Rates last updated: 15 October 2026 · How we verify
Capital Gains Tax in Ireland: What You Pay, When You Pay It, and When You File
Capital Gains Tax is the simplest major Irish tax to calculate and the easiest one to get in trouble with. For most gains the rate is a flat 31% — Budget 2027 cut it from 33% for disposals on or after 7 October 2026. There's one annual exemption. For shares, crypto and most property, that's the whole rate structure.
- CGT is 31% on gains from disposals on or after 7 October 2026 and 33% before, after a €1,270 yearly exemption.
- Pay by 15 December for sales from January to November, and by 31 January for December sales.
- The return is due separately, by 31 October of the following year; work out your figure with our capital gains tax calculator.
The trouble comes from everything around it: paying and filing are two separate obligations on two different calendars, you have to file even in years when reliefs or losses mean you owe nothing, and the order in which you sell things changes what you owe.
In the example below, selling a losing holding in the same year as a winning one saves €1,085 in tax. Sell them a month apart, either side of 31 December, and you don't get that.
What CGT applies to
- CGT is charged on the gain when you sell, swap or give away shares, crypto, investment property, land or other capital assets.
- Your main home is generally exempt, and so are gifts between spouses or civil partners.
CGT is charged on the gain — what you sold something for, minus what you paid for it — not on the sale price.
It applies to disposals of:
- Shares, including RSUs and options once they've vested and become yours
- Crypto-assets, on every disposal including crypto-to-crypto swaps
- Property other than your main home
- Land, business assets, and most other capital assets
- Gifts of assets to anyone other than your spouse or civil partner
Your main home is generally exempt under principal private residence relief, though periods when it wasn't your main home, or when part of it was let or used for business, can restrict that. If you've rented out a property you previously lived in, don't assume the exemption still covers the whole gain.
A "disposal" is broader than a sale. Swapping one asset for another is a disposal. Gifting is a disposal. You can trigger CGT without receiving any cash at all — which matters, because the tax is payable in euro regardless.
The €1,270 exemption, and how netting works
- Each person gets €1,270 of net gains a year tax-free, after setting the year's losses against its gains.
- It can't be carried forward or shared with a spouse.
- So a loss realised in the same year as a gain can save up to 31% of that loss in tax.
Every individual gets a personal exemption of €1,270 a year of net gains, tax-free.
Three rules attach to it:
- It doesn't carry forward. Unused, it's gone at the end of the year.
- It's not transferable between spouses. A couple gets €1,270 each, not €2,540 against one person's gains.
- It applies to your net position — gains and losses across the year are set against each other first, and the exemption comes off what's left.
That last rule is the one worth planning around.
Say that in November 2026 you sell one holding at a €9,000 gain and another at a €3,500 loss.
| Calculation | Amount | |
|---|---|---|
| Gain on the first disposal | €9,000.00 | |
| Loss on the second disposal | −€3,500.00 | |
| Net gain | €5,500.00 | |
| Less annual exemption | −€1,270.00 | |
| Taxable gain | €4,230.00 | |
| CGT at 31% | €4,230 × 31% | €1,311.30 |
Now the same person sells only the winning holding, and keeps the losing one until January:
| Calculation | Amount | |
|---|---|---|
| Gain | €9,000.00 | |
| Less annual exemption | −€1,270.00 | |
| Taxable gain | €7,730.00 | |
| CGT at 31% | €7,730 × 31% | €2,396.30 |
Difference: €1,085 — which is exactly €3,500 × 31%. Crystallising the loss in the same year as the gain converts it into cash. Deferring it to January means waiting until you have a future gain to use it against.
The loss isn't lost either way: unused losses carry forward indefinitely, and you enter them on the return for the year you use them. Which brings us to the part people skip: the return itself.
Paying and filing are not the same thing
- Pay by 15 December for disposals from 1 January to 30 November, and by 31 January for December disposals.
- File the return separately by 31 October of the following year: Form CG1 for PAYE employees, or within Form 11 if you're self-assessed.
This is where the surcharges come from, and it catches organised, well-paid people every year.
Paying:
| Disposals made | Tax payable by |
|---|---|
| 1 January – 30 November | 15 December of the same year |
| 1 – 31 December | 31 January of the following year |
Filing: separately, a CGT return is due by 31 October of the following year — on a Form CG1 if you're a PAYE employee, or within your Form 11 if you're self-assessed.
So a disposal in June 2026 means: pay by 15 December 2026, file by 31 October 2027 — more than ten months apart. Paying on time and never filing is an easy mistake to make.
You must file even when no tax is due because reliefs or losses brought the bill to nil. The one exception is a year in which you made only losses: you don't have to report them that year, but you must enter the carried-forward loss on the return for the later year in which you use it. Late filing carries a surcharge: 5% of the tax due (up to €12,695) if you file by 31 December, and 10% (up to €63,485) after that, according to Revenue's CG1 helpsheet.
And the December quirk is genuinely counter-intuitive: a disposal on 30 November is payable within about two weeks; a disposal on 1 December is payable by 31 January, about two months later. Same tax year, different deadline — and the return for both is due the following 31 October.
The dates are on Revenue's page when and how do you pay and file CGT, and Revenue's Form CG1 helpsheet explains who files a CG1. Our CGT calculator shows both deadlines for the date you enter.
The 7 October 2026 rate cut and your 2026 deadlines
- The rate depends on the date of each disposal, not on when you pay.
- A €20,000 gain on shares sold on 6 October 2026 costs €6,180.90; sold on 7 October it costs €5,806.30, €374.60 less.
- The payment deadline for both is 15 December 2026.
| Sold on 6 October 2026 | Sold on 7 October 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Gain | €20,000.00 | €20,000.00 |
| Less annual exemption | −€1,270.00 | −€1,270.00 |
| Taxable gain | €18,730.00 | €18,730.00 |
| Rate | 33% | 31% |
| CGT | €6,180.90 | €5,806.30 |
| Disposal | Rate | Pay by | File the return by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shares sold in March 2026 | 33% | 15 December 2026 | 31 October 2027 |
| Crypto sold on 20 October 2026 | 31% | 15 December 2026 | 31 October 2027 |
| Shares sold on 5 December 2026 | 31% | 31 January 2027 | 31 October 2027 |
| Development land sold in November 2026 | 33% (no cut) | 15 December 2026 | 31 October 2027 |
The cut to 31% was announced in the Budget 2027 statement and doesn't apply to development land. What else the Budget changed is in our Budget 2027 guide.
Which shares did you actually sell?
- First in, first out: the oldest identical shares you hold are treated as sold.
- Shares bought in the four weeks before a sale are matched first.
- A loss on shares you buy back within four weeks can only be used against the shares you bought back.
If you bought the same asset in several tranches — almost everyone with an RSU plan or a regular investment — you need a rule to decide which units you disposed of.
Ireland uses FIFO: first in, first out. The units treated as sold are the oldest you hold, regardless of which ones you intended to sell or which your broker reports.
There's one exception for shares. The four-week rule: shares you sell are matched first with identical shares you bought in the four weeks before the sale. And if you sell at a loss and buy the same shares back within four weeks, that loss can only be set against a later gain on the shares you bought back. It exists to stop people manufacturing artificial losses by selling and immediately rebuying. Both rules are set out on Revenue's page on selling or disposing of shares.
For RSUs specifically, there's a step before all this: the value at vesting was already taxed as employment income through payroll, and that value becomes your base cost. Only growth after vesting is a capital gain. Our RSU tax guide works through a vest, sell-to-cover and a sale in dollars. Crypto disposals follow the same CGT rules — see crypto tax in Ireland.
What Revenue asks you to keep
- Keep the date, quantity, price and fees for every purchase and sale, plus euro values on both dates for anything priced in another currency.
- Keep them for as long as you hold the asset and six years after you sell.
Records are your responsibility, and the burden falls years after the event:
- Acquisition records — dates, quantities, prices paid, for every tranche. FIFO makes this essential rather than optional.
- Disposal records — dates, quantities, proceeds.
- All fees — broker, trading, legal and professional costs are allowable and reduce your gain.
- Euro values at both dates if the asset was priced in another currency. Irish CGT is computed in euro, so exchange rate movement between acquisition and disposal is itself part of your gain.
- Full transaction exports from any broker or platform, downloaded while you still have the account. Losing access when you change jobs or when a platform closes is a common records problem.
- Enhancement expenditure on property — capital improvements, not repairs.
If reconstructing several years of this sounds worse than the tax, that's the usual reaction, and it's what our CGT Review service is for.
If you're not Irish-domiciled, or you're leaving
- Irish residents are within Irish CGT on assets anywhere in the world.
- If you're not Irish-domiciled, foreign gains are generally taxed only when you bring the money into Ireland.
- Ordinary residence keeps you within the charge for three years after you leave.
Two situations change the scope of what's caught.
Residence and ordinary residence. Someone who is resident or ordinarily resident is within the charge to Irish CGT on disposals of assets wherever they are located — including property or investments abroad — subject to the domicile point below. After three consecutive years of Irish tax residence you become ordinarily resident from the start of year four, and that status continues for three years after you stop being resident, so leaving Ireland doesn't end the exposure immediately.
Domicile. If you're resident but not Irish-domiciled, foreign gains are generally taxed on a remittance basis — that is, to the extent you bring them into Ireland. Irish assets are taxable regardless. What counts as a remittance is broader than a bank transfer, and mixing pre-arrival capital with post-arrival gains in one account turns a clean position into an unclear one.
Both are covered in moving to Ireland: how cross-border taxes work.
Before 15 December: what to do
- Add up every gain and loss you've made since 1 January and pay what's due by 15 December.
- Check that a CGT return was filed for every year since 2022 in which you had a gain.
- List every disposal since 1 January 2026: shares, RSUs sold after vesting, crypto swaps, property and gifts of assets. Each one has a date, which sets its rate and its payment deadline.
- Set this year's losses against this year's gains first. A loss realised in the same tax year reduces the gain before the €1,270 exemption, as in the netting example above.
- Pay by 15 December 2026 for disposals from January to November, using the details on Revenue's pay and file page. Late payment is charged interest.
- Check earlier years. If you've made a gain on anything since 2022 — shares, crypto, a property, even a gift — check whether a CG1 was filed for each of those years. Paying the tax and skipping the return is how a settled liability turns into a surcharge.
Related reading
Questions we get asked
I made a loss this year. Is there anything to do?
Keep the records. If you made no gains that year, Revenue doesn't require you to report the loss then — but you must enter it on the return for the later year when you use it against a gain, and you'll need to prove it. A bad year is an asset if you can evidence it.
I sold shares but the gain was under €1,270, so no tax. Do I still file?
File it. Revenue requires a return even where reliefs or losses bring the tax to nil, and the filing obligation is separate from the payment obligation.
Can my spouse and I combine our exemptions?
No. Each of you has €1,270 against your own gains. Transfers of assets between spouses and civil partners are themselves exempt from CGT, which can matter for how holdings are arranged — but that's planning to do in advance, not after a sale.
I gifted shares to my son. Is there CGT?
Generally yes. A gift is a disposal, and it's treated as taking place at market value even though no money changed hands. Your son may also have a Capital Acquisitions Tax position on receiving it — see inheritance tax in Ireland.
I sold my house. Do I owe CGT?
Usually not, if it was your main home throughout your ownership. It gets more complicated if you let it out, moved abroad and kept it, or used part of it for business. Worth checking rather than assuming, particularly for a large gain.
How far back can Revenue look?
Longer than you'd like, and the obligation to hold records sits with you. Keep acquisition records for as long as you hold the asset, and for six years after you dispose of it.