Working From Home in Ireland: The Remote Working Relief Explained

What the relief actually covers

In short: 30% of your electricity, heating and broadband costs, apportioned by the days you actually worked from home under an arrangement with your employer. Rent, mortgage interest, insurance, furniture and screens never qualify, and evenings spent answering email from home are not remote working days. Your employer can instead pay up to €3.20 a day tax-free.

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

In short: allowable cost = (bills × remote days ÷ 365 − employer allowance) × 30%, then your tax rate applies. On €2,680 of bills and 120 days at home that is €264.33 of allowable cost, worth €52.87 at 20% or €105.73 at 40%. Revenue divides by 365 days, not working days; guides that use 230 overstate the result by about 60%. Try your own figures in the Work From Home calculator.

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
• 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 many online guides go wrong. 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

In short: about €105 a year for a higher-rate taxpayer on 120 home days, less for a typical hybrid pattern. It is worth claiming because it sits on the same Income Tax Return as the rent, medical and flat rate expense claims most people have also never made. Four years are open, and 2022 closes on 31 December 2026.

Let's be honest about the size of this. On the numbers above, 120 days at home gets a higher-rate taxpayer back about €105 a year — and at two days a week, after holidays and leave, it's less. 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

In short: your electricity, heating and broadband bills for each year (with the bundle breakdown if broadband is bundled), a defensible count of remote days excluding leave, holidays and office days, proof of the remote working arrangement such as a policy or email, and the amount of any employer allowance. Revenue asks for images of the bills when you claim; otherwise keep them six years.

Revenue asks you to upload images of your bills when you claim. If you don't upload them, you must keep the originals for six years — and either way, 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

In short: for a past year, myAccount → PAYE Services → "Review your tax for the previous 4 years" → Income Tax Return → "Your job" → "Remote Working Relief", entering bills, day count and any allowance. For the current year, upload bills through the Receipts tracker and the relief is given during the year. It is a deduction, not a credit: worth 20% or 40% of the allowable cost.

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 Preliminary End of Year Statement for the year you want, then complete the Income Tax Return. Under "Tax Credits and Reliefs", select "Your job", then "Remote Working Relief". You enter your bills, your day count and any employer allowance, and upload the bills; Revenue runs the formula.

During the current year: you can claim as you go, uploading your bills through the Receipts tracker in myAccount, and Revenue gives the relief during the year rather than waiting for 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.

Where to start

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.

Questions we get asked