Every Dublin property advertisement that quotes a yield is quoting the gross number — annual rent divided by price, with nothing deducted. Nothing for the letting agent. Nothing for insurance, Local Property Tax, the empty month between tenants, the boiler that dies in year three. And nothing for Revenue, which takes the largest single slice of any landlord’s rent at up to 52% on the margin.
The yield you actually bank is the net yield — and the gap is the whole game of buy-to-let underwriting. On the registered-rent basis we use across this site, Dublin’s gross yields run from about 5.0% (Dublin 6) to over 10% (north inner city), with an all-Dublin average near 7%. Net those out properly and the honest range for a typical 40%-rate landlord is closer to 3–5%, with every percentage point between gross and net explained by one of five cost lines — and income tax explaining the biggest one.
This guide is the tax-and-cost companion to our Dublin Rental Yields by Area 2026 district table. There we showed you which areas gross highest; here we show you what survives. You will get the full per-€1,000 cost stack, the 2026 income-tax mechanics landlords actually face (20%/40% bands, USC, PRSI, the mortgage-interest restriction and the €1,000 landlord credit), two fully-worked Dublin examples, and the capital-gains bill you meet on the way out.
TL;DR: On a typical agent-managed Dublin let, roughly €250–310 of every €1,000 of rent goes to operating costs and voids before tax, and income tax takes a further slice that depends entirely on your marginal rate. A Finglas terrace grossing 8.4% nets to about 4.4% for a higher-rate landlord who claims the €1,000 landlord tax credit; a Dublin 12 home grossing 6.1% nets to about 3.2% on the same assumptions. The headline “2–3 point” gap usually understates it: expect a 3–5 point drop once you cost and tax the property honestly — and more if you are mortgaged.
All tax rules below were checked on 5 September 2026 against Revenue.ie, Citizens Information and 2026-dated practitioner guides, and the district figures come from the registered-rent basis used across our yield tables.
1. The gap: why “8% yield” quietly becomes “about 4%”
Irish landlords love quoting gross yields because gross yields are flattering. It is not dishonest — it is just incomplete. The gross figure answers one question only: what would a cash buyer earn on the purchase price at today’s registered rent, before any cost or tax? It says nothing about what reaches your bank account.
Here is the arithmetic of the gap in one line:
Gross yield − operating costs (% of rent) − voids − income tax (% of taxable profit) = net yield
On the full-cost basis, the series numbers in our district table put Dublin’s net yields roughly 2–4 points below gross — and the real-world drop for a mortgaged, higher-rate landlord is often larger, because mortgage interest (only 75% deductible in 2026, see Section 4) and the 52% top marginal rate compound the deduction.
Three truths about the gap that most yield-spreadsheets ignore:
- Tax is the biggest line, and it is personal. Operating costs are roughly similar for two landlords owning the same terrace. Their tax bills are not: one might pay 20% on the rental profit, the other 52%, because rental income is taxed on top of your other income. A guide that quotes “net yield” without naming a tax rate is hiding the variable that moves the number most. Every net figure in this article names its rate.
- The gap widened again in 2025–2026. The mortgage-interest deduction was cut to 70% in 2025 and stands at 75% for 2026 (Section 4), while the €1,000 landlord tax credit (RPRIR, Section 3) partially offsets the damage for smaller landlords. Netting out, a geared 52%-rate landlord keeps less of the rent than at any point since the early 2010s.
- Under the 2% rent cap, the Day-1 net is roughly the net you keep. Since 1 March 2026, in-tenancy rents can rise only by the lower of CPI or 2% a year (the national rent cap explainer); with CPI at 3.4%, the current cap is 2%. The old rescue strategy — buy thin on yield, let inflation re-rate the rent — is gone. If the net doesn’t work on day one, it will not grow its way into working.
Landlords have noticed. Individual landlord numbers have fallen from roughly 170,000 in 2016 to under 140,000 (Census-2022-derived counts), and one Dublin agency reported that 62% of its 2025 sellers were investors offloading buy-to-lets — which is precisely why the rents left behind still support 7–10% gross yields for those willing to model the net properly.
2. The cost stack: what happens to every €1,000 of rent
Budget the way a lender underwrites: build the cost stack first, then decide whether the net clears your target. For a typical Dublin terrace let, the operating lines — before tax — run like this per €1,000 of passing rent:
| Cost line | Typical range (per €1,000 rent) | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Letting agent / management | €70–100 (7–10%) | Finding tenants, rent collection, inspections, handling repairs and RTB paperwork. The single biggest discretionary line — self-manage and it largely disappears, but you buy the hassle. |
| Insurance + Local Property Tax | €50–70 | Landlord buildings/contents/liability insurance (~€400–500/yr on a Dublin terrace) plus LPT (~€240–330/yr at current values). |
| Repairs & maintenance | €80–150 | The annualised cost of the boiler service, the leak, the repaint between tenancies, appliance replacement. Older northside and inner-city terraces sit at the top of this range. |
| Voids (empty periods) | €30–50 | The month between tenancies. In high-turnover districts (D1, D8) budget the top of the range; a well-kept Finglas or D12 terrace can run at the bottom. |
| Accountancy, RTB fees, sundries | €10–25 | Annual registration €40, accountant, advertising, small items. Often forgotten; Revenue treats rent as a trade, so the books must exist. |
| Total before tax | €240–395 | Roughly a quarter to two-fifths of gross rent gone before Revenue sees a euro. |
Using representative figures from the middle of those ranges — agent 8.5% (€85), insurance + LPT €55, maintenance €115, voids €40, sundries €15 — here is the honest map of €1,000 of rent for an agent-managed landlord:
| Line | Per €1,000 | Running total left |
|---|---|---|
| Passing rent | €1,000 | €1,000 |
| Letting agent (8.5%) | −€85 | €915 |
| Insurance + LPT | −€55 | €860 |
| Maintenance & repairs | −€115 | €745 |
| Sundries (accounts, RTB, ads) | −€15 | €730 |
| Voids | −€40 | €690 |
| Net operating income (pre-tax) | €690 | €690 |
Then tax. The void month was never received, so it is never taxed: taxable profit is the €960 actually collected less the €270 of deductible operating lines — €690 of every €1,000. The landlord’s marginal rate then decides what remains:
| Your marginal rate (Section 3) | Tax on the €690 | You actually keep per €1,000 | Keep rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20% | €138 | €552 | 55% |
| 40% | €276 | €414 | 41% |
| 52% | €359 | €331 | 33% |
Read that bottom row slowly: at the 52% top rate, an agent-managed landlord keeps barely a third of every euro of rent. That single fact — not the purchase price, not the area — is why net yields across Dublin cluster in the 3–5% zone while gross yields advertise 6–10%.
Callout — the two levers that matter most
1. Your marginal rate (decided by your salary, not your property) moves the keep-rate from 55% to 33%.
2. Self-management converts the €85–100 agent line into your own time. For a single property it is very doable — the RTB portal, standard tenancy paperwork and the 2% rent-cap rules are all well documented — and it is worth roughly 0.6–0.8 points of net yield on a €300k property.
3. Tax deep dive: how Dublin rental income is actually taxed in 2026
3.1 The 20%/40% bands — and where your rent lands
Rental profit is not taxed in isolation. It is added to your other income for the year and taxed at your marginal rate — the rate your last euro of total income pays. The 2026 bands (held at the 2025 levels; Revenue’s tax relief charts):
| Status | Income taxed at 20% | Balance taxed at 40% |
|---|---|---|
| Single / widowed | First €44,000 | Above €44,000 |
| Single Person Child Carer Credit | First €48,000 | Above €48,000 |
| Married couple, one income | First €53,000 | Above €53,000 |
| Married couple, two incomes | First €88,000 (increase capped at €35,000) | Above |
A single person with €30,000 of salary and €16,000 of taxable rental profit pays 20% on the first €44,000 — so all €16,000 of the rent is taxed at 20%, plus USC. The same person with €50,000 of salary pays 40% on the slice of rent above €44,000 — i.e., on €6,000 of it — and 20% on the rest. This is why two identical Finglas terraces can have genuinely different net yields: the tax rate is a property of the landlord, not the property.
3.2 USC and PRSI: the stack that makes “52%”
Income tax is only part of the bill. Rental income also attracts the Universal Social Charge, and landlords in the self-assessment (Class S) system pay PRSI on rental profits:
- USC 2026: 0.5% up to €12,012; 2% from €12,012 to €28,700; 3% from €28,700 to €70,044; 8% from €70,044 to €100,000; 11% above €100,000.
- PRSI (Class S, landlords): 4.2% for 2026 to 30 September, rising to 4.35% on 1 October 2026.
Stacked on the 40% higher rate, that produces the famous “52%” top marginal rate — 40% income tax + 8% USC + ~4% PRSI — which applies to total income between about €70,000 and €100,000. Above €100,000 the 11% USC tier pushes the combined marginal to ~55% (40 + 11 + 4.35). The practical ladder for a landlord’s next euro of rent:
| Your total income | Marginal on extra rent (IT + USC + PRSI) |
|---|---|
| Up to €44,000 (single) | ~20–25% (20% + low USC tiers + PRSI where applicable) |
| €44,000–€70,044 | ~43–47% (40% + USC 3%) |
| €70,044–€100,000 | ~52% (40% + USC 8% + PRSI ~4%) |
| Over €100,000 | ~55% (40% + USC 11% + PRSI 4.35% from Oct 2026) |
The examples in Section 5 use the three rates the market quotes — 20%, 40% and 52% — so you can read off your own situation. If you are PAYE-only and pay no PRSI on the rent, treat the 52% column as a slight overstatement and use ~48%; the mechanics are otherwise identical.
3.3 What you can deduct (the allowable list)
Revenue’s starting point: rent is treated as a trade, so expenses are allowable only if they are incurred wholly and exclusively for earning the rental income (Revenue — what expenses are allowed). The core list:
- Repairs and maintenance — fixing what exists. Repainting between tenancies, a new boiler replacement part, a repaired roof. Improvements are not deductible — an extension, a new kitchen that upgrades the property, or a full rewire goes into your CGT base instead (Section 7).
- Insurance — landlord buildings, contents and liability premiums.
- Letting agent and management fees, advertising — fully deductible.
- Mortgage interest — interest only, not capital repayments, and in 2026 only 75% of it is deductible (Section 4). Claiming it requires your tenancy to be RTB-registered.
- RTB registration fees, accountancy fees, ground rent, service charges, utility bills you pay (e.g., in an all-inclusive let).
- Wear-and-tear on furnishings in a furnished let: 12.5% per year over eight years (Section 6).
- Local Property Tax — the annual charge on the property is a genuine cash cost of holding it; on whether it is also a deductible expense, Revenue practice has shifted and 2026 practitioner guidance is split. Treat it as a cost line in your yield maths and confirm the deduction position with your accountant before filing.
Never deductible: the capital element of mortgage repayments; your own labour (you cannot pay yourself for painting); expenses before the property is first let (except the pre-letting relief below); anything for personal use; and — for most single-property landlords — ordinary travel between your home and the rental (Section 8).
3.4 Pre-letting expenses: the €10,000 window landlords miss
The big exception to “no deductions before the first let”: if a property has been vacant for at least 6 months and is then let as a residential tenancy, you can deduct qualifying pre-letting expenses incurred in the 12 months before the first letting — repairs and maintenance, insurance while vacant, legal and professional fees — up to €10,000 per property. The relief, introduced for vacant properties and extended in successive budgets, runs to 31 December 2027, and the tenancy must be RTB-registered and remain in the rental market (typically four years) or the deduction is clawed back.
Worked: you buy a vacant Finglas terrace, spend €8,500 over seven months on a repaint, plumbing repairs, a BER assessment and fire-safety upgrades, then let it. At a 40% marginal rate that €8,500 saves you €3,400 in tax (at 52%, €4,420) — real money that most accidental landlords simply leave unclaimed because nobody told them the window exists.
3.5 The €1,000 landlord tax credit (RPRIR)
Budget 2024’s answer to landlord exits was the Residential Premises Rental Income Relief (RPRIR) — a direct tax credit, not a deduction, worth 20% of your rental profit up to a maximum of:
- €600 in 2024 (20% of €3,000)
- €800 in 2025 (20% of €4,000)
- €1,000 in 2026 and 2027 (20% of €5,000)
(Citizens Information — housing tax credits and reliefs). Conditions: it is a credit per landlord, not per property — you claim it once regardless of how many lets you run; the tenancy must be RTB-registered and tax-compliant; and it is clawed back if you sell or leave the rental market within four years. Because it is a credit (off your tax bill, not your profit), it is worth the same €1,000 to a 20% taxpayer as to a 52% taxpayer — and on a €250,000 property that is 0.4 points of yield. The worked examples in Section 5 include it; a landlord who fails to claim it is voluntarily giving away roughly that much net yield.
4. The mortgage-interest restriction: what the 75% rule costs you, by bracket
If you carry a mortgage on a Dublin let, the single most consequential tax rule you face is the mortgage-interest restriction.
4.1 The rule in 2026
Only the interest element of your mortgage payments is ever deductible — capital repayments never are. And since the current restriction cycle began in 2025, only a share of that interest qualifies:
- 2025: 70% of mortgage interest deductible
- 2026: 75% deductible — the level used throughout this guide
- Direction of travel: restoration toward 100% is the stated aim, but no fixed date had been announced at the time of writing.
The deduction also requires your tenancy to be registered with the RTB, and interest only counts from the date the property is let or available for letting — none of the pre-letting months qualify (Revenue — what expenses are allowed). If you see older material saying interest is “100% deductible again” — that was the position from 2019 to 2024, and it no longer reflects the 2026 rules.
Callout — “Section 24”? That’s a UK rule.
British landlord forums are full of “Section 24” — the UK restriction that replaced interest deductions with a flat 20% tax credit. Ireland does not do that. Irish landlords still deduct a percentage of the interest (75% in 2026) directly against rental income. If you are reading UK advice about mortgage-interest tax, the mechanics do not transfer.
4.2 Impact by bracket: the restriction is a tax on your tax rate
Here is the subtle cruelty of the 75% rule: the disallowed 25% of your interest is effectively taxed at your marginal rate. Every €1,000 of interest you actually pay:
| Your marginal rate | Deductible (75%) | Tax saved on the deduction | Disallowed 25% taxed at your rate | Extra tax vs full deductibility | After-tax cost of €1,000 interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20% | €750 | €150 | €50 | €50 | €850 |
| 40% | €750 | €300 | €100 | €100 | €700 |
| 52% | €750 | €390 | €130 | €130 | €610 |
The higher your bracket, the harder the restriction bites — which quietly pushes geared properties further toward the 40%-and-above landlord who can least afford the drag. (For contrast: with full 100% deductibility the same €1,000 would cost a 52% landlord €480 after tax; the restriction raises it to €610.)
On a yield basis: take the Finglas terrace from Section 5 — €246,000, bought with a 70% loan of €172,200 at 4.3%. That is about €7,400 of interest a year, of which €1,850 is disallowed. At 40% that restriction costs you ~€740 a year — 0.30 points of yield; at 52%, ~€960 — 0.39 points. Add that to the operating stack and the mortgage-interest drag before you ever compare a geared net yield to a cash-buyer net yield: geared net yields are typically 2–3 points below the cash-buyer numbers in our district table, and roughly a third of that gap is the restriction alone.
5. Worked examples: two Dublin properties, gross to net
Two real district archetypes from our yield table, run through the full stack. Assumptions in both: cash buyer (no mortgage — that drag is Section 4’s job), agent-managed at 8%, insurance + LPT €660/yr, repairs & maintenance €1,200/yr, sundries €180/yr, voids 3% (≈11 days a year), rent at the current registered-rent level, and the landlord claims the €1,000 RPRIR credit. These running costs sit at the lower-mid of the Section 2 ranges — a realistic budget for a well-kept terrace, not a worst case; if you prefer the nervous-budget midpoints, add roughly €700–1,000 of costs a year and knock ~0.3 points off every net yield below.
5.1 Finglas (D11): 8.4% gross → about 4.4% net for a higher-rate landlord
A two-bed terrace at the ~€246,000 district median, letting at €1,722/month — the ~8.4% gross yield Finglas advertises (Dublin 11, registered-rent basis):
| Line | Annual | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Passing rent | €20,664 | €1,722 × 12 |
| Less voids (3%) | −€620 | ~11 empty days a year |
| Rent actually collected | €20,044 | |
| Letting agent (8%) | −€1,653 | |
| Insurance + LPT | −€660 | |
| Repairs & maintenance | −€1,200 | |
| Sundries (accountant, RTB) | −€180 | |
| Net operating income | €16,351 | 79% of collected rent |
| Income tax @ 40% | −€6,540 | taxable profit €16,351 |
| + RPRIR landlord credit | +€1,000 | 2026 rate |
| Net after tax | €10,811 |
Net yield: €10,811 ÷ €246,000 = 4.39% — call it 4.4%. The 8.4% headline became 4.4% in the bank: a 4-point drop, not the 2–3 points the marketing maths implies.
How the tax bracket moves it (same property, same costs, RPRIR claimed):
| Landlord’s marginal rate | Net after tax | Net yield |
|---|---|---|
| 20% | €14,081 | 5.7% |
| 40% | €10,811 | 4.4% |
| 52% | €8,848 | 3.6% |
5.2 Dublin 12 (Drimnagh/Crumlin/Walkinstown): 6.1% gross → about 3.2% net
A redbrick or 1930s semi at the ~€324,000 D12 median letting at €1,647/month (~6.1% gross):
| Line | Annual | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Passing rent | €19,764 | €1,647 × 12 |
| Less voids (3%) | −€593 | |
| Rent collected | €19,171 | |
| Letting agent (8%) | −€1,581 | |
| Insurance + LPT | −€660 | |
| Repairs & maintenance | −€1,200 | |
| Sundries | −€180 | |
| Net operating income | €15,550 | |
| Income tax @ 40% | −€6,220 | |
| + RPRIR credit | +€1,000 | |
| Net after tax | €10,330 |
Net yield: €10,330 ÷ €324,000 = 3.19% — call it 3.2%. The 6.1% D12 headline nets to roughly half — a 2.9-point drop on a property that cost 32% more than the Finglas terrace to buy.
| Landlord’s marginal rate | Net after tax | Net yield |
|---|---|---|
| 20% | €13,440 | 4.1% |
| 40% | €10,330 | 3.2% |
| 52% | €8,464 | 2.6% |
5.3 What the two examples prove
- Price is the yield killer, not rent. Finglas and D12 collect almost identical rents (€1,722 vs €1,647/month) — yet Finglas nets 1.2 points higher because it cost €78,000 less. Every extra euro of purchase price has to be earned back in rent that the 2% cap will not grow for you.
- The RPRIR credit is worth ~0.3–0.4 points on both (€1,000 ÷ price). It is the difference between “3.2%” and “2.8%” on D12.
- Your bracket decides your asset class. At 20%, the D12 semi nets 4.1% — a respectable income asset. At 52% it nets 2.6% — below where many investors would put money in a deposit-plus strategy once risk is priced in. The same bricks are a different investment in different hands. That is why the “average landlord” is leaving Dublin’s market while the landlords who stay are disproportionately lower-rate, cash-buying, hands-on operators.
6. Capital allowances: wear and tear on the contents, not the building
Landlords ask about “depreciation” or “wear and tear” on the property itself. The short answer: there is none on the building. You cannot claim capital allowances on the purchase price, the structure, or improvements to a standard residential let — that “wear and tear” is gone (it never existed for private residential lettings in the way it does for commercial property). The building cost is recovered only when you sell, through the CGT computation (Section 7).
What does exist is wear-and-tear on the contents of a furnished let — furniture, white goods, beds, sofas, appliances and fittings — at 12.5% of cost per year for eight years, i.e., the full cost spread across the asset’s life (Revenue — capital allowances on furniture and fittings):
- You spend €2,400 furnishing the Finglas terrace → claim €300 per year for eight years (€2,400 × 12.5%) against the rent.
- The allowance is only available for a furnished let. An unfurnished let earns no wear-and-tear at all.
- Repairs to existing furnishings are an immediate revenue deduction; buying new furnishings is capital, and the 12.5% route is how you recover the cost.
Rule of thumb for the yield model: if you furnish, add roughly 1–2% of the furnishing cost to annual deductions for eight years — it shaves the taxable profit slightly and, at 40%, every €1,000 of furniture saves you €400 of tax spread over eight years.
7. CGT on the way out: 33%, PPR relief, and the “7-year rule” that mostly isn’t
Yield is what the property pays you while you own it. The exit is taxed separately, under Capital Gains Tax (CGT) — and exit planning is where accidental landlords make their most expensive mistakes.
7.1 The baseline: 33%, with a €1,270 annual exemption
The standard CGT rate on property is 33%. Every individual has an annual exempt amount — €1,270 of gains (2026) — below which no CGT is due, and you can deduct buying and selling costs (solicitor, auctioneer, some survey and advertising costs) from the gain (Revenue — PPR relief).
Worked — the straightforward investor exit: our Finglas terrace bought for €246,000 (plus €4,200 buying costs) sells for €330,000 (less €8,800 selling costs). Chargeable gain: €71,000. Less the €1,270 exemption → taxable €69,730 → CGT at 33%: €23,011. (Payment: by 15 December for disposals between January and November; by 31 January for December disposals. Filing: with your tax return by 31 October the following year.)
7.2 PPR relief: when the property was (or is) your home
If the property was ever your Principal Private Residence (PPR), part of the gain is exempt. The rules that matter:
- The gain is apportioned by time: the periods you occupied the home are exempt; the periods it was let out are not (with one crucial grace).
- The final 12 months of ownership always count as occupation — Revenue’s way of letting you sell your old home after you have moved into the new one (Revenue — PPR relief).
- Certain absences count as deemed occupation (e.g., working away from home) — but letting the property to a tenant generally ends the deemed-occupation treatment.
- Rent-a-room income (≤€14,000/year from a lodger in your own home) does not break PPR relief, and the exemption extends to gardens/grounds up to one acre.
Worked — the accidental landlord: you lived in a house for 5 of the 12 years you owned it, then let it for 7 and sold with a €180,000 gain. Exempt period = 5 years lived + final 12 months = 6 years → half the gain exempt → taxable €90,000 → CGT €29,700. Had you sold after living there the whole time, the full gain would have been exempt.
The trap: landlords who “temporarily” let their old home and let years slide discover the letting period is taxable in full at 33%, and that the four-year RPRIR and pre-letting hold periods have been silently resetting. If a former PPR is in your portfolio, model the exit before the letting runs long.
7.3 The “7-year rule”: what it actually is, and why it almost certainly doesn’t apply to you
Every landlord forum has a “seven-year rule” that supposedly makes property tax-free. Ireland’s actual CGT reliefs contain exactly one seven-year rule, and it is narrow:
If you acquired a property between 7 December 2011 and 31 December 2014 and held it for at least seven years, part of the gain on sale is exempt: divide seven by the number of years owned to get the exempt fraction (7 ÷ 12 = 58% exempt after twelve years). (Revenue — property acquired 2011–2014)
That was a crash-era stimulus for properties bought in the 2011–2014 window — purchases that closed more than a decade ago. For anything bought since 2015, including every property a 2026 buyer is considering, there is no seven-year rule: owning a rental for seven years exempts nothing, renting a home out for seven years does not reset PPR, and the UK’s “Section 24 / seven-year” folklore does not cross the Irish Sea. If you hear “hold it seven years and the CGT disappears,” the correct response is: ask to see the section of the Taxes Consolidation Act — because it is not there.
8. Record keeping: the discipline that protects every deduction
Revenue treats rent as a trade, and a trade needs books. The practical minimum for a Dublin landlord:
- RTB registration — the master switch. Register every tenancy within one month of it starting (€40/year for a private tenancy, re-registered annually; late fees €10/month — Citizens Information). Registration is not optional paperwork: it is a condition of claiming mortgage interest relief and of the RPRIR credit, and an unregistered landlord is also exposed to RTB sanctions and fines.
- Receipts and invoices for six years. Keep every deductible expense documented — agent statements, insurance renewals, repair invoices, the LPT receipt, interest certificates from your lender (issued each January). Revenue can request records for up to six years after filing; a repair you cannot evidence is a deduction you never had. Scan everything into a folder per property the day it happens.
- Mileage and travel — log it, but expect a fight. Revenue’s “wholly and exclusively” test is strict on travel: ordinary trips between your own home and the rental property are generally not allowable, and some practitioners advise that single-property landlords should claim no travel at all. What is defensible — with a contemporaneous log — is travel that is genuinely part of running the let: trips between two rental properties, or to the letting agent to inspect or manage. Keep the diary; let your accountant decide what survives.
- One bank account per property, or at least one separate account. Rent in, costs out, no personal spending in the middle. Clean records are the difference between a two-hour self-assessment and a Revenue compliance review.
- File properly. Rental income is declared on your annual return: via myAccount (Form 12) if you are a PAYE taxpayer with modest rent, or ROS (Form 11) if you are a “chargeable person” — which you generally become once rental profits exceed about €5,000 a year. Self-assessment returns and preliminary tax are due by 31 October (ROS gets a little longer in mid-November). Late filing starts the penalty clock; a forgotten year can be amended within four years, but why test it.
(Citizens Information — landlords’ rights and responsibilities)
9. Frequently asked questions
1. How is rental income taxed in Ireland in 2026?
Rental profit (rent received less allowable expenses) is added to your other income and taxed at your marginal income-tax rate — 20% up to the standard-rate band (€44,000 for a single person), 40% above it — plus USC (0.5% to 11% by income tier) and, for landlords in the Class S system, PRSI at 4.2% (4.35% from 1 October 2026). The combined top marginal rate is about 52%, rising toward 55% above €100,000 (Revenue — tax relief charts).
2. What is the difference between gross yield and net yield?
Gross yield is annual rent ÷ purchase price — no costs, no tax. Net yield subtracts management, insurance, Local Property Tax, maintenance, voids and income tax at your marginal rate. A Finglas terrace advertising 8.4% gross nets to about 4.4% for a 40%-rate landlord (Section 5) — the marketing number is what the property could earn; the net number is what you keep.
3. What is the landlord tax credit in 2026, and how do I claim it?
The Residential Premises Rental Income Relief (RPRIR) is a direct tax credit worth 20% of your rental profit, capped at €1,000 for 2026 and 2027 (€600 in 2024, €800 in 2025). It is one credit per landlord (not per property), requires an RTB-registered, tax-compliant tenancy, and is clawed back if you sell within four years. Claim it in your income-tax return — it is worth ~0.3–0.4 points of net yield.
4. Is mortgage interest fully deductible for landlords in 2026?
No. In the current restriction cycle only 75% of qualifying mortgage interest is deductible in 2026 (70% in 2025), the interest must relate to a loan used to buy, improve or repair the let property, the tenancy must be RTB-registered, and only interest from the date the property is let or available counts. Capital repayments are never deductible. The disallowed 25% is effectively taxed at your marginal rate (Section 4).
5. I keep hearing about “Section 24” for landlords — does it apply in Ireland?
No — Section 24 is a UK rule that replaced interest deductions with a 20% tax credit. Ireland uses a different mechanism: landlords deduct a percentage of mortgage interest (75% in 2026) against rental income. Treat UK landlord tax advice as UK-specific.
6. Can I claim expenses before my property is first let?
Yes, under the pre-letting relief: if the property was vacant for at least 6 months, expenses incurred in the 12 months before the first letting (repairs, insurance, legal fees) are deductible up to €10,000 per property. The relief runs to 31 December 2027; the tenancy must be RTB-registered and stay in the rental market for about four years or the deduction is clawed back.
7. Can I claim wear and tear on my rental property?
On the building, no — there are no capital allowances on the structure or on improvements. On the contents of a furnished let, yes: wear-and-tear at 12.5% of cost per year for eight years on furniture, white goods and fittings (Revenue).
8. What is the seven-year rule for CGT in Ireland?
There is only one, and it is closed: properties acquired between 7 December 2011 and 31 December 2014 and held seven years or more get partial relief (7 ÷ years owned of the gain exempt). For anything bought since 2015 there is no seven-year rule — holding a rental for seven years exempts nothing, and letting your former home does not reset PPR relief. The standard exit tax is 33% on gains above the €1,270 annual exemption.
9. I rent out a room in my own home — is that different?
Yes. Rent-a-room relief exempts up to €14,000/year of income from a lodger in your PPR (including meals and utilities payments) from income tax, USC and PRSI, and it does not affect your PPR relief when you sell (Citizens Information — rent a room). It is not available for short-term lets or for renting out a whole separate property.
10. What happens if my rental income is less than my expenses in a year?
If costs and the deductible share of interest exceed the rent, the loss is generally carried forward and offset against future rental profits of that rental business — it does not reduce tax on your salary. And remember: a “loss” is computed on allowable expenses only — mortgage capital repayments and your own labour never count, so a cash-negative year is not automatically a tax-loss year. Run the numbers (or pay an accountant) before concluding you have a loss to carry.
10. Bottom line: the six numbers that run Dublin buy-to-let maths
- Gross is rent ÷ price; net is what survives costs and tax. Never underwrite a purchase on the gross figure.
- €250–€310 of every €1,000 of rent goes to operating costs and voids before tax — agent 7–10%, insurance+LPT 5–7%, maintenance 8–15%, voids 3–5%.
- Your marginal rate (20/40/52%) moves the keep-rate from 55% to 33%. The property is identical; the landlord’s salary decides the yield.
- 75% mortgage-interest deductibility in 2026 — the restriction costs a 40% landlord €100 per €1,000 of interest, and ~0.3 points of yield on a geared Finglas purchase.
- €1,000 RPRIR credit (2026–2027) is ~0.3–0.4 points of free yield on a typical Dublin property — claim it or lose it.
- 33% CGT and the €1,270 exemption on exit, with PPR relief covering occupation plus the final 12 months — and no general seven-year rule.
Your next steps
- Buying or holding? Start from the district yield table for the gross side, then rebuild each shortlisted property through the Section 5 model at your tax rate — the site’s free consultation will walk a shortlist through the net maths.
- Rents and the cap? The 2% national rent-cap explainer is the ruleset every landlord now operates under; model rents as growing at ~2%, not at market rates.
- Get the data, not the guesswork. Download “Dublin by the Numbers 2026” — our free PDF with every shortlisted district’s medians, growth and yields on one screen, refreshed quarterly.
- Own your paperwork. Register the tenancy with the RTB on day one, keep six years of receipts, and claim the RPRIR credit and any pre-letting expenses every year they apply. Most of the money landlords leave on the table is not exotic — it is unclaimed credits and undocumented deductions.
- Browsing the wider picture? All our investor guides and area analyses live in the investment analysis library.
Tax rules verified on 5 September 2026 against Revenue.ie (rental-income expenses, PPR relief, tax relief charts), Citizens Information and 2026-dated practitioner guidance; district rents and prices from the RTB Rent Register and Property Price Register via our registered-rent yield series (March 2026 update). This guide is general information, not tax or legal advice — yields and reliefs depend on your personal circumstances, so model your own numbers (with a tax advisor where it matters) before committing capital. Date to watch: PRSI rises from 4.2% to 4.35% on 1 October 2026.
