Selling Your Home in Ireland: PPR Relief, Capital Gains Tax and Selling From Abroad

Do you pay tax when you sell your home in Ireland?

• Full relief: you're exempt if, for your entire period of ownership, you lived in the property as your main residence and used all of it as your home, per Revenue. A house you bought for €300,000 and sell for €420,000 after living in it throughout leaves no CGT on the €120,000 gain.
• Garden up to one acre: the exemption covers the house and land around it up to one acre (0.405 hectares), not counting the site of the house. Land beyond that size gets no PPR relief, per Revenue's selling a house page.
• Only one home qualifies: a married couple or civil partners living together can have only one residence qualifying for the relief at a time. Owning an apartment in Dublin and a holiday cottage in Kerry means only the one you actually live in can be exempt.
• You have to really live there: Revenue's manual defines a residence as a dwelling you habitually live in; actual physical occupation is required and purely temporary stays don't count (TDM Part 19-07-03).
• Every other property is taxed in full: the gain on a buy-to-let or holiday home, after costs and the €1,270 annual exemption, is taxed at 31%. Budget 2027 cut the rate from 33% for disposals on or after 7 October 2026 (announced, subject to the Finance Bill; Revenue's CGT page already shows the new rate).

What if you let it, moved out or worked abroad?

• Time apportionment: if you owned the house for 14 years and it counts as your home for 11 of them (10 years lived in plus the last 12 months), 11/14 of the gain is exempt and 3/14 is taxable. That's Revenue's own example on its PPR page.
• The last 12 months always count: the final 12 months of ownership are treated as occupied, whatever you did with the house, under section 604(3) and (4). That gives you a year to sell the old home after moving into the new one without losing relief.
• Working abroad can count as living there: a period when you worked in a job all of whose duties were performed outside Ireland is treated as occupation, under section 604(5). The condition is that the house was your main home both before and after that period, and that you had no other home qualifying for the relief meanwhile.
• Required to live elsewhere for work: absences totalling up to 4 years count as occupation if your place of work, or a reasonable condition set by your employer, stopped you living in the house. Again you must have lived there before and after, per Revenue's manual.
• If you never move back: without a period of occupation after the absence, the years abroad don't count. If you let the house while abroad and sell without returning, the let years are outside the relief, except the last 12 months.
• Renting a room doesn't hurt: taking in a lodger under Rent-a-Room relief doesn't affect your claim for full PPR exemption, per Revenue. Letting a self-contained part of the house, or the whole house, is different: the let part or let years fall outside the relief.
• A home office used only for business: if part of the house is used exclusively for a trade or profession, the gain is split and that part gets no relief. In Revenue's example a fifth used for business leaves €80,000 of a €100,000 gain exempt.

Worked example: you let your apartment while working abroad

Starting data (assumptions): you bought the apartment on 1 November 2016 for €280,000 and paid €3,500 in solicitor fees; it was your only home from then until 31 October 2022 (72 months); from 1 November 2022 you worked abroad and let it, and never moved back; you sell it on 1 November 2026 (exactly 120 months of ownership) for €450,000, paying €8,500 in estate agent and solicitor fees; you made no other gains in 2026 and have no losses brought forward. The sale is after 7 October 2026, so the rate is 31%.

Two things change the answer. If you had come back and lived in the apartment again before selling, the four years working abroad could count as occupation under section 604(5), provided all your duties were performed outside Ireland, and the whole gain would be exempt. And had you sold on 1 October 2026, before the rate cut, the same gain would have been taxed at 33%: €46,130 × 33% = €15,222.90. The sale price is under €1 million, so the buyer doesn't need a clearance certificate from you. The rent you earned meanwhile is taxed as Irish rental income: see our rental income guide. The Capital Gains calculator works out the tax on the chargeable gain and your deadlines.

Selling your Irish home after you've left Ireland

• Irish property stays taxable in Ireland: if you're not resident here, you must still pay CGT on gains from disposing of land and buildings in Ireland, per Revenue's CGT page. Moving to Spain before you sell doesn't remove the Irish charge.
• PPR relief is about use, not residence: Revenue's conditions look at the months the house was your main home, plus the last 12 months. Selling as a non-resident doesn't on its own cost you the relief, but years spent working abroad count only if your job's duties were all outside Ireland and you moved back in afterwards.
• Your new country may tax it too: the country you live in when you sell may also tax the gain. A double tax treaty usually lets that country credit the Irish CGT; check the treaty in our list of Ireland's tax treaties.
• The CG50A threshold for homes is €1 million: for a house or apartment sold on or after 1 January 2016 for over €1 million, the buyer must withhold 15% of the price unless you give them a CG50A clearance certificate (Revenue). For other assets the threshold is €500,000.
• How a non-resident gets the CG50A: you qualify if you're resident in Ireland or have paid any CGT due on the disposal. You or your solicitor apply online through myAccount or ROS (Capital Gains Clearance, eCG50), or on a paper Form CG50 with a copy of the contract of sale.
• If 15% was withheld: on a €1.2 million sale without a certificate the buyer keeps back €180,000 and gives you Form CG50B, which lets you reclaim the amount withheld from Revenue later. Applying for the CG50A before closing avoids that wait.

Which costs reduce the gain?

• Purchase price and buying costs: what you paid for the home, plus incidental costs of acquiring it such as solicitor fees, per Revenue's how to calculate CGT page. Keep the contract and the solicitor's closing statement.
• Improvements, not repairs: enhancement expenditure, meaning money spent that added value to the property, such as an extension or a converted attic, reduces the gain. Spending that doesn't add value, such as ordinary upkeep, isn't enhancement expenditure; keep invoices for the works that are.
• Selling costs: estate agent (auctioneer) and solicitor fees on the sale come off the sale price. In the worked example above, €8,500 of selling costs cut the gain by €8,500 before any relief.
• Owned before 2003: indexation relief adjusts the cost of an asset you owned before 2003 for inflation. Revenue's PPR example uses a 1979/80 multiplier of 3.742 on a €54,000 purchase, giving an indexed cost of €202,068.
• Development land is different: if the price reflects development value, PPR relief covers only the value for current use, and gains on development land are taxed at 33%, a rate Budget 2027 left unchanged.
• One annual exemption: the first €1,270 of chargeable gains each year is exempt per person. If you also sold shares at a gain in the same year, the exemption is used only once across both.

How do you pay and file: what Revenue asks

• Payment dates: CGT on disposals from 1 January to 30 November is due by 15 December of that year; on December disposals, by 31 January of the next year, per Revenue's pay and file page. The payment date comes before the return.
• File even when the relief covers everything: Revenue says you must file a CGT return even if no tax is due because of reliefs or allowable losses. A fully exempt home sale still goes on a return, with the PPR relief claimed in it.
• Which form: if you file a Form 11 (self-employed, or income not taxed under PAYE, including rent above the Form 12 limits), the sale goes on it through ROS. A PAYE worker uses the paper Form 12, because CGT can't be reported on the eForm 12. If you don't normally file returns, use the paper Form CG1.
• Deadline for the return: the return is due on or before 31 October of the year after the sale. For a home sold in 2026, that's 31 October 2027.
• Records to keep: purchase and sale contracts, solicitor closing statements, estate agent invoice, invoices for improvements, and evidence of the dates you lived in the house: utility bills, your address with Revenue and your employer, and any tenancy registration for let periods.

Where do you start?

Write down the date you bought, the date you'll sell, and month by month where you lived in between. If every month was spent living there, the relief is likely full and you only need to file. If there were let years or years abroad, work out the fraction before you agree a sale date, especially if moving back in for a while could bring the abroad years back into the relief. Our CGT guide covers rates and deadlines for everything else you sell.

Related reading

• Capital gains tax in Ireland: rates, dates and returns
• Rental income tax in Ireland
• Leaving Ireland: claiming your tax refund
• Irish tax residency: day count, domicile and split-year treatment
• Local Property Tax in Ireland
• Buying a home in Ireland: stamp duty and Help to Buy
• Form 11 in Ireland

Questions we get asked