Irish payroll year-end: a checklist
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
Irish payroll year-end closes when you file your final payroll submission for the tax year and ensure every figure submitted to Revenue throughout the year is accurate and reconciled. Unlike the UK, Ireland does not have a separate year-end return process — the real-time reporting system means your obligations are largely met on each payday — but there is still a defined set of tasks to complete before and after 31 December.
How Irish payroll year-end actually works
Ireland moved to real-time reporting under the PAYE Modernisation programme. Every time you run payroll, you submit a Payroll Submission Request (PSR) to Revenue via ROS on or before the payment date. This means there is no annual P35 return to file — that was abolished.
What remains is a reconciliation and tidy-up process. You are confirming that everything submitted in real time throughout the year was correct, that all liabilities were paid, and that your employees have accurate records for their own tax returns.
The year-end checklist
Work through these steps before you process your last payroll of the year and in the weeks that follow.
Before your final December payroll
- Confirm all payrolls for the year have been submitted and accepted by Revenue. Log into ROS and check there are no rejected or pending submissions.
- Reconcile your payroll software totals against what Revenue holds. Revenue's Employer Summary in ROS shows the figures they have on record for PAYE, USC and PRSI. Your software should match.
- Check that all starters and leavers have been processed correctly. Employees who left during the year should have had a final submission filed; employees who joined should have their correct tax credits and cut-off applied from their start date.
- Verify that benefit-in-kind (BIK) values — company cars, health insurance, preferential loans — have been included in payroll throughout the year and are correctly reflected in your totals.
- Make sure any pay adjustments, such as bonus payments or corrective runs, were submitted and are included in the year-to-date figures.
After your final December payroll
- Once you have processed the last pay run, Revenue will generate a final Employer Credit Note or Statement of Account. Review this in ROS for any discrepancies.
- Ensure all PAYE, USC and PRSI liabilities for the year have been paid. Payments are typically due by the 23rd of the month following the period end if paying electronically. Any unpaid amounts will attract interest.
- Provide employees with their payslips for the final period. In Ireland, employees access their own annual summary through myAccount on Revenue's website — you do not issue P60s. It is good practice to let staff know they can view their Employment Detail Summary there once Revenue generates it, typically in January.
PRSI and USC: rates to check
It is worth doing a sense-check on the rates applied throughout the year.
For Class A employees, PRSI is charged at approximately 4.1% on the employee side and approximately 11.15% on the employer side. USC is banded: 0.5% on the first slice, 2% on the next, 3% on the next, and 8% on income above the highest threshold. If your payroll software had an incorrect USC banding applied — for example, if an employee's annual earnings were not correctly annualised for a partial year — this can create a mismatch.
Income tax runs at 20% up to the standard rate cut-off (around €44,000 for a single person in 2026/27) and 40% above that. Remember that Ireland uses tax credits rather than a personal allowance, so even gross pay below the cut-off will have some PAYE liability before credits are applied.
Pension obligations to note for 2026
If you do not already have a workplace pension scheme in place, be aware that My Future Fund — Ireland's auto-enrolment system — is being introduced from 2026. This will bring contribution obligations for both employers and employees. As you close out the current year, it is a good moment to confirm whether your business is prepared for enrolment and whether your payroll software can handle the additional deduction and reporting requirements.
Common errors to catch before you close the year
- Tax credits applied at the wrong value due to a Revenue notification being missed mid-year.
- An employee on emergency tax for longer than necessary, meaning they overpaid and will now claim a refund from Revenue directly.
- Employer PRSI coded at the wrong class — for example, a director payrolled on Class S rather than Class A where Class A applies.
- Expenses or payments made outside of payroll that should have been processed through it and are now missing from annual figures.
Running a clean year-end is largely a product of good practice throughout the year — accurate real-time submissions, prompt responses to Revenue notifications, and regular reconciliation between your payroll records and ROS. If those are in order, closing the year is straightforward.
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