Minimum wage in Ireland 2026: €14.15 an hour, all rates

The rate was set by S.I. No. 472/2025 and applies from 1 January to 31 December 2026. Younger workers can be paid a percentage of the full rate:

Source: Workplace Relations Commission, national minimum wage page, checked 12 October 2026.

There is no lower rate for trainees or for people on probation: the old trainee rates were abolished on 4 March 2019. Close relatives of a sole trader employer and statutory craft apprentices are not covered by the minimum wage.

Irish law does not define a full-time week, but 39 hours is the reference that Eurostat uses for Ireland and the one the Department of Finance uses in its budget documents. On that basis:

Eurostat publishes €2,391 a month for Ireland in January 2026, which matches. If you work fewer hours, multiply your hours by €14.15: 20 hours a week is €283 a week, or about €1,226 a month.

This is an approximate calculation for 2026: a single person on PAYE (Class A1), working 39 hours a week all year, with only the standard tax credits.

• Income tax: 20% of €28,696.20 is €5,739.24. The personal tax credit (€2,000) and the employee tax credit (€2,000) bring it down to €1,739.24.
• USC: 0.5% on the first €12,012 (€60.06) and 2% on the rest up to €28,700 (€333.68), so €393.74. The top of the 2% band was set at €28,700 in Budget 2026 precisely so that a full-time minimum wage worker stays out of the higher rates.
• PRSI: 4.2% until 30 September 2026 and 4.35% from 1 October, on all your pay because you earn more than €352 a week. The PRSI credit stops at €424 a week, so you do not get it. That comes to about €1,216 for the year.

That leaves about €25,347 a year, or roughly €2,112 a month (around €487 a week). Deductions take about 11.7% of your pay.

It is approximate: it does not include the Rent Tax Credit (up to €1,000 in 2026 if you rent), pension contributions, emergency tax in your first weeks, or the exact number of paydays in your year. Your payslip and your Revenue myAccount have the real figure.

The rate went from €13.50 in 2025 to €14.15 in 2026, a rise of €0.65 or 4.8%.

In Budget 2027, presented on 6 October 2026, the Government announced €14.94 an hour from 1 January 2027, up €0.79 (5.6%). It follows the Low Pay Commission's recommendation of July 2026, but it still needs a ministerial order to become law, so treat it as announced, not final. The 2027 rates for under 20s have not been confirmed by an official source yet.

Ireland planned to replace the minimum wage with a living wage set at 60% of the median hourly wage, originally by 2026. In April 2025 the target was moved to 2029, and the Department of Enterprise's Budget 2027 statement speaks of removing the 2029 timeline, without a new date. You may still see "from 2029" on some official pages.

According to the Low Pay Commission, the current minimum wage is about 57.4% of the median hourly wage, and €14.94 would take it to about 58.3%.

• UK: the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour from April 2026 for workers aged 21 and over, which is about €15.05 at the exchange rate of 12 October 2026. You have every UK rate in our UK minimum wage guide.
• European Union: with €2,391 a month, Ireland has the second highest statutory minimum wage of the 22 EU countries that have one (Eurostat, January 2026), behind Luxembourg (€2,704) and ahead of Germany (€2,343) and the Netherlands (€2,295). The lowest is Bulgaria, at €620.

A higher minimum wage does not mean more money left over: rent in Dublin and other cities takes a large share of it, which is why the budget matters as much as the rate.

• Board and lodging can count, up to set amounts: €1.27 per hour worked for meals, and €33.42 a week (or €4.77 a day) for accommodation.
• Tips do not count. Since 1 December 2022 your employer cannot use tips or service charges to make up your basic pay.
• Premiums do not count either: overtime, Sunday, public holiday and unsocial hours premiums are on top of the minimum.

An employer in genuine financial difficulty can ask the Labour Court for a temporary exemption of 3 to 12 months, once, and only with the agreement of most of its staff.

1. 1. Check your payslip: your hours and your hourly rate should be clear.
2. 2. Ask your employer, in writing, for a statement of your average hourly pay. They have 4 weeks to give it to you.
3. 3. If the problem is not solved, complain to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) through the online form on workplacerelations.ie. You can ask for an inspection or refer the dispute to an adjudicator, normally within 6 months of the statement.

Your employer must keep minimum wage records for 3 years, and it is illegal to penalise you for asking to be paid the minimum. The WRC information line is (059) 917 8990.

On about €2,112 a month, small leaks add up fast. A simple way to start is the 50/30/20 rule: about €1,056 for needs, €634 for wants and €422 for savings, adjusted to what rent really costs you. Building a small emergency fund first protects you from one bad month turning into debt.

Neto is a personal finance app for iPhone and Android where you log your spending in seconds without connecting your bank, set monthly budgets with alerts, and see your net worth in one number. It works in euros or any of 62 currencies and is free to start. This guide is information, not financial or legal advice.