Self-Employed Taxes in Ireland: USC, PRSI and Deadlines (2026)

Short answer: A self-employed person in Ireland pays three charges on the same trading profit — income tax at 20% up to €44,000 for a single person and 40% above that, USC on a sliding scale from 0.5% to 8%, and PRSI Class S at a blended 4.2375% on 2026 income, subject to a €650 minimum. All three are declared on one Form 11. Pay and file for 2025 is 31 October 2026, extended to 18 November 2026 if you both file and pay through ROS.

Ireland’s tax year is the calendar year, and the return for it is due the following October. Every figure below comes from Revenue or the Department of Social Protection, and applies to a sole trader rather than a limited company. If you have not registered yet, start with how to register as self-employed in Ireland; if it is the return itself you are stuck on, Form 11 explained walks through the panels.

What taxes does a self-employed person pay in Ireland?

Three separate charges land on the same profit figure, and people routinely budget for the first while forgetting the other two.

Charge	What it applies to	Headline figure
Income tax	Net profit after allowable expenses and capital allowances	20% then 40%
USC	Gross income, after certain capital allowances but before pension contributions	0.5% to 8%, plus a 3% surcharge on non-PAYE income over €100,000
PRSI Class S	All reckonable income, including rent and investment income	4.2375% on 2026 income, minimum €650

VAT sits outside this. It is not a tax on you but one you collect from customers and pass on, with its own returns and deadlines once you cross the registration threshold.

You are inside self-assessment as a chargeable person if you have trading income, or PAYE income plus non-PAYE income over €5,000 net or €30,000 gross. Below that, a PAYE taxpayer with a small side income files a Form 12 instead, not a Form 11.

How much income tax do I pay as a sole trader in Ireland?

You pay at the same rates as an employee, on profit rather than turnover. The standard rate band is the amount taxed at 20%; everything above it is taxed at 40%.

Status	Band taxed at 20%	Balance
Single or widowed	€44,000	40%
Married or civil partners, one income	€53,000	40%
Married or civil partners, two incomes	€53,000 plus up to €35,000 more	40%
Single Person Child Carer	€48,000	40%

Tax credits then reduce the bill itself, euro for euro.

Credit	2026	2025
Single Person	€2,000	€2,000
Married Person or Civil Partner	€4,000	€4,000
Earned Income Credit (maximum)	€2,000	€2,000
Employee (PAYE) Credit	€2,000	€2,000

Worth stating plainly: Budget 2026 left the bands and the main personal credits unchanged, so the 2025 and 2026 figures are identical. The Earned Income Credit is the self-employed counterpart of the PAYE credit, and if you have both employment and self-employment income the two are capped at €2,000 combined — you do not get €4,000.

How much USC do I pay if I am self-employed?

USC is charged on gross income — after relief for certain capital allowances, but before pension contributions — which is why it is the charge people underestimate. These are the 2026 standard rates.

Band	Rate	Running total
First €12,012	0.5%	€12,012
Next €16,688	2%	€28,700
Next €41,344	3%	€70,044
Balance	8%	—

The 2% band widened for 2026: its ceiling moved from €27,382 to €28,700, tracking the minimum wage. The point at which 8% begins, €70,044, did not move.

Two things catch self-employed people specifically. The exemption is a cliff, not an allowance: for 2026 the threshold is €13,000 — at or below it you pay no USC at all, but a euro above and USC is charged on the full amount, not just the excess. And a 3% surcharge applies where non-PAYE income exceeds €100,000, so 11% applies to the non-PAYE income above that level. Reduced rates of 0.5% on the first €12,012 and 2% on the balance apply where aggregate income is €60,000 or less and you are aged 70 or over or hold a full medical card.

How much PRSI does a self-employed person pay?

Class S PRSI is paid to Revenue through the same Form 11, not separately to the Department of Social Protection. The rate rises mid-year, which produces an awkward blended figure for self-assessed income.

Income year	Rate used on self-assessed income	Minimum
2025 (the return you file in 2026)	4.125%	€650
2026	4.2375%	€650

The underlying rate is 4.20% until 30 September 2026 and 4.35% from 1 October 2026; the blended figures exist because the change lands mid-year. Revenue used exactly this method for 2025, blending the 4.10% and 4.20% rates into 4.125%. The increase applies across all PRSI classes and forms part of a legislated series funding the State Pension, so expect further movement — rates are set by the Department of Social Protection, and its PRSI Class S rates page and the SW 14 guide are the authority for any year.

You are liable once annual income from all sources reaches €5,000, measured before capital allowances and pension relief. No charge arises if you are under 16 or over 66. Note the base: Class S catches rental and investment income too, not just trading profit.

When do I have to register for VAT in Ireland?

Registration is compulsory once turnover crosses a threshold in any continuous 12 months, or once you expect it to.

Supply	Threshold
Services	€42,500
Goods	€85,000
Acquisitions from other EU member states	€41,000
Distance sales and cross-border digital services (EU-wide)	€10,000

These are turnover figures, not profit. A consultant billing €50,000 who nets €28,000 after costs is over the services threshold. These are the levels Revenue lists as currently in force — check Revenue’s VAT thresholds page before relying on them for a future year.

Once registered you file a VAT 3, normally every two months, due on the 19th of the following month — the 23rd if you file and pay on ROS. An annual Return of Trading Details follows at year end. Registration also changes what your bills must show; invoicing as a sole trader in Ireland covers the required fields.

One 2026 change: from 1 July 2026 the 9% rate applies to hairdressing services, and to food and drink supplied as part of a restaurant, catering or hot takeaway service, down from 13.5%. Revenue excludes alcohol, bottled waters, soft drinks, sports drinks and vegetable juices from the 9% rate — those stay at the 23% standard rate. Guest and hotel accommodation is not part of this change and remains at 13.5%.

When is the tax deadline for self-employed people in Ireland?

The rule is 31 October in the year following the tax year. For the return currently in season:

Obligation	Date
File the 2025 Form 11 and pay the 2025 balance	31 October 2026
Same, filing and paying through ROS	18 November 2026
Preliminary tax for 2026	Same dates as above
File the 2026 Form 11	31 October 2027 (statutory date)

The ROS extension is conditional: you must both file the return and make the payment through ROS. File online and pay by cheque and you lose the extra fortnight. Revenue announces the ROS date one year at a time — the mid-November 2027 date for the 2026 return had not been published when this was written, so treat 31 October 2027 as the date to work to.

Miss the deadline and a surcharge applies to your tax liability for the year, not to the unpaid balance — so someone fully paid up who files late is still charged. It is 5% of that liability, capped at €12,695, where the return is filed within two months of the filing date, and 10%, capped at €63,485, after that. Interest on late payment runs at 0.0219% per day, roughly 8% a year.

What is preliminary tax and how much do I have to pay?

Preliminary tax is your estimate of the current year’s liability, paid by 31 October of that same year. To avoid an interest charge your payment must equal or exceed the lowest of:

• 90% of your final liability for the current year, or
• 100% of your liability for the prior year, or
• 105% of the pre-preceding year’s liability — direct debit only, and not available if that year’s liability was nil.

Two points do real damage when missed. Preliminary tax must cover income tax, USC and PRSI together, not income tax alone. And if you underpay, the due date for the whole balance is backdated to 31 October of the year of assessment, with interest running from there.

In your first year of trading the 100%-of-prior-year option usually means no preliminary tax is required, because there was no prior self-assessed liability. That is a deferral, not a discount: year two brings the first year’s balance and the second year’s preliminary tax in the same payment.

Can I claim the civil service mileage rates as a sole trader?

Generally no, and this is the most common misunderstanding in the area. The civil service motor travel rates — which run from 20.56c to 90.63c per kilometre depending on engine size and how far you have already travelled in the year — are a mechanism for an employer to reimburse an employee or office holder tax-free. Revenue’s guidance on them sits under employing people, not under running a business.

A sole trader instead deducts the business proportion of actual motor running costs, and claims capital allowances on the car at 12.5% a year over eight years, restricted to the business share and subject to emissions-based cost limits. You still need a mileage log — it is what substantiates the split. Mileage and motor expenses in Ireland sets out both methods, and how it changes if you incorporate.

How long do I keep records, and where does Keel fit?

Revenue requires records to be kept for six years, and longer where no return was made or an audit or appeal is open. That covers sales invoices, purchase and expense receipts, and the linking documents connecting them to your accounts. You do not send any of it with the Form 11 — you complete the Extract from Accounts panels and hold the evidence in case it is asked for. Expenses and receipts for the self-employed in Ireland covers what qualifies.

Six years of paperwork is the real work of being self-employed. Keel: Invoice Maker & Receipts, by Ilura Technology OÜ, is built for that and nothing else. It runs entirely on your iPhone: no account, no sign-in, no bank connection, no cloud sync. Its App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected”.

The honest tradeoff is that nothing imports itself. There is no bank feed reconciling overnight — you raise the invoice, you photograph the receipt (Apple Intelligence reads the merchant, total, tax and date on device), you log the trip. In exchange the records stay in your hands, the ledger is append-only and hash-chained, and at year end the Accountant Pack exports the whole year as a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF. Keel: Invoice Maker & Receipts on the App Store.

The free tier gives you unlimited invoices, receipts and mileage, with a “Made with Keel” footer on invoices. Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription.

Frequently asked questions

How much tax do I pay as a sole trader in Ireland? On profit, you pay income tax at 20% up to €44,000 if single and 40% above that, less your credits. USC is charged separately on gross income at 0.5% to 8%, and PRSI Class S at a blended 4.2375% on 2026 income with a €650 minimum. A rough working reserve of 30% to 40% of profit is sensible until you have a real figure.

When is the tax return deadline for self-employed people in Ireland? 31 October in the year after the tax year. The 2025 Form 11 is due 31 October 2026, extended to 18 November 2026 if you both file the return and pay through ROS. Paying by cheque forfeits the extension. Late filing triggers a surcharge of 5% of the year’s total tax, rising to 10% after two months.

Do I have to register for VAT as a sole trader in Ireland? Only once turnover crosses €42,500 for services or €85,000 for goods in any continuous 12 months, or when you expect it will. The test is turnover, not profit. Below the threshold you may register voluntarily, which lets you reclaim VAT on purchases but obliges you to charge it and file VAT 3 returns.

How much PRSI do I pay if I am self-employed in Ireland? Class S PRSI is 4.20% until 30 September 2026 and 4.35% from 1 October 2026. Because the rate changes mid-year, self-assessed 2026 income is charged at a blended 4.2375%, with a minimum annual contribution of €650. The 2025 return filed this October uses 4.125%. Liability starts once income from all sources reaches €5,000.

Do I have to pay preliminary tax in my first year of self-employment? Usually not. If you choose the option of paying 100% of the previous year’s liability and that year had no self-assessed liability, no payment is generally required in year one. The bill does not disappear, though — it lands the following October alongside that year’s preliminary tax, so set money aside from your first invoice.

How long do I have to keep business records in Ireland? Six years, under section 886 TCA 1997. The period is longer if you failed to file a return, or if an audit, appeal or investigation is open, in which case you keep them until the matter concludes. Records must be kept as you go, in Irish or English, and you remain responsible even if your accountant holds them.

---

This article is general information, not tax advice. Consult a qualified Irish tax professional.