Sole trader or limited company? Make this decision before you move.
Ireland makes self-employment simple to run, but not always attractive for tax. We show you when a company can be the better starting point.
Sole trader or company
For self-employed work Ireland has the same basic choice as Britain: trade in your own name as a sole trader, or through a company.
The sole trader is quickly set up and cheap to run: no formation, no published accounts, the profits go straight into your income tax. The price of that is in the next section: above a certain level of profit you pay a good half of every further euro.
The company turns the picture round: 12.5 per cent on trading profits, in return for formation and running costs, public filings and the surcharges on undistributed profits, which bite quickly for service businesses. What an Irish company can and cannot carry is set out in full on the page The Irish company; we form it and look after it through our company formation.
We deliberately give no rule of thumb: depending on how much you draw, the kind of work and the surcharges of sections 440 and 441 TCA, the line falls in very different places.
What the self-employed pay
The self-employed pay the same income tax as employees, with the same bands and rates. Instead of the employee tax credit there is the earned income credit, of the same amount, €2,000.
USC has a tightening that hits only the self-employed: on income above €100,000 comes a surcharge of 3 per cent, so the top USC rate there is 11 per cent. Together with 40 per cent income tax and PRSI, that gives a marginal rate of about 55 per cent above this line, more than any employee pays.
| 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 |
| Up to €100,000 | 8 per cent |
| Above that | 11 per cent |
The surcharge of 3 per cent applies to income that is not taxed through payroll.
Source: Revenue, "Tax rates, bands and reliefs"; 2026 band width from the Budget 2026 summaries of KPMG Ireland and Grant Thornton Ireland, in agreement. As of: retrieved 24 August 2026.
Class S: pay little, get little
Social insurance for the self-employed is called Class S. The rate is 4.2 per cent until 1 October 2026 and 4.35 per cent after that; for the assessment year 2026 the administration itself gives a blended rate of 4.238 per cent. The minimum contribution is €650 a year.
Measured against British rates that is modest: below the 6 per cent Class 4 National Insurance charges on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, though above the 2 per cent it charges beyond that. The other side belongs honestly in the picture: Class S covers less than the employee class, above all no jobseeker's benefit in the usual sense. It does build up the State Pension. If you are used to a fuller safety net, close the gap privately on purpose rather than simply booking it as a saving.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Rate until 1 October 2026 | 4.2 per cent |
| Rate after that | 4.35 per cent |
| Blended rate for the assessment | 4.238 per cent |
| Minimum contribution | €650 |
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.
The obligations
The self-employed are self-assessed: registration with Revenue, an annual return on Form 11, preliminary tax during the year. The deadlines, the extension through ROS and the surcharges for filing late are collected on the page Registration and deadlines; the registration itself and the first return we take on as tax registration as a non-dom.
Depending on turnover and activity, a VAT obligation comes on top; the thresholds and rates are on the page VAT, and they belong checked before the first Irish sale, not after it.
Self-employed and non-dom
Finally the question that comes up in every conversation with the self-employed: does non-dom status help me?
For the work itself, as a rule, no. Self-employed work you carry on in Ireland produces Irish income, and the remittance basis does not act on Irish income. If you run your consultancy, your practice or your trade from an Irish desk, you pay the full Irish rates, non-dom or not.
The status becomes valuable alongside the work: for the capital, the foreign shareholdings and the income that has nothing to do with Ireland. Drawing that line cleanly, between what is earned in Ireland and what grows outside, is the real planning task for a self-employed family before the move.
More in Tax
The first step is a conversation
Sole trader or company is a calculation, not a matter of taste. We set it up with your numbers.