Working From Home in Ireland: The Remote Working Relief Explained

What the relief actually covers

Revenue lets you claim tax relief on a share of the extra household costs that come from working at home. Three things qualify, and only three:

• Electricity
• Heating
• Broadband

You can attribute 30% of those costs to remote working, apportioned by the number of days you actually worked from home.

What doesn't qualify: rent, mortgage interest, home insurance, furniture, a desk, a monitor, or a second screen. If your broadband comes in a bundle with TV and phone, you can only claim on the broadband portion — and you need a breakdown from your supplier showing what that portion is.

There's also an eligibility condition that trips people up. This is relief for remote workers, meaning there's an arrangement with your employer to work from home. It doesn't have to be a formal contract — an email confirming your hybrid days is enough — but it has to exist. Revenue explicitly excludes days where you simply brought work home outside normal working hours. Answering emails on the couch at nine at night is not a remote working day.

One more thing worth knowing before you calculate anything: your employer can pay you up to €3.20 per day tax-free towards these costs instead. That payment is free of income tax, PRSI and USC. If you're getting it, the calculation below changes — see the maths section. Revenue sets out the qualifying costs on its remote working costs page.

How the maths works

Revenue uses one formula:

((A × B) ÷ C − D) × 30%

• A = your allowable bills for electricity, heating and broadband for the year
• B = the number of days you worked from home
• C = the number of days in the year — 365, or 366 in a leap year
• D = any remote working allowance your employer already paid you

Then you apply your highest rate of tax to the result.

That C is where most online guides go wrong, including some that should know better. They divide by working days — around 230 — instead of days in the year. That inflates the answer by roughly 60%. Revenue divides by 365. Full stop.

Say your electricity and heating for the year came to €2,200 and your broadband to €480 — €2,680 combined. You worked from home 120 days, and your employer paid you no allowance.

That €264.33 is a deduction against your taxable income, not a refund. What you actually get back is your tax rate applied to it: €52.87 if you pay tax at 20%, €105.73 if you pay at 40%.

If you share a house, the bills get split first. Two housemates paying €2,500 of qualifying bills between them, split equally, each start from €1,250. Each working 120 days from home: €1,250 × 120 ÷ 365 = €410.96, and 30% of that is €123.29 each. At the higher rate that's €49.32 back per person. You each claim on your own return, for the portion you actually paid.

If your employer pays the €3.20 a day, subtract it. On 120 days that's €384. So €881.10 − €384 = €497.10, and 30% is €149.13 — worth €59.65 back at the higher rate. That looks worse, but it isn't: you already received €384 tax-free in your pocket. Between the allowance and the relief you're roughly €440 better off, against €106 for claiming the relief alone. If your employer offers the allowance, take it.

It's not huge on its own — but it adds up

Let's be honest about the size of this. On the numbers above, a higher-rate taxpayer working from home two days a week gets back a bit over a hundred euro a year. Nobody's retiring on that, and if you spend an evening hunting for old electricity bills to claim it in isolation, you've arguably lost money on the trade.

The argument for claiming it isn't "multiply by four years and it's a fortune." It's that it lives on the same return as everything else you haven't claimed. Once you're filing an Income Tax Return for a given year, adding remote working relief costs you an extra two minutes — and most people filing that return discover they were also missing rent, medical expenses, or a flat-rate expense for their occupation. The relief is a reason to open the return, not the prize inside it.

Four years are open at any time. Right now that's 2022 through 2025, and the 2022 year closes permanently on 31 December 2026. If you were working from home in 2022 and never claimed, that one has a deadline.

The fuller list of what else you're likely leaving behind is in the top Irish tax deductions you could be missing. If you'd rather not reconstruct four years of bills and day counts yourself, our Tax Back service does the whole return — every relief, not just this one.

What you need to make the claim

You don't upload anything when you claim. But Revenue can ask afterwards, and the burden of proof is yours, so keep:

• Electricity and heating bills for each year, in your name where possible.
• Your broadband invoice, with the bundle breakdown if it's bundled with TV or phone.
• A defensible count of your remote working days. This is the part people invent, and it's the part most likely to be questioned.
• Something showing the remote working arrangement — a hybrid working policy, a contract clause, or an email from your manager.
• The amount of any allowance your employer paid you, if they paid one. It's usually visible on your payslip.
• In a shared house: what you actually paid. If the bills are in your housemate's name, keep the bank transfers showing your share.

On the day count, here's what you must exclude: weekends and public holidays you didn't work, annual leave, days you were in the office, and evenings when you brought work home. A hybrid worker doing two days a week doesn't get 104 days — they get 104 minus holidays, minus leave, minus the weeks they were in the office more. Count it properly; a round number like "150" invites a question.

Keeping utility bills is also useful for other reasons — the same paperwork habit that supports this claim supports your Rent Tax Credit claim, where separating rent from utilities matters.

How to claim it

It isn't applied automatically. You add it yourself.

For a completed year: sign in to myAccount, go to PAYE Services, select "Review your tax for the previous 4 years," request the Statement of Liability for the year you want, then complete the Income Tax Return. Remote Working Relief sits under the expenses section. You enter your bill totals, your day count, and any employer allowance; Revenue runs the formula.

During the current year: you can claim as you go and receive real-time credits, which increase your tax credits in your following payslips rather than paying out a lump sum at year end.

If you're self-assessed: it goes on your Form 11 in ROS.

One distinction worth holding onto, because it confuses everyone who comes to this from the Rent Tax Credit: remote working relief is a deduction, not a credit. A credit comes off your tax bill euro for euro. A deduction comes off your taxable income, so it's worth your marginal rate — 20% or 40% of the allowable cost. That's why a €264 allowable cost is worth €53 or €106, not €264. Medical expenses work on a similar logic and are worth checking in the same sitting: see medical expenses tax relief.

Questions we get asked

My employer pays me the €3.20 a day. Can I still claim the relief?

You can, but the allowance is subtracted in the formula before the 30% is applied, so the relief itself will be smaller. You're still better off overall, because the allowance arrives tax-free. If the allowance fully covers your apportioned costs, there's nothing left to claim.

I live in a shared house and the bills are in my housemate's name. Am I out?

No. Costs shared between two or more people can be apportioned based on what each person actually paid. Keep evidence of your share — a standing order or regular transfers to your housemate. Each of you claims your own portion on your own return.

I work from home in Ireland for an employer based abroad. Does this apply to me?

It depends on how you're taxed. The relief is a deduction against Irish-taxable employment income, so it turns on whether that income is within the Irish system and how your residence position works out. This is one to get looked at rather than guessed — cross-border arrangements are where DIY claims go wrong most often.

Do I have to send Revenue my bills when I claim?

Not at the point of claiming. You enter the totals. But Revenue can request the underlying bills afterwards, and you're expected to have kept them, so don't claim figures you can't back up later.

I worked from home during 2020 and 2021. Can I claim those years?

Not anymore. The four-year window means 2022 is currently the oldest open year, and it closes on 31 December 2026.

If you were working from home at any point since 2022 and never claimed, do all the open years in one sitting rather than one at a time — and while the return is open, check what else is on it. Our tax guide walks through the rest.