Short-term business visitors to Ireland

The Irish tax authorities issued updated guidance in December 2019 with respect to the PAYE treatment of short term business travellers to Ireland.

With effect from 1 January 2020, for the purposes of determining whether an automatic exemption from PAYE applies to temporary assignees carrying on duties in Ireland, employers are now required only to consider the number of work days spent in Ireland in the current tax year. There is no longer a requirement to consider work days spent in Ireland over multiple tax years. Further guidance on the operation of this new approach is expected to issue in early 2020.

The effect of the updated guidance is that there will be no requirement to operate PAYE in respect of short term business visitors to Ireland where the following conditions are satisfied:

The assignee is resident in a country with which Ireland has a Double Tax Agreement (DTA) and is not tax resident in Ireland;
The assignee has no more than 60 Irish workdays in the current tax year; and
The assignee is not on the payroll of an Irish employer.

Where a business traveller from a DTA country spends more than 60 workdays but less than 183 days in Ireland in a tax year, there is still a requirement to apply for a release from the obligation to operate PAYE.

Mark Hynes
mhynes@bdo.ie