Irish rental income

Rental profit and losses

If your rental income is greater than your rental expenses you make a rental profit. Your rental profit is calculated on a yearly basis.

If your rental expenses are greater than your rental income you make a rental loss.

You pay tax on your net rental income. This is the total rental income minus your total rental expenses.

What do you do if you make a loss?

You may make a loss on your rental income. If you do you can carry forward your rental losses until you can offset them against a rental profit. You can only offset the loss against Irish rental income. You must use capital allowances first before offsetting the rental losses you brought forward from an earlier year.

See manual Part 04-08-08 for more information on offsetting capital allowances.

You can not offset rental losses made by your spouse or civil partner against your rental profits. You also can not offset losses you make from uneconomic rentals against other rental profits. Uneconomic rentals are where it is not possible to make a profit from the rent received.

You can not offset rental losses against other income or carry them back to a previous year.

You also can not offset foreign rental losses against an Irish rental profit. You can only offset them against foreign rental income. See the foreign rental income section for more information.

Multiple rental properties

If you are receiving rental income from a number of properties you own you must calculate a profit or a loss separately for each rental property.

You first deduct the allowable expenses from the individual rents received, resulting in a profit or a loss. You then add each property's profits or losses together to get your yearly net rental income.

Next: Tax incentive schemes for rental Income