Working from Ireland as a Belgium resident

At a glance

Rule coverage

What the rules say about Ireland

The rules below are the ones most likely to shape a stay in Ireland, in plain words and with the source behind each one. Your own report tells you which of them apply to you.

1. Significant issueImmigration and visa

   Stays past 180 days without a permit are an overstay

   Every visitor route is exhausted at 180 days. Immigration Act 2004 s.13(1) makes overstaying an offense carrying a fine up to EUR 3,000 or imprisonment up to 12 months, and Garda may arrest without warrant. Any gap in permission is not reckonable for naturalisation later, and even short gaps can affect eligibility.

2. Significant issueTax residency

   183 days or more makes you Irish tax resident on worldwide income

   Revenue counts any part of a day as a full day, with narrow exceptions for airside transit and being prevented from leaving by unforeseen events. Once resident you are taxed on worldwide income, though a non-domiciled resident can use the remittance basis for foreign income and gains, subject to the traps in the remittance basis finding.

3. Significant issuePersonal income tax

   No treaty means PAYE relief caps at 30 workdays with no tie-breaker

   Ireland has comprehensive double taxation agreements with 75 of 78 signed treaty partners, but Brazil and Indonesia have neither a signed nor an in-force agreement. Without a treaty, the 31-to-183 workday PAYE relief tiers are unavailable, relief caps at 30 disregarded workdays, and there is no dual-residence tie-breaker article to fall back on.

4. Significant issueEmployer payroll obligations

   Past 183 days the foreign employer must run Irish PAYE

   Once you are tax resident, PAYE applies regardless of treaty coverage, and the foreign employer, not the worker, carries the withholding obligation. PRSI is also due at this point unless a valid A1 Form, Certificate of Coverage or Certificate of Exemption is in place, a separate instrument from the PAYE relief.

5. Significant issueCrypto tax and legal status

   Cloud-held crypto has no situs, so the remittance basis does not shelter it

   The non-dom remittance basis shelters foreign capital gains only where the asset is situated outside the State. Revenue's published position is that a crypto-asset held on the cloud will not actually be situated anywhere, so it cannot be viewed as situated outside the State, and where situs is disputed the burden is on the taxpayer to prove it, failing which the gain is taxed on a residence basis. This is the decisive finding for any non-dom crypto holder and it overturns the naive pitch of moving to Ireland as a non-dom to hold crypto tax free.

6. Significant issueMoving your company

   CFC rules and the close company surcharge both target retained profit

   A non-Irish company controlled by Irish tax residents is a CFC, with a charge of 12.5 percent on trading income or 25 percent on passive income, subject to four exemptions: low accounting profit, low profit margin, effective tax rate and essential purpose. Separately, undistributed investment income of a close company faces a 20 percent surcharge, and 50 percent of undistributed professional and service income faces a 15 percent surcharge, intended to stop income being hoarded inside the company.

What tends to surprise people here

• The 183 or 280-day dual residency test can catch even short patterns of stays
• No tax treaty with Brazil, Singapore, the UAE or Indonesia
• The remittance basis shelters foreign income, but never Irish workdays

Tax treaty between Belgium and Ireland