end, and the difference comes back only on a claim. Whether that applies to your holdings depends on the country the shares come from. For British shares it does not: no tax is deducted on payment of an ordinary dividend from a UK company. Only the property income distributions of UK REITs are paid with basic rate tax deducted.

Such a claim rests on the treaty, and that is where the remittance basis meets its limit. The UK-Ireland convention carries a remittance clause in Article 6: where income is relieved from tax in one country under the convention and the other country taxes it by reference to the amount remitted, the relief applies only to the part remitted. If a country’s treaty with Ireland limits relief in this way and you leave the dividend outside, you lose the refund and the full deduction at source becomes final. If you remit it, you get the refund and pull the income into Irish tax. The full picture is in Expert knowledge on the remittance clause.

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