Paying your employees' tax to Revenue

Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI)

Note

The information on this page refers to your current obligations. For your obligations before 1 January 2019, please see the Employer's Guide to PAYE.

PRSI is a payment made by you and your employee. The value of this payment is based on the amount of your employee's pay. PRSI is the main source of funding for social welfare payments.

The total amount paid for an employee in one pay period is called a PRSI contribution. It is made up of the:

• employer's share, that is, the amount of PRSI you pay on your employee's pay
• employee's share, that is, the amount of PRSI an employee pays on their own pay.

Each employee has a PRSI contribution class. This class determines the rate you use to calculate the PRSI you deduct.

The Department of Social Protection (DSP) provides details of each PRSI class, and the PRSI contribution rates.

Records of PRSI contribution

Each time you pay an employee you must, as part of a payroll submission, keep a record of:

• your employee's gross pay for PRSI purposes
• your employee's PRSI share for each pay period
• your employer PRSI share for each pay period
• the PRSI class of each employee
• the number of weeks PRSI contributions paid for each employee.

If any employee changes PRSI class during the year, you must also include in your records the:

• employee's new PRSI class
• number of weeks PRSI contributions that were paid for the employee at their new class.

Your should ensure that the employee's PRSI details included on your payroll submission are correct. Your employee's entitlement to benefits from the DSP could be adversely impacted by errors included on the payroll submission. Care should be taken to ensure the correct PRSI class and number of weeks are reported.

The payroll submission should reflect the number of weeks worked by an employee for the period they are paid. If the employee is paid weekly, then the payroll submission should include 1 week's contribution. If the employee is paid fortnightly, then the payroll submission should include 2 week's contributions. Cumulative number of weeks should not be included.

Errors in the payroll submission should be corrected as soon as you become aware of them. The procedure for correcting each item in a payroll submission, including errors in PRSI contributions, is detailed in Line Item Correction Rules.

Next: Keeping Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) contributions separate