Can a UK Company Hire an Employee in Ireland After Brexit?

A UK company can employ a person based in Ireland after Brexit. There is no rule that stops a British business from having staff in Ireland, and plenty of UK firms already do. What you cannot do is run Irish payroll from a UK PAYE scheme and assume that covers you. Anyone working in Ireland is taxed and protected under Irish rules, so the employment has to sit inside an Irish-compliant structure.

That structure is where the real decision lies. You can register an Irish entity and run the payroll yourself, you can engage the person as a contractor, or you can use an Employer of Record to act as the legal employer on your behalf. Each route gets you to the same place, a person working for your business in Ireland, but the cost, speed, and risk are very different.

For most UK companies hiring one or a handful of people, the entity route is heavier than the situation calls for, and the contractor route carries a misclassification risk that has tightened considerably in recent years. That tends to leave the Employer of Record option as the practical answer, which is why we spend the rest of this guide explaining how the routes compare.

It helps to separate the two things people tend to blur together. Brexit changed the UK’s relationship with the European Union. It did not change the long-standing relationship between Britain and Ireland, which rests on the Common Travel Area and predates EU membership by decades.

Before Brexit, a UK company could rely on EU freedom of establishment to set up and trade across member states with relatively little friction. After Brexit, the UK is a third country in EU terms, so that particular shortcut is gone. A British business no longer has an automatic EU footing from which to operate in Ireland.

What did not change is more important for day-to-day hiring. Irish employment law still applies the same way to anyone working in Ireland, whoever their employer is. Irish citizens and British citizens keep their reciprocal rights to live and work in either country. And the mechanisms for employing someone in Ireland, whether through an entity, a contractor arrangement, or an Employer of Record, all still work exactly as they did before.

One of the first questions a UK employer asks is whether the person needs a visa or work permit. For British and Irish citizens, the answer is no. The Common Travel Area gives citizens of both countries the right to live and work in either jurisdiction without permission, and the UK government has confirmed those rights were not affected by leaving the EU.

So if you are employing an Irish or British national who lives in Ireland, there is no immigration hurdle to clear. They can take up the role on the same footing as any local hire. This is part of why Ireland remains such a natural first step for UK businesses moving into the EU: it is the only native English-speaking country in the bloc, and the workforce overlap with the UK is significant.

The picture is slightly different for other nationalities. An EU national other than an Irish citizen has the right to work in Ireland as an EU citizen. Someone from outside the EU and outside the Common Travel Area may need an Irish employment permit, and that permit sits with the employer of record in Ireland rather than with a UK entity. It is worth confirming a candidate’s status early, because it can shape which hiring route makes sense.

There are three established ways for a UK company to put someone to work in Ireland, and the right one depends on how many people you are hiring, how quickly you need them, and how much administrative weight you want to carry.

The first is to set up an Irish entity. You register a company, open an Irish payroll, register with Revenue as an employer, and run everything yourself. This makes sense if you are building a substantial, long-term presence in Ireland, but it brings ongoing cost, accounting, and filing obligations that are hard to justify for one or two hires.

The second is to engage the person as an independent contractor. It looks simple, but it carries real risk. Following the 2023 Karshan Supreme Court decision, Revenue applies a five-step test to working arrangements, and a contractor who works exclusively for you, under your direction, can be reclassified as an employee, with back-dated PAYE, PRSI, and USC owed. It is a route that often costs more than it saves.

The third is an Employer of Record. The EOR is already a registered Irish employer, so it employs the person on your behalf, runs Irish payroll, and handles the compliance, while you direct the work day to day. No entity to set up, no contractor risk to manage. For most UK firms hiring a small team in Ireland, this is the route that fits.

• Hiring a sizeable, permanent team and ready to run local accounts? An Irish entity may be worth the overhead.
• Engaging a genuinely independent specialist for a defined project? A contractor arrangement can work, if it stands up to the Karshan test.
• Hiring one or a few employees and wanting them compliant and on payroll quickly? An Employer of Record is usually the cleanest fit.

Whichever route you pick, employing someone in Ireland means meeting Irish standards. It is worth knowing what those are before you commit, because they are not optional and they do not stop at payroll.

Pay and tax run through the PAYE system. The employer deducts income tax, Pay Related Social Insurance, and the Universal Social Charge from each pay packet, and pays employer PRSI on top. From 1 October 2026 the higher employer PRSI rate is 11.4%, with a lower rate for smaller earnings. These figures are reported to Revenue on or before every pay date, not at year end.

On top of tax, there is the employment-rights side. The national minimum wage is €14.15 an hour from January 2026. Employees must receive written terms of employment within five days of starting, along with statutory annual leave, public holidays, and the protections of Irish employment law on matters such as dismissal and discrimination.

• Register as an employer with Revenue and operate PAYE, PRSI, and USC through Irish payroll.
• Pay at least the national minimum wage of €14.15 per hour and meet statutory leave and public holiday entitlements.
• Issue written terms of employment within five days and a fuller statement within the required period.
• Apply Irish rules on working time, dismissal, discrimination, and data protection under GDPR.

None of this is unusual, but it is real administration, and it is the part UK businesses most often underestimate. It is also exactly the burden that an Employer of Record absorbs on your behalf.

For a UK company that wants to hire in Ireland without the weight of a local entity, an Employer of Record Ireland arrangement is the most direct path. The EOR is already a registered Irish employer, so it becomes the legal employer of your hire from day one, while you keep full control of their work, objectives, and day-to-day management.

In practice, that means the EOR runs Irish payroll, applies PAYE, PRSI, and USC correctly, reports to Revenue on time, and administers the employment contract in line with Irish law. Statutory leave, written terms, and the right minimum wage are all handled at source. You see a single, predictable cost rather than the spread of registration fees, accountancy, and filing that comes with running your own entity.

It is also fast. Because there is no company to register and no payroll to open from scratch, onboarding through an EOR is usually measured in days rather than the weeks or months an entity setup can take. For a UK business that has found the right person in Ireland and wants them started, that speed matters.

If you are already working with a contractor in Ireland and are uncertain about whether the arrangement holds up, moving to an EOR is straightforward and removes the misclassification exposure rather than leaving it to manage. And if you are starting fresh, it lets you hire the person you want, compliantly, without building infrastructure you may not need.