Ireland Statutory social-insurance contributions

What this value means

What a payroll engine gets wrong in Ireland, in order of how much money it costs: 1. THE RATES CHANGE MID-YEAR, ON 1 OCTOBER, AND THEY DO SO EVERY YEAR. Ireland is running a legislated multi-year PRSI escalation in which every rate steps up on 1 October rather than on 1 January. For 2026 the Class A employee rate is 4,20 % until 30 September and 4,35 % from 1 October; the employer rate is 9,00 % / 11,25 % until 30 September and 9,15 % / 11,40 % from 1 October. A single annual rate for Ireland is wrong for one quarter of every year. This record serves the rates in force as at its date, which are the pre-October figures. 2. THE EMPLOYER THRESHOLD IS A CLIFF, NOT A BAND. Above EUR 552 a week the employer pays 11,25 % on ALL the pay, not on the excess. Crossing EUR 552 by one cent raises the employer's charge on that employee by 2,25 percentage points of the whole wage — about EUR 12,42 a week. This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in Irish payroll and it makes the marginal cost of a small pay rise at that point extraordinarily high. 3. THE THRESHOLD IS PEGGED TO THE MINIMUM WAGE AND MOVES EVERY JANUARY. EUR 552 for 2026 is 39 hours at the EUR 14,15 national minimum wage (EUR 551,85, rounded up). It was EUR 496 in 2024 and EUR 527 in 2025. It is re-set specifically so that a full-time minimum-wage employee stays on the reduced employer rate, which means it moves whenever the minimum wage does — never assume it is static and never index it by inflation. 4. AUTO-ENROLMENT STARTED ON 1 JANUARY 2026. "My Future Fund" adds 1,5 % employee and 1,5 % employer on gross earnings up to EUR 80.000 for eligible employees aged 23 to 59 earning at least EUR 20.000 a year who have no existing qualifying pension. The rates escalate on a legislated schedule to 6 % each side by year ten. Any Irish employer-cost model built before 2026 understates cost by 1,5 % of payroll for a large share of the workforce today and by 6 % within a decade. 5. THERE IS NO CEILING ON PRSI AT ALL. Not weekly, not annually, on either side. The only ceiling anywhere in Irish payroll is the EUR 80.000 auto-enrolment cap. 6. PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS ARE NOT DEDUCTED BEFORE PRSI. SW 14 states that PRSI is fully chargeable on private-sector employee payments in respect of superannuation contributions, permanent health benefit and income continuance schemes, Revenue-approved trust schemes, overseas pension schemes, PRSAs and approved retirement funds. Income tax relief on pension contributions therefore does NOT carry across to PRSI, and an engine that computes PRSI on pay net of pension under-collects on every pensioned employee. 7. SHARE-BASED REMUNERATION IS ASYMMETRIC. It is treated as notional pay for EMPLOYEE PRSI, but "there is no Employer PRSI chargeable on gains from share-based remuneration". The employer must still deduct and remit the employee's PRSI on it through payroll. Applying the same treatment to both sides is wrong in one direction or the other. 8. THE 1 % NATIONAL TRAINING FUND LEVY IS INSIDE THE PUBLISHED EMPLOYER RATE. The 11,25 % and 9,00 % figures already include it. This record breaks it out as its own branch because it is a distinct legal charge under a different Act, but the two branches sum to exactly the published rate. Adding 1 % on top of SW 14's employer figure double-counts it. 9. THE EMPLOYER PAYS WHERE THE EMPLOYEE DOES NOT. Subclass A0 — weekly pay of EUR 38 to EUR 352 — carries a nil employee charge and a 9,00 % employer charge. Low pay reduces the employee's deduction to zero long before it reduces the employer's cost at all. 10. THREE DIFFERENT LOW-EARNINGS FIGURES, ROUTINELY CONFLATED. EUR 38 a week is the entry test into Class A (below it, Class J applies: employee nil, employer 0,70 %). EUR 352 a week is where the EMPLOYEE charge begins. EUR 424 a week is where the tapering PRSI Credit runs out. EUR 552 a week is where the EMPLOYER rate jumps. None of them is an exempt slice; each is a threshold that switches a treatment on or off for the whole of pay. 11. THE PRSI CREDIT IS WEEKLY EVEN FOR MONTHLY PAYROLL. It is computed on gross WEEKLY earnings — maximum EUR 12 at EUR 352,01, reduced by one sixth of the excess, gone above EUR 424 — and SW 14 says expressly that "the calculation of the PRSI Charge, and accordingly the PRSI Credit, is based on weekly earnings". A monthly calculation that divides the monthly thresholds by 4,33 will not reproduce the statutory answer. 12. PRSI DOES NOT STOP AT 66 FOR EVERYONE ANY MORE. Class A now covers employees aged 66 to 70 who were born on or after 1 January 1958 and have not been awarded the State Pension (Contributory). A blanket 'no PRSI over 66' rule is out of date. 13. PRSI IS NOT DEDUCTIBLE FOR INCOME TAX. Unlike most continental systems, the employee's PRSI does not reduce taxable pay. Net pay is gross less PAYE, less USC and less PRSI, each computed on its own base. 14. THE USC IS NOT A SOCIAL CONTRIBUTION. The Universal Social Charge is an income tax with its own bands and its own exemption threshold; it confers no social insurance entitlement, is not paid into the Social Insurance Fund and is not served as a branch here. It is nonetheless a substantial employee deduction and any comparison of Irish and continental employee burdens that omits it will mislead. 15. TOTALS. For an ordinary full-time employee above EUR 552 a week: employee 4,20 % PRSI plus 1,5 % auto-enrolment where enrolled; employer 11,25 % PRSI (10,25 % social insurance plus 1,00 % training levy) plus 1,5 % auto-enrolment. Ireland's employer burden remains among the lowest in the EU, but the gap is closing on a schedule that is already law. SUB-NATIONAL VARIATION: none. PRSI, the National Training Fund Levy and auto-enrolment are national and uniform across every county. The only differentiation is by PRSI CLASS — determined by the nature of the employment and the level of weekly earnings, not by geography — and by AGE for auto-enrolment eligibility. Northern Ireland is a separate jurisdiction under United Kingdom National Insurance and is not covered by this record. WHAT WE DO NOT PUT A NUMBER ON: 1. The Universal Social Charge — deliberately not given a branch. It is an income tax, not a social insurance contribution, and including it would misclassify it. It is flagged in the scheme notes because it materially affects net pay. 2. The State's 0,5 % auto-enrolment top-up — described in the auto-enrolment branch base but not carried in rate_total, because it is neither an employer nor an employee contribution and adding it would overstate the cost of employment. 3. Occupational pension schemes and PRSAs outside auto-enrolment — not priced. Where an employer operates a qualifying scheme, its employees are outside My Future Fund and the contribution rates are contractual. 4. Public-sector classes B, C, D and H, Community Employment subclasses A8 and A9, Class E ministers of religion, Class M, Class P and Class S self-employed — all published in SW 14 and all outside the scope of an ordinary private-sector employee. The Class J rate is served because a low-earning private-sector employee genuinely falls into it. 5. The Additional Superannuation Contribution — a public-service charge, expressly outside employer PRSI, not relevant to a private-sector employee. ALREADY LEGISLATED, NOT YET IN FORCE: 1. PRSI RATES RISE ON 1 OCTOBER 2026. Class A employee 4,20 % to 4,35 %; employer 9,00 % to 9,15 % and 11,25 % to 11,40 %; Class J employer 0,70 % to 0,85 %. These are printed in SW 14 itself and are certain. THIS RECORD MUST BE REISSUED ON 2026-10-01 — it is the single hardest-dated change in this dataset. 2. FURTHER PRSI INCREASES ARE ANNOUNCED FOR 1 OCTOBER 2027 AND 1 OCTOBER 2028 under the same multi-year roadmap. The exact figures for those years should be read from the SW 14 edition current at the time rather than extrapolated. 3. AUTO-ENROLMENT CONTRIBUTIONS ESCALATE ON A PHASED SCHEDULE from 1,5 % / 1,5 % / 0,5 % in years one to three to 6 % / 6 % / 2 % by year ten. The first step-up is due in the fourth year of the scheme, i.e. from 2029. RE-VERIFY ANNUALLY and carry the phase, not a fixed rate. 4. THE EMPLOYER THRESHOLD MOVES EVERY 1 JANUARY with the national minimum wage. RE-VERIFY FROM 2026-11-01, after the budget and the Low Pay Commission recommendation. 5. The EUR 352 employee threshold, the EUR 424 credit taper endpoint and the EUR 12 maximum credit have been static for several years but are set administratively and can move in any budget. RE-VERIFY FROM 2026-11-01. SOURCING CAVEATS: VERIFIED BY FETCHING AND READING THE PRIMARY DOCUMENT — the Department of Social Protection's own Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) 2026 Contribution Rates and User Guide (SW 14, January 2026) was retrieved as a PDF and its text extracted in full. From it were read verbatim the complete Class A subclass tables for both the period until 30 September 2026 and the period from 1 October 2026 (A0, AX, AL, A1 with the EUR 38 / 352 / 424 / 552 bands and the 4,20 %/4,35 % employee and 9,00 %/9,15 %/11,25 %/11,40 % employer rates), the Class J table, the Community Employment subclasses A8 and A9, the PRSI Credit rules and the worked example at EUR 377 a week, the statement that the contribution comprises social insurance plus "The 1% National Training Fund Levy, included in the employer's contribution in Classes A and H", the definition of reckonable pay, the share-based remuneration asymmetry, the list of employee payments on which PRSI is fully chargeable including superannuation and PRSA contributions, the age scope including the 66-to-70 extension for those born on or after 1 January 1958, and the contribution-week rules. COULD NOT READ: gov.ie's HTML PRSI Class A Rates page, citizensinformation.ie and revenue.ie all returned HTTP 403 or 404 during this pass; nothing turns on it, since SW 14 is the Department's own consolidated statement and was read directly. The auto-enrolment figures — the 1,5 % / 1,5 % / 0,5 % opening rates, the EUR 20.000 eligibility threshold, the EUR 80.000 contribution cap, the ages 23 to 59 and the escalation to 6 % / 6 % / 2 % by year ten — are from published descriptions of the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024 and the scheme's launch rather than from the Act's text, which was not opened in this pass; they are consistent across every source consulted but should be confirmed against the Act and NAERSA's own material at the next refresh. INFERRED, NOT READ AS A STATED FIGURE: the split of the employer rate into 10,25 % social insurance plus 1,00 % National Training Fund Levy (and 8,00 % plus 1,00 % in the reduced subclasses) is arithmetic from SW 14's statement that the 1 % levy is included in the published Class A employer rates; SW 14 prints only the combined figure. The EUR 551,85 minimum-wage derivation of the EUR 552 threshold and the EUR 12,42 weekly cost of crossing it are arithmetic. Reported branches are those applying to an ordinary private-sector employee in PRSI Class A. Not covered: public-sector Classes B, C, D and H, Class E ministers of religion, Class M, Class P, self-employed Class S, Community Employment participants, voluntary contributors, and posted workers whose applicable law is determined by Regulation (EC) No 883/2004. Employee and employer shares are stated separately: the employee figure is what leaves the payslip, the employer figure is cost of employment and is not a deduction.

Get it programmatically

curl https://euroref.dev/v1/ie/social-contributions
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://euroref.dev/v1/ie/social-contributions/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/ie/social-contributions

Other Ireland series: Policy interest rate · Value added tax (VAT / Cáin Bhreisluacha) · National Minimum Wage (Íosphá Náisiúnta) · Public holidays · Consumer price inflation (CPI, year-on-year) · Corporation tax · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax (income tax rate bands) · ECB main refinancing operations rate (fixed rate) · Late-payment interest (EU Late Payment Directive) · Statutory interest on judgment debts (Courts Act rate) · VAT registration threshold

The same figure elsewhere: Italy · Latvia · Lithuania · Luxembourg · Malta · all 34