By Stephen Connolly, Managing Director
Since we started over 15 years ago, CAS Advisory has been supporting international businesses to establish in Ireland. It’s a process I’ve always known, and something I knew would be part of our offering at CAS.
International companies are drawn to Ireland for several reasons. Beyond the beneficial corporate tax rate, there’s Ireland’s position as a gateway to Europe and the UK, a strong and skilled workforce, ease of doing business, and a shared language with major markets like the US and UK.
When I first speak to a business about setting up in Ireland, we need to understand what they’re planning to do here. Will you have employees? Will you be selling directly to Irish or European customers? Will the Irish operation be working with other companies in your group? How will it be funded?
From there, we work through what you need to set up, from the company structure and bank account to tax, VAT, payroll and ongoing reporting.
If you’re planning to establish a business in Ireland, here are some of the main things I recommend working through before you get started.
Start with the right business structure
There are a few ways to establish a business presence in Ireland. The structure you choose will depend on the role you want the Irish operation to play. Depending on your plans, you may establish an Irish subsidiary or register a branch of an existing overseas company.
A subsidiary is a separate Irish legal entity. A branch remains part of the overseas company. That distinction affects areas including company law, tax, accounting and reporting, so the decision should reflect what you actually intend to do in Ireland.
For example, are you planning to build a permanent team here? Will the Irish operation sign contracts and invoice customers? Will it have its own management? Or do you simply need an Irish presence for a specific part of the wider business?
If an overseas company establishes a branch in Ireland, it must generally register that branch with the Companies Registration Office (CRO) within 30 days of its establishment.
For businesses establishing an Irish subsidiary, a limited company is a common structure, but the right option should be considered alongside the wider plans for the Irish operation.
Know what you need to form an Irish company
If you decide an Irish company is the right route, there are a few things you’ll need to have ready. These include the company name, registered office, directors, company secretary, shareholders and details of the company’s proposed activity.
At least one director of an Irish company must generally be resident in the European Economic Area (EEA). If none of your proposed directors meets that requirement, there are alternatives, including putting a Section 137 bond in place.
If your proposed directors are all based in the US, UK or elsewhere outside the EEA, flag this early. For a newly incorporated company relying on a Section 137 bond, the bond needs to be effective from the date of incorporation, so it needs to be dealt with as part of the incorporation process rather than afterwards.
You’ll also need to consider beneficial ownership. Newly incorporated relevant entities generally have five months from incorporation to register their beneficial ownership details with Ireland’s Register of Beneficial Ownership (RBO).
For groups with several layers of ownership, identifying the required beneficial ownership information can take some work, so it’s useful to gather this alongside the incorporation information rather than treating it as a job for later.
Give the banking process enough time
Banking is one area where I recommend allowing more time than you might expect.
Opening an account can involve checks on the company, its directors and beneficial owners, together with supporting documentation for the bank’s customer due diligence and anti-money laundering checks. Where ownership stretches across several companies or jurisdictions, there can be more information to work through.
Don’t wait until you’re ready to pay your first employee or supplier to start thinking about it. Consider banking alongside the incorporation process and be clear about what the Irish business will need from its account. Will you be paying Irish employees? Collecting payments from Irish or European customers? Paying suppliers in different currencies? Does the Irish company need access to an existing group banking arrangement?
Getting those details together early can help avoid banking becoming a bottleneck when you’re ready to start operating.
Register for the taxes that apply to your business
Once your Irish company has its CRO number and bank account, it can be registered with Revenue for the taxes relevant to its activities. Depending on what the company will be doing, that could include Corporation Tax, VAT, employer PAYE and Relevant Contracts Tax (RCT). Revenue sets out the registration process for new companies here.
Ireland’s Corporation Tax rate is currently 12.5% for trading income, while non-trading income and income from certain excepted trades is generally taxed at 25%.
For international businesses, however, the headline rate doesn’t tell you how your particular Irish operation will be taxed.
An Irish-incorporated company is generally regarded as an Irish tax resident, subject to the provisions of an applicable Double Taxation Agreement. A foreign-incorporated company can also become an Irish tax resident where its central management and control is in Ireland.
For international groups, it’s therefore useful to discuss where the business will actually be managed as well as where it is incorporated. Revenue can consider factors including where company policy is decided, investment decisions are made, major contracts are defined, the head office is located and where the majority of directors live.
Those questions are worth working through while you’re setting up the Irish operation rather than once the business is already trading.
Don’t assume VAT starts and ends with an Irish turnover threshold
VAT is an area where international businesses can quickly find that the answer depends on the transaction.
Ireland’s principal VAT registration thresholds currently include €42,500 for businesses supplying services only and €85,000 for businesses supplying goods. There are other thresholds and rules depending on the type of activity.
For international businesses, where and how you’re buying or selling also comes into the picture. Are you selling services from Ireland to another EU country? Bringing goods into Ireland? Buying services from your US parent company? Selling directly to Irish customers?
Non-established businesses can also have Irish VAT registration obligations irrespective of turnover for certain supplies, subject to the rules and available schemes.
That’s why, before you start raising invoices, I recommend mapping out what the Irish business expects to buy and sell, where its customers and suppliers are based and how money will move between the Irish company and the rest of the group. That gives us the information we need to establish the VAT treatment from the beginning, rather than finding out a few months later that invoices need to be corrected.
Think about transactions with the rest of your group
If you’re part of an international group, your Irish company is unlikely to operate completely independently. The parent may fund it. The Irish company may pay management or technology charges to another group entity. Employees may work across different parts of the group. Costs may be recharged between countries.
Those arrangements need to be considered from an Irish tax and accounting perspective.
Ireland’s transfer pricing rules apply the arm’s-length principle, which broadly requires relevant transactions between related parties to be priced as they would be between independent businesses.
If the Irish company will be paying or receiving intercompany charges from day one, agree what those charges relate to, how they will be calculated and what documentation is needed before they become a regular part of the accounts.
Having this agreed from the outset also gives the Irish and group finance teams a clearer process to follow when those balances need to be reconciled at year-end.
Hiring employees? Get Irish payroll set up first
If you are establishing in Ireland because you want to hire locally, payroll needs to be part of the setup. Employers need to register for employer PAYE and operate the Irish PAYE system, including the relevant Income Tax, PRSI and USC deductions. Payroll information is reported to Revenue as employees are paid.
For a multinational, there can be additional questions where employees move between countries, directors are based overseas or the Irish employee remains connected to another group entity.
Directors also need to be considered. An Irish company generally has to operate PAYE on directors’ income even where it has no other employees. This can be particularly relevant where directors of the new Irish company are based elsewhere in the group, so it’s worth discussing their position as part of the payroll setup.
There is also a relatively new payroll consideration in 2026: MyFutureFund.
Ireland’s auto-enrolment retirement savings system launched on 1 January 2026. Broadly, employees aged between 23 and 60 who earn €20,000 or more per year across their employments and don’t already have pension coverage through payroll can fall within the scheme.
For 2026, employers contribute 1.5% of gross pay for employees enrolled in MyFutureFund, alongside a 1.5% employee contribution and 0.5% State contribution. That additional employer cost is worth including when you’re budgeting for your Irish hires.
If your group already operates a pension scheme, check how that arrangement applies to your Irish employees and how it interacts with MyFutureFund.
Decide who will manage your Irish requirements
Your finance team doesn’t have to be sitting in Dublin to manage an Irish business. Many of the international companies we work with have finance teams based elsewhere in Europe, the UK or the US.
What does need to be clear is who is responsible for the Irish requirements.
Who will run payroll? Who is keeping the accounting records? Who is watching the CRO and tax deadlines? And who will make sure the Irish team has the information it needs from the wider group?
Agreeing that early avoids a situation where everyone assumes somebody else is looking after a filing or deadline. It also gives your group finance team a clear point of contact for the Irish side of the business.
Before you get started: a quick checklist
You don’t need to have every detail worked out before speaking to an adviser. In fact, I usually recommend having that conversation before too many decisions have been made.
But if you’re starting to plan your Irish operation, it helps to have some information to hand:
- what you plan to do in Ireland
- whether you expect to establish a branch or separate Irish company
- a group structure or organisation chart, where available
- details of the proposed shareholders and directors, including where the directors are resident
- who your Irish customers and suppliers are likely to be
- whether you’ll be hiring employees in Ireland and approximately how many
- your expected turnover and types of transactions
- how the Irish operation will be funded
- any services, charges or other transactions expected between the Irish business and other group companies
- details of any existing group banking or finance arrangements the Irish operation will use
- when you want the Irish operation to begin trading.
Don’t worry if you don’t have all of this yet. The purpose of the first conversation with your adviser is partly to identify what’s missing and what decisions still need to be made.
How CAS Advisory can help
At CAS Advisory, we work with international businesses establishing and operating in Ireland across company setup, taxation, outsourced accounting, payroll, audit and ongoing business support.
We can help you get the right registrations and processes in place from the beginning, while working alongside your existing finance team and advisers elsewhere in the group.
If Ireland is part of your expansion plans and you’d like to talk through what establishing here would involve for your business, get in touch with the CAS Advisory team at contactus@casaccountants.ie
