Employer payroll obligations
Commencing and ceasing employees
As an employer, you must inform Revenue when your employees:
- start their employment
- and
- end their employment.
Hiring a new employee
You must register all new employees, unless it is their first job or their first job in Ireland. To register an employee, you must submit a Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN) request with the correct start date. This can be done through:
For further information, please see Requesting RPNs by online form for new employees.
RPNs are available in real time for new employees. This removes the need for Emergency Tax, in most cases.
Emergency Tax only applies where an RPN is not available for an employee.
When is an RPN not available?
There will be no RPN available if your new employee:
If an employee is starting work in Ireland for the first time, they must register their employment using myAccount. Once an employee is registered, you can request an RPN for them. For further information, please see the Jobs and Pensions section.
Make sure you request an RPN before an employee's first payday. You can do this through:
- your payroll software
- or
- ROS.
This action will create:
- the employment on our records
- and
- an RPN will be made available.
Note
Do not forget to include your employee's correct start date in your payroll submission.
Ceasing an employment
You must include the date of leaving on the final payroll submission if an employee:
- leaves your employment
- goes on a career break
- or
- dies while in your employment.
This notifies us that the employee has ceased employment and it:
- tells Revenue that they have stopped working for you
- means that their next employer will get the correct tax information on the RPN issued to them
- and
- helps avoid overpaying tax or USC.
Delays in updating a final payroll submission could mean that a person's new employer gets a nil RPN. This could lead to Emergency Tax deductions.
If you need further assistance
Please view the video below for step-by-step guidance.
Casual employees
Casual employees do not have fixed hours so you may not always know if, or when, they will return. If a casual employee has not been paid in three months, you must:
- submit a payroll with nil pay and nil deductions for that period
- and
- add the date the employee left. This date should be the last day they worked for you.
Please note that:
- with regard to nil payroll, if an employee did not work or get paid, you must submit zero pay and deductions
- and
- the date of leaving should be the last day the employee worked for you. This applies to all employees, including casual workers.
Why this is important
Submitting the correct information means that your records are kept up-to-date and ensures that everything is accurate for tax or social welfare purposes.
Next: Payroll submissions