What is really left of an Irish salary
Income tax is only part of it. USC and PRSI come on top. Here we add all three together, so that you do not plan Ireland around a net figure that will never exist.
Three charges, not one
When a tax rate comes up in a conversation about Ireland, it is usually income tax that is meant. But it is only the first of three items. Alongside it stand the Universal Social Charge, USC for short, and the social insurance contribution PRSI. All three reach the same earned income, all three are deducted from employees through the PAYE system, and only all three together give the figure you care about.
This page takes the three charges apart one by one and then adds them up. It does not answer the question of whether Ireland works out well on tax for your family: that depends on your non-dom position and on where your money comes from, not on the rate charged on a salary.
Income tax: two rates and a band
Ireland has only two rates of income tax: 20 per cent up to a limit and 40 per cent above it. The limit is called the standard rate cut-off point, and its level depends on your family situation. For a single person it stands at €44,000 in 2026.
What is notable is less the rates than where the step comes. British readers know the shape: in England, Wales and Northern Ireland the higher rate of 40 per cent starts at £50,271. In Ireland the jump from 20 to 40 per cent comes at a single point, and lower down the income scale. If you earn just above it, you feel it at once.
| Situation | Taxed at 20 per cent up to |
|---|---|
| Single | €44,000 |
| Married couple, one income | €53,000 |
| Married couple, two incomes | up to €88,000 |
| Single parent | €48,000 |
For a married couple with two incomes, one partner’s band rises by at most €35,000, and only to the extent that the other partner uses it themselves. It cannot be transferred. Budget 2026 left the rates, bands and the common tax credits unchanged.
Source: Revenue, “Tax rates, bands and reliefs” (summary tables 2022 to 2026), revenue.ie. As of: retrieved 24 August 2026.
The second difference from the British system is how relief is given. The UK grants a personal allowance of £12,570, which comes off income before tax is worked out. Ireland works with tax credits, which come off the tax once it has been calculated. A single employed person has two of them in 2026: €2,000 as the personal tax credit and €2,000 as the employee tax credit. Together €4,000, which apply regardless of income. The self-employed have the earned income credit of the same amount instead of the employee credit.
The Universal Social Charge
USC was introduced in 2011 as a crisis levy and has stayed ever since. It is a tax of its own alongside income tax, with its own bands and without the tax credits of the income tax scale.
What matters is its entry threshold. The €13,000 is an entry threshold, not an allowance: once you are above it, you pay USC on your whole income. So if you earn €13,000, you pay no USC; if you earn a few euros more, you pay it on everything.
| Slice of income | Rate |
|---|---|
| The first €12,012 | 0.5 per cent |
| Up to €28,700 | 2 per cent |
| Up to €70,044 | 3 per cent |
| Above that | 8 per cent |
The 2 per cent band was widened by €1,318 to €28,700 from 1 January 2026. The self-employed pay an extra 3 per cent USC on income over €100,000.
Source: Revenue, “Tax rates, bands and reliefs”; 2026 bands from the Budget 2026 summaries of KPMG Ireland and Grant Thornton Ireland, which agree. As of: retrieved 24 August 2026.
USC is the reason why Irish tax estimates made from abroad regularly come out too favourable: it appears in no income tax table and is easily forgotten in a quick calculation.
PRSI: social insurance
PRSI stands for Pay Related Social Insurance and is Ireland’s social insurance. Set against UK National Insurance the picture is mixed: the employee rate is about half the British main rate of 8 per cent, and employers pay less than the British 15 per cent. But PRSI has no upper limit, while National Insurance drops to 2 per cent above £50,270 a year. Irish healthcare is not funded from PRSI but from the general budget, and access to it is a question of its own, covered on the page Healthcare.
The rate has been edging up in small steps since 2024. In 2026 there are therefore two rates: one up to 1 October 2026 and one after it.
| Contributor | Until 1 October 2026 | After |
|---|---|---|
| Employees, Class A | 4.2 per cent | 4.35 per cent |
| Employers | 11.25 per cent | 11.4 per cent |
| Self-employed, Class S | 4.2 per cent | 4.35 per cent |
The employer rate applies from weekly earnings of €552; below that it is lower. For self-assessment, SW14 gives a blended rate of 4.2375 per cent for 2026; the minimum Class S contribution is €650. Announced: a further 0.15 points from 1 October 2027 and 0.2 points from 1 October 2028.
Source: Department of Social Protection, SW14 “PRSI 2026 Contribution Rates and User Guide” (January 2026) and Advance Notice of 8 October 2025, gov.ie. As of: retrieved 24 August 2026.
What is left in total
Added together, this gives the figure that circulates in Irish conversations as the top marginal burden: 40 per cent income tax and 8 per cent USC, plus the Class A rate of PRSI. That is 52.2 per cent until 1 October 2026 and 52.35 per cent after it, in each case on the last euro earned, not on the whole income.
The average burden is clearly lower, because the tax credits and the low bands apply first. For married couples the sums shift, because in 2026 the standard band stands at €53,000 with one income and grows by up to €35,000 with two; the net salary in Ireland for couples with one or two incomes is worked out separately. Three points for orientation, for a single employed person.
| Gross | Income tax | USC | PRSI | Net | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| €40,000 | €4,000 | €733 | €1,680 | €33,587 | 16 per cent |
| €60,000 | €11,200 | €1,333 | €2,520 | €44,947 | 25.1 per cent |
| €100,000 | €27,200 | €4,031 | €4,200 | €64,569 | 35.4 per cent |
Our own calculation from the rates in the source line. It assumes the personal tax credit and the employee tax credit, no other credits, no pension contributions and the PRSI rate before 1 October 2026. Your actual burden may differ.
Source: Revenue, “Tax rates, bands and reliefs” (rates, bands and credits 2026); 2026 USC bands from the matching Budget 2026 summaries of KPMG Ireland and Grant Thornton Ireland; PRSI from SW14 “PRSI 2026 Contribution Rates and User Guide” (January 2026), gov.ie. The burden itself is calculated from these rates. As of: retrieved 24 August 2026.
If you pay into a pension scheme approved by Revenue, you lower your income tax, but not USC or PRSI. The deductible share rises with age, and the earnings that count are capped.
What this means for a move
Three points that follow from this page and that we would rather make at the start of a conversation than at the end.
First: on pure earned income, Ireland is not a cheap country. If you will earn your whole income in Ireland, you pay the full Irish rates on all of it, and the 40 per cent rate starts lower down the scale than in Britain. The comparison with the British burden is on the page The UK compared with Ireland; the full Irish tax profile is in the Steueratlas (in German).
Second: the Irish advantage lies not in the rates but in the treatment of foreign income. What the remittance basis achieves, and where it does not reach, is on the page Non-dom. That it is limited precisely for money from your old home country is down to Article 6 of the UK-Ireland convention; more in Expert knowledge on the remittance clause.
Third: in the year of arrival, special rules apply to earned income. They are on the page The year of arrival. And if your employer is sending you to Ireland, you will want to know the relief on the page SARP, along with its 90-day deadline. Registering with Revenue itself, where each of these procedures begins, is covered by the tax registration.
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