Guides to Irish PAYE tax
Irish payslips are not designed to be self-explanatory. These guides work through the parts that cause the most confusion — why three separate deductions are calculated on three slightly different amounts, what your tax credits are actually doing, and how to tell an unusual payslip from a wrong one. All written for employees, with worked numbers rather than legislation references.
Understanding your deductions
Start here if you want to know why a specific figure on your payslip is the size it is. Each deduction has its own base, its own structure and its own set of reliefs.
PAYE explained: how income tax is actually taken from your wages
The 20% and 40% rates, the standard rate cut-off point, how credits come off the bill, and why the same salary is taxed differently from month to month.
USC explained: the Universal Social Charge, band by band
Where the bands sit, the exemption threshold and its cliff edge, what USC is charged on, and why pension contributions barely touch it.
PRSI explained: Class A contributions and what they buy you
The contribution classes, the employee rate and why it keeps rising, blended rates, and the entitlements your record builds — including several that go unclaimed.
Tax credits and the standard rate cut-off point
How credits differ from reliefs, how the cut-off point changes with your circumstances, the credits employees most often miss, and how to check your certificate.
Pension tax relief and the age-related contribution limits
The percentage limits by age, the earnings cap, why relief applies to income tax but not USC or PRSI, and what a contribution actually costs you.
How to read an Irish payslip, line by line
Every section explained in order, the three arithmetic identities that should always hold, and seven checks that find genuine errors.
Emergency tax: why it happens and how to fix it
The two situations that trigger it, what it costs in real money, the exact steps to stop it, and how to get your overpayment refunded.
If you are trying to work out whether a payslip is correct, read How to read an Irish payslip first — it identifies which of the other guides you need. If you have just started a job and the deductions look far too high, go straight to Emergency tax.
How these guides are written
Every guide is written from the perspective of a PAYE employee looking at a real payslip, not from the perspective of tax legislation. That means worked examples with actual numbers, tables that compare the deductions side by side, and explicit notes where a rule behaves in a way that most people find counter-intuitive — the USC exemption cliff edge, for instance, or the fact that pension relief does nothing for your PRSI.
Rates, bands and credits change with each Budget, and the figures used in the examples are the ones the live calculator assumes for a single employee in 2026. They are stated openly in each guide so you can see exactly what any estimate depends on. Where a figure matters to a decision you are making, confirm the current official value with Revenue first.
Nothing here is tax advice. It is background information intended to help you ask better questions of your payroll department and read your own Revenue record with more confidence. Our disclaimer sets out the limits in full.
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