Non-dom sounds complicated. The question that decides it is actually very simple.
Which foreign money do you bring into Ireland, and which do you leave outside? That is what the remittance basis turns on. Here we explain the system, its advantages and the places where it can go wrong.
Hardly any term is used as often in emigration marketing, and explained as rarely, as non-dom. Once you have read this page, you will understand what lies behind it, precisely enough to ask the right questions. The broad picture of what it means for a family with capital is on the tax overview; here we go into the mechanics.
Who is non-dom
Irish tax law separates two things: where you live, and where you belong. British readers know the pair from the old non-dom rules, which the UK has replaced since April 2025 with a regime that asks about residence instead. Ireland has kept both. Residence depends on your days in the country and decides whether Ireland taxes you at all. Domicile is something else: the country that is your permanent home. Everyone acquires a domicile of origin at birth, and it does not change with a move, only with the intention to stay for good.
From this follows the starting position that carries this whole section: a family from the UK, the Netherlands or Scandinavia that moves to Ireland becomes resident there for tax but at first keeps its foreign domicile. It is resident and non-domiciled, a non-dom for short. That is no application, no status you buy and no scheme, but the normal legal consequence of moving in. Whether it holds in your own case depends on your circumstances and should be checked professionally; the basic rule is as simple as it sounds. And if you keep your home in your old country for now, you will find the orderly arrangement for that on the page Two homes.
What the remittance basis governs
For a non-dom, Ireland as a rule taxes foreign income and foreign gains only once they are brought into Ireland, that is, remitted. What lies outside and stays outside stays out of Irish reach. That is the remittance basis, and two of its features make it so remarkable for a family with capital.
First: it costs nothing. Unlike the old British system, there is no annual and no one-off charge for using it. Second: it does not run out. No four-year window, no fifteen-year cliff, no date on which the system drops you. It is open-ended, and for a family that wants to stay until the children are grown, and perhaps beyond, that is exactly the point.
The other side is in the same sentence: the moment of remittance is what decides. And in everyday life it looks less dramatic than most people think.
What counts as a remittance
Everyone recognises a transfer from a foreign account to an Irish one as a remittance. The cases that surprise families are the others:
| Transaction |
|---|
| a transfer from a foreign account to an Irish one |
| a payment in Ireland with a card that draws on a foreign account |
| a cash withdrawal at an Irish ATM from a foreign account |
What decides it is the economic use in Ireland, not the form of the transaction.
Source: Revenue guidance as set out by several Irish tax advisory firms. Secondary. As of: retrieved 22 August 2026.
The coffee paid for with your British credit card can be a remittance. The weekly shop. The cash from the machine in Wexford, drawn on your Dutch account. None of this forbids you to use foreign cards; all of it means you need to know which money stands behind the card. That is exactly where planning begins, and it begins before the move.
The mixed account
The most expensive structural mistake has an unremarkable name: the mixed account. If you keep existing capital, ongoing foreign income and new gains in the same foreign account, you can no longer cleanly separate later what actually flows when you transfer money to Ireland: tax-free old capital or taxable income. On the statement it all looks the same. For tax it is not.
That is why putting your accounts in order before the move is worth more than any optimisation afterwards. As long as you do not yet live in Ireland, you can decide which account carries which money and from which pot your Irish life is paid. After the move, the history of an account can no longer be sorted retrospectively. It is the one piece of advice on this page that costs nothing and saves the most.
What non-dom is not
To keep the story credible, the limits belong on the same page as the advantage.
Non-dom does not make Ireland a zero-tax country. Irish income stays taxed in Ireland, and Irish income tax is high; if you will earn your whole working income in Ireland, non-dom status does little for you. Foreign funds and ETFs have their own, unpleasant Irish tax treatment, described openly on the overview. And from the sixth year, Irish inheritance and gift tax reaches worldwide assets, which the page on the 33 per cent trap shows in detail. For income that comes from your old home country itself, the treaty sets a limit of its own: Article 6 of the UK-Ireland convention restricts treaty relief, where Ireland taxes on the remittance basis, to the part remitted. More on this in Expert knowledge on the remittance clause.
Whether the remittance basis works for your family is therefore decided not by the term, but by the make-up of your wealth and by the question of which money is to pay for your Irish life. That is exactly the calculation we work through in the consultation before you move. It is then put into practice in the tax registration as a non-dom, which combines registering with Revenue and the first tax return.
More in Tax
Non-dom from your first Irish year
If the remittance basis suits you, we register you with Revenue, secure the non-dom position from day one and prepare your first Irish tax return. Fixed price €2,500.