Employer of Record in Ireland: 21 Providers Compared (2026)

Employing someone in Ireland: key facts

Ireland is a single jurisdiction — no provinces or states — so every figure below applies nationwide unless noted.

Minimum wage

The national minimum hourly rate rose on 2026-01-01, set by the National Minimum Wage Order 2025 (S.I. No. 472/2025) (irishstatutebook.ie, checked 2026-10-01).

• Age 20 and over: EUR 14.15/hour
• Age 19: EUR 12.74/hour (90%)
• Age 18: EUR 11.32/hour (80%)
• Under 18: EUR 9.91/hour (70%)

Employer contributions

This is a classification system, not a marginal band: once weekly pay crosses EUR 552, the entire week’s pay is charged at 11.40%, not just the amount above the threshold. The standard rate rose from 11.25% on 2026-10-01, the third of five legislated annual increases (the “PRSI Roadmap”), and is due to keep rising through 2028.

Working hours and overtime

• No statutory standard working week. The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 caps average working time at 48 hours/week, averaged over a reference period (normally 4 months, up to 12 for some sectors or collective agreements), with no opt-out available (irishstatutebook.ie, checked 2026-10-01). 39 hours/week over 5 days is typical market practice for full-time office roles.
• No statutory right to an overtime premium; overtime pay or time-off-in-lieu is a matter of the employment contract. The one statutory exception is Sunday work, which must be compensated through extra pay, a reasonable allowance or paid time off, unless already reflected in the employee’s pay (irishstatutebook.ie, checked 2026-10-01).

Annual leave and public holidays

• 4 working weeks (20 days for a 5-day week) for an employee who works at least 1,365 hours in the year; shorter periods accrue at 1/3 week per month worked or 8% of hours worked (irishstatutebook.ie, checked 2026-10-01).
• 9 public holidays/year: New Year’s Day, St Brigid’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, Easter Monday, first Mondays of May/June/August, last Monday in October, Christmas Day, St Stephen’s Day. For each, the employer chooses between a paid day off, an extra day’s annual leave, an extra day’s pay, or a paid day off within a month (irishstatutebook.ie, checked 2026-10-01).

Probation

• No statutory concept of “probation” as such. Under the 2022 Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Regulations, a probationary period must not exceed 6 months, extendable only exceptionally (e.g. illness or leave) to a maximum of 12 months (irishstatutebook.ie, checked 2026-10-01).
• Separately, the Unfair Dismissals Acts generally require 12 months’ continuous service before a worker can bring an unfair-dismissal claim (exceptions apply for discriminatory grounds from day one), which in practice tracks a contractual probation period of similar length.

Notice and severance

Source: revisedacts.lawreform.ie, checked 2026-10-01. A contract can set a longer notice period, never a shorter one.

• Redundancy pay (separate from notice) applies after 2+ years’ continuous service: 2 weeks’ gross pay per year of service plus 1 bonus week, with weekly pay capped at EUR 600 regardless of actual salary, and paid tax-free in full (citizensinformation.ie, checked 2026-10-01). No general statutory severance applies to a straightforward dismissal for cause.

13th salary and bonuses

• Not mandatory. There’s no statutory 13th-month or Christmas bonus; where one is paid, it’s a discretionary or contractual employer practice (citizensinformation.ie, checked 2026-10-01).

Mandatory benefits

• Statutory sick pay: 5 paid days/calendar year at 70% of normal daily pay, capped at EUR 110/day, after 13 weeks’ continuous service (gov.ie, checked 2026-10-01).
• My Future Fund auto-enrolment pension, from 2026-01-01 (see Employer contributions above and What changed in 2026 below).
• Statutory annual leave and public holidays (see above).
• State-funded, PRSI-financed benefits — maternity, paternity, adoptive, parent’s and illness benefit — are paid by the Department of Social Protection directly to the employee, not by the employer, though some employers top these up contractually.
• No mandatory private health, dental or life insurance: public healthcare is funded through general taxation and the PRSI pool, not an employer-paid premium.
• Ireland has no statutory requirement for employers to hold Employers’ Liability insurance.

Work permits

• EEA, Swiss and UK nationals (and some others with residence permission) can work without a permit.
• Critical Skills Employment Permit: minimum salary EUR 40,904/year for roles on the Critical Skills Occupations List, or EUR 68,911/year for other eligible roles, both raised on 2026-03-01; requires a 2-year job offer (citizensinformation.ie, checked 2026-10-01).
• General Employment Permit: broader eligible-occupation list, salary generally EUR 34,000–37,000 depending on occupation and age, subject to a labour-market needs test (28 days’ advertising on Jobs Ireland/EURES first).
• The 50:50 rule: DETE won’t grant a permit if it would leave more than 50% of the sponsoring employer’s own Irish workforce as non-EEA nationals — calculated on the sponsor’s own headcount, not a vendor’s global one (waived for a first non-EEA hire and qualifying start-ups).
• Critically, DETE guidance states an employment agency generally cannot sponsor a permit for a worker who is to work under a third party’s (the client’s) direction and supervision — the permit sponsor and the day-to-day controlling employer must be the same entity (enterprise.gov.ie, checked 2026-10-01). This is the main limit on using an EOR for any hire who needs Irish immigration sponsorship.

Currency and payroll

• Euro (EUR). No statutory minimum pay frequency: employers must state the pay interval in the written core-terms statement, but monthly pay is market-standard for salaried employees, weekly more common for hourly workers (revisedacts.lawreform.ie, checked 2026-10-01).

Is Employer of Record legal in Ireland?

Allowed, with limits. Irish law has no dedicated Employer-of-Record licence or statute, and hiring an Ireland-based employee through an EOR instead of opening your own entity is common and not itself unlawful. But law firm A&L Goodbody states plainly that “Irish employment law does not expressly recognise the concept of Employers of Record,” and flags two risks underneath the commercial label (algoodbody.com, checked 2026-10-01).

• Employment Agency Act 1971. Carrying on the business of an “employment agency” — a statutory definition broader than a recruitment agency — without an annual licence from the Workplace Relations Commission (currently EUR 500/year) is an offence (irishstatutebook.ie, checked 2026-10-01).
• Protection of Employees (Temporary Agency Work) Act 2012. Where a worker is in substance supplied to work under a client’s direction, the worker is entitled to equal treatment with the client’s own comparable staff on pay, hours, rest breaks, annual leave and public holidays, from day one of the assignment (lawreform.ie, checked 2026-10-01).
• Co-employment risk. Courts look at who actually controls the work, not the contractual label, so A&L Goodbody warns the client itself could be found the worker’s real or joint employer, with associated Irish tax, payroll and employment-law exposure.
• Employment permits. DETE guidance ties the permit sponsor to the entity that actually directs the worker day to day, so an EOR generally can’t sponsor a Critical Skills or General Employment Permit for a hire the client controls (enterprise.gov.ie, checked 2026-10-01). The 50:50 rule is checked against the sponsor’s own Irish headcount, not the EOR’s global one.

For the client, three risks follow directly: equal-treatment obligations it may not have priced in if the arrangement is recharacterised as temporary agency work; exposure as a co-employer if a court looks past the EOR label at who actually controls the work; and no route to sponsor a new employment permit through the EOR for a role the client actually directs — that hire needs the client’s own entity and sponsor status instead.

Who actually employs your hire in Ireland

Vendors describe their entity model globally (“130+ owned entities,” “legal entities in 95+ countries”) far more often than they confirm it for Ireland specifically. Here’s what each vendor’s own Ireland page — or the Workplace Relations Commission’s Register of Licensed Employment Agencies — actually shows:

Eight of these 21 don’t say whether Ireland is served by their own entity or a partner’s, and a ninth (RemoFirst) names itself as partner-based outright. Six vendors — Deel, G-P, Oyster, Pebl, Rippling and Skuad — turn up on the WRC’s own Register of Licensed Employment Agencies under an exact or near-exact brand match, which is stronger evidence than a vendor’s own marketing copy. Before signing with any vendor, ask directly: “Can you name the Irish entity that will employ my hire, and is it on the WRC register?” A vendor that answers with a registry licence number is a different risk profile from one repeating its global “owned + partner network” line.

How to choose an EOR in Ireland

Need the strongest registry evidence? Six vendors here — Deel, G-P, Oyster, Pebl, Rippling and Skuad — hold a WRC Licensed Employment Agency entry under their own brand name, which is independent of the vendor’s own marketing claims.

Weighing price against transparency? Skuad’s EUR 299/month is the lowest confirmed Ireland-specific price, though it’s a time-limited promotional rate (discounted from EUR 549). Deel’s EUR 6,183/year (~EUR 515/month) costs more but comes with a full published breakdown of what the fee covers.

Need to sponsor an employment permit for this hire? None of the vendors above can act as the sponsor if you remain the one directing the worker’s day-to-day duties — DETE guidance requires the sponsor and the controlling employer to be the same entity. That hire needs your own Irish entity, not any EOR on this list.

Already employ several non-EEA nationals in Ireland? The 50:50 rule is checked against the sponsoring entity’s own Irish headcount. Since an EOR employs many clients’ staff under one entity, its own non-EEA ratio — not yours — is what matters for any permit it does sponsor.

What it costs to employ someone in Ireland through an EOR

An EOR runs payroll at scale, so no size-based relief applies — Ireland’s PRSI system has none tied to employer headcount or payroll size in any case. Both example salaries sit well above the EUR 552/week threshold all year, so the full week is charged at the standard 11.40% rate, not just the amount above it.

Source: gov.ie, checked 2026-10-01.

The EOR’s own fee is on top of the above. Published Ireland-specific numbers in our data range from EUR 299/month (Skuad’s discounted rate) to roughly EUR 515/month (Deel, EUR 6,183/year) — G-P quotes a flat USD 599/month, Atlas HXM USD 599-699/month, and Borderless AI $579/month. Remote, Rise, Justworks and Oyster publish only their global list price ($399-$699/month) with no Ireland-specific figure. Rippling, Pebl and Playroll confirm an owned Irish entity but publish no price at all for the country. Most of the remaining vendors publish only a global list price ($99-$599/month) or nothing, quote-based.

Hidden costs, where actually published: Deel’s own Ireland cost-comparison table states EUR 0 in one-off costs under its EOR column. No vendor in our data discloses a deposit, minimum term or termination fee specifically for Ireland — where the field is blank, treat it as unpublished, not zero. Several vendors (Justworks, Atlas HXM, Boundless, RemoFirst, Borderless AI) state no setup fee, no minimum term or no security deposit, but only as a global policy, not confirmed Ireland-specific.

Basis: figures use the Class A1 employer PRSI rate in force from 2026-10-01 (11.40%) plus the 2026 (year-1) My Future Fund rate (1.5%, capped at EUR 80,000 of earnings), on the default assumption the employee is a qualifying employee who hasn’t opted out — many EORs instead enrol employees in a private occupational pension scheme that would remove this line.

When you don’t need an EOR

• A genuinely independent contractor. Closer to the real relationship, and cheaper, if the person sets their own hours and tools and can serve other clients. See how to pay contractors in Ireland and our hiring guide for the Karshan status test Revenue applies — relabelling an employment relationship as a contract risks misclassification exposure of its own.
• Your own Irish entity. The only route if the hire needs a new Critical Skills or General Employment Permit, since DETE guidance ties the permit sponsor to the entity that actually directs the worker’s day-to-day duties.

What changed in 2026

• 2026-01-01 — National minimum hourly rate rises to EUR 14.15, from EUR 13.50.
• 2026-01-01 — Upper threshold for the reduced 9.15% employer PRSI rate rises from EUR 527/week to EUR 552/week.
• 2026-01-01 — My Future Fund (the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System) begins collecting contributions: employees aged 23-60 earning over EUR 20,000/year who aren’t already in a qualifying occupational pension are auto-enrolled, with the employer matching at 1.5% of gross pay (years 1-3), capped at EUR 80,000 of earnings.
• 2026-03-01 — Critical Skills Employment Permit salary thresholds rise to EUR 40,904/year (Critical Skills Occupations List roles) and EUR 68,911/year (other eligible roles).
• 2026-10-01 — Third of five scheduled annual PRSI-rate increases: standard Class A employer rate rises from 11.25% to 11.40%; reduced rate from 9.00% to 9.15%. Two further increases are already legislated, reaching 11.75% by 2028-10-01.

Numbers vendors haven’t updated

• Deel’s own Ireland page states the minimum wage as EUR 13.50/hour and employer PRSI as 8.8-11.05% — both the pre-2026 figures. The current rate is EUR 14.15/hour (from 2026-01-01) and the standard employer PRSI rate is 11.40% (from 2026-10-01). Deel’s page also states 10 public holidays; Ireland has 9.

How we built this page

Facts were collected and checked on 2026-10-01 against Irish government and statutory sources (irishstatutebook.ie, assets.gov.ie, revisedacts.lawreform.ie) and A&L Goodbody’s legal guidance on EOR status. Vendor entity claims were checked against the WRC Register of Licensed Employment Agencies where a matching name could be found — Deel, G-P, Oyster, Pebl, Rippling and Skuad all confirm this way — and against the vendor’s own Ireland-facing page or a company registry (CRO) otherwise; where a vendor states only a global entity model, we recorded Ireland as not disclosed rather than assuming. The ranking above puts confirmed, Ireland-specific own entities first. Nobody pays for placement on this page.