Ireland Sick Pay Rules 2026: What Employers Must Pay and When

Statutory Sick Pay, usually shortened to SSP, is the legal minimum amount of paid sick leave an employer in Ireland must provide. It was introduced under the Sick Leave Act 2022 and the entitlement began on 1 January 2023.

Before this law, there was no general right to paid sick leave in the private sector. Whether you were paid while off sick depended entirely on your employer’s own policy. The Sick Leave Act set a floor that every employer has to meet, while leaving room for more generous company schemes on top.

The point for an overseas business is that this is a hard requirement, not a discretionary benefit. If you employ someone in Ireland, you carry the statutory sick pay obligation whether or not you have a local entity, and whether or not you offer any wider sick pay policy of your own.

In 2026, an employer must provide 5 days of statutory sick pay per calendar year. Each day is paid at 70% of the employee’s normal daily wage, up to a maximum of €110 a day. These figures have applied since 1 January 2024 and they carry into 2026 without change.

The sick pay year runs with the calendar year, from 1 January to 31 December. The 5 days can be taken together or spread out across the year as single days. Unused days do not carry into the following year, so the entitlement resets to 5 days each January.

The €110 cap matters most for higher earners. For someone on a modest salary, 70% of their daily pay will usually sit below the cap, so they receive the full 70%. For a higher earner, 70% of a day’s pay can exceed €110, in which case €110 is the most the employer has to pay for that day under the statutory scheme.

It is worth noting that statutory sick pay sits alongside Ireland’s wider payroll obligations. The sick pay itself is taxed like normal pay, so the usual deductions still apply. If you want the full picture of how Irish payroll deductions work, our guide to PAYE, PRSI and USC in Ireland covers it in detail.

This is where a lot of the confusion comes from. The Sick Leave Act 2022 set out a phased increase: 3 days in 2023, 5 days in 2024, then a planned move to 7 days and eventually 10 days. Many guides written a year or two ago still describe that path as though it is happening on schedule. It is not.

The Government decided not to proceed with the rise to 7 days. The decision followed research pointing to a heavier burden on lower-margin sectors such as retail and hospitality, alongside concerns from employers about rising labour and input costs. The Minister for Enterprise indicated the door is closed on increasing the entitlement beyond 5 days for the time being.

So for 2026, the practical takeaway is simple: plan around 5 days, not 7, and not 10. If you have budgeted or written policy on the assumption that the figure climbs this year, that assumption needs correcting. There is no confirmed date for any further increase, which means the safest planning position is that 5 days remains the rule until the Government says otherwise.

An employee qualifies for statutory sick pay once two conditions are met. They need at least 13 continuous weeks of service with the employer, and they need to be certified by a medical practitioner as unable to work. The medical certificate is required from the first day of sick leave.

There are no waiting days. An employer cannot make the employee wait two or three days before statutory sick pay starts. Once the qualifying conditions are met, the entitlement applies from day one of the certified absence. The following points are worth keeping in view.

• Both full-time and part-time employees qualify for the full 5 days. The entitlement is not pro-rated for part-time hours, though the daily payment is based on the employee’s own normal pay.
• Probationers, apprentices, trainees, interns and agency workers can all qualify once they meet the 13-week service requirement.
• If someone works for more than one employer, they can claim 5 days from each, provided they meet the 13-week service test with each one.
• If a person leaves and returns to the same employer within 26 weeks, the gap does not break continuous service, so the earlier service still counts toward the 13 weeks.

Calculating the daily payment is straightforward for someone on steady pay: take 70% of the normal daily rate, apply the €110 cap. Where pay varies week to week, the payment is based on the average over the 13 weeks before the sick leave. Regular fixed allowances count toward normal pay, but overtime and commission are excluded.

Statutory sick pay covers the first 5 days of certified illness in a year. If an employee is off for longer, the employer is not obliged to keep paying under the statutory scheme. At that point the support shifts to the State.

An employee with sufficient PRSI contributions can apply to the Department of Social Protection for Illness Benefit, which generally begins from day 6 of the illness. Illness Benefit is paid by the State, not the employer, so the cost does not fall back on the business once the statutory sick days are exhausted.

Two further points are worth knowing. First, many employers run their own sick pay scheme that is more generous than the statutory minimum. Where that scheme is more favourable when viewed as a whole, it applies instead of SSP, and the employee is paid under it rather than receiving SSP on top. Second, an employer in genuine financial difficulty can apply to the Labour Court for an exemption from paying statutory sick pay, granted for a period of between three and twelve months.

Employees are also protected from penalisation for taking statutory sick leave. An employer cannot dismiss, treat unfairly, or worsen the conditions of someone for using their entitlement. Disputes over sick pay can be brought to the Workplace Relations Commission within six months.

For a business hiring in Ireland without a local entity, statutory sick pay is one of several rules that have to be applied correctly through payroll. An Employer of Record Ireland arrangement takes that obligation off your desk by acting as the legal employer on your behalf.

The EOR runs Irish payroll, so the 5-day entitlement, the 70% rate and the €110 cap are applied as a matter of course. It tracks the 13-week service rule for each employee, handles medical certification and the records that go with it, and manages the move to Illness Benefit if an absence runs beyond the statutory days. None of this requires the overseas business to learn the mechanics or set up an entity to administer them.

Because the structure is correct from day one, you also avoid the most common mistakes: applying the wrong number of days, missing the daily cap, or building an outdated 7-day or 10-day figure into a contract. The entitlement is handled as part of compliant Irish employment, not bolted on afterwards.

If you are weighing up whether to set up an entity or use an EOR for your first Irish hires, our overview of what an Employer of Record in Ireland does walks through how the model works across payroll, contracts and statutory entitlements.