Tax for Healthcare Assistants in Ireland: Uniform Allowance, Agency Shifts and Your Refund

Can healthcare assistants claim a uniform allowance?

Flat rate expenses are fixed annual deductions that Revenue agrees with groups of employees, usually through their unions, so you don't need receipts. The amounts below are on Revenue's flat rate expenses list and have been the same every year from 2020 to 2026.

• It's a deduction, not cash. €526 comes off your taxable income, so it saves €105.20 at 20% or €210.40 at 40%.
• The €80 agency extra is for nurses only. Revenue's list has no agency add-on for nursing assistants.
• Hospitals Domestic Staff is for porters, domestics, catering and laundry staff, not for care roles.
• Home care. Revenue's Home Helps line covers home helps employed directly or indirectly by the HSE (the list still says Health Boards), so if you provide home support for the HSE or for an agency it contracts, that line may be the one that fits your job. If you work in a nursing home or hospital ward, it's usually Nursing Assistants.
• Social care workers have no line of their own on the 2026 list. Registration with CORU became mandatory for social care workers when the title was protected on 1 December 2025, so from then on the annual retention fee may be claimable as an actual expense; CORU says relief isn't available while a register is still open for grandparenting and the title isn't protected (CORU). Social workers (a different profession) have their own line, €100 if they pay the annual statutory registration fee to CORU, and nurses have their own higher amounts: see flat rate expenses for nurses.
• If no category fits, you can still claim actual expenses that you paid, weren't reimbursed for and incurred "wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of the duties" of your job, with receipts, through an Income Tax Return after the year ends (Revenue). Revenue applies that test strictly.

Why is my agency job taxed at 40%?

• Why it happens. Revenue sends each employer a Revenue Payroll Notification with the credits and band it can use. When you start a second job, the default is to leave everything with the first one, so the second employer's notification has no 20% band.
• When it's not an overpayment. If your combined income goes above your 20% band, part of it really should be taxed at 40%, and the second job is simply where it shows up.
• How to fix this year. In myAccount, go to Manage your tax for the current year and divide your credits and rate band between the jobs, roughly in line with what each pays. See tax on a second job.
• How to fix past years. File an Income Tax Return for each year: Revenue recalculates the year on your total income, credits and band, and refunds the difference.

Worked example: a nursing home job plus agency shifts

Starting data (assumptions): Joy is single and Irish resident for all of 2025. She works as a healthcare assistant in a nursing home (€30,000) and does agency shifts (€6,000). All her credits (€2,000 personal and €2,000 employee) and her €44,000 band were on the nursing home job, so the agency taxed her at 40%. She supplies and launders her own uniforms and has never claimed the €526 Nursing Assistants allowance. Income tax only; USC is worked out separately.

The refund splits into €1,200 from the agency pay that should have been taxed at 20% instead of 40% (€6,000 × 20%) and €105.20 from the uniform allowance (€526 × 20%). If she rents, the Rent Tax Credit can add up to €1,000 for 2025 on top: see the Rent Tax Credit guide.

What happens in your first weeks in Ireland?

• Get your PPSN and register your first job in myAccount as soon as you can, so your employer gets a proper notification. Emergency USC is a flat 8% in 2026 (Revenue).
• Your permit doesn't change your tax. A General Employment Permit, Critical Skills Employment Permit or Stamp 4 permission gives you the same credits, bands and reliefs as anyone else while you're Irish resident. See emergency tax in Ireland and refunds for non-EU workers.
• Arriving mid-year. If you arrive intending to stay and will be resident the next year, you can elect in writing to be resident in your arrival year, which keeps your full annual credits (Revenue).

What else can healthcare assistants claim?

• Rent Tax Credit: 20% of the rent you paid, capped at €500 for 2022 and 2023 and €1,000 a year from 2024 (double for a jointly assessed couple), never more than your income tax. Renting from a parent or child, with HAP, RAS or Rent Supplement, or from an Approved Housing Body doesn't qualify. See the Rent Tax Credit guide.
• Medical and dental expenses at 20% for yourself or anyone else whose bills you pay, for costs nobody reimbursed. See medical expenses tax relief.
• A spouse still at home with little or no income: after the year ends you may claim the married credit and band through aggregation relief. See spouse living abroad.
• Parents you support: the Dependent Relative Tax Credit is €305 a year for 2025 and 2026 (€245 for 2022 to 2024) for a widowed parent, or a relative who can't maintain themselves because of old age or infirmity, even if they live abroad, as long as you maintain them at your own expense and their income is no more than €18,028 for 2025 or €18,548 for 2026 (€16,156 to €17,404 for 2022 to 2024). See the Dependent Relative Tax Credit.
• Recruitment fees you paid to get the job are generally not deductible, because Revenue's test excludes spending that only puts you in a position to do the job, rather than being incurred in performing it (Revenue TDM 05-02-20).
• Travel between clients in home care: your employer can reimburse travel tax-free when you're temporarily away from your normal place of work, at actual cost or the Civil Service rates; journeys from home to work are generally private travel (Revenue). If your employer doesn't reimburse travel between clients, you may be able to claim it yourself as a vouched employment expense through an Income Tax Return after the year ends.

How do you claim for past years?

1. Sign in to myAccount with your PPSN, and add your IBAN to your Revenue profile so refunds are paid by transfer.
2. Under PAYE Services, choose Review your tax for the previous 4 years and request a Statement of Liability for the year.
3. Complete the Income Tax Return. On the Tax Credits & Reliefs page, choose Your Job, then Flat Rate Expenses, and pick your category. Your income from every job is already on the return from what your employers reported.
4. Add any other credits, such as the Rent Tax Credit or medical expenses, then sign and submit. Repeat for each year.
5. For this year, claim the flat rate expense under Manage your tax, Claim tax credits, so it's applied through payroll (Revenue, how to claim).
6. Keep your records for six years: anything that shows your uniform arrangement, rent receipts and medical receipts.

If you'd rather not go through four years yourself, our Tax Back service does it for you. No refund, no fee.

Where do you start?

Open myAccount and look at how many jobs you had in each year since 2022. If there was more than one, start with 2022, because that year closes for good on 31 December 2026.

Related reading

• Flat rate expenses for nurses
• Flat rate expenses in Ireland: the full picture
• Tax on a second job in Ireland
• Emergency tax in Ireland
• Rent Tax Credit guide
• Tax guides by nationality

Questions we get asked