Payroll for Your First Irish Employee

I just incorporated and I'm about to hire my first employee

If you have just set up your company and you are getting ready to bring on your first employee, we make sure registration and payroll are ready before that first payday.

I'm paying myself as a director and need to set up PAYE

If you are the only person on the payroll, paying yourself a salary as director, PAYE still applies to you exactly as it would to any employee.

I got a payroll surprise or penalty and want to fix it going forward

If something already went wrong, a late registration, a missed submission, or a penalty letter, we help you fix the current situation and set up a routine that keeps it from happening again.

How we get your first Irish payroll run right

WhatsApp conversation about your setup

Tell us when you incorporated and when you plan to pay your first employee, or yourself as director. We tell you exactly what has to be in place before that date.

Employer registration and payroll setup

We register you as an employer with Revenue, request the Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN) for each employee, and set up compliant payroll software so nothing is calculated by hand.

Your first pay run, done with you

We process the first payslip and submit the payroll data to Revenue on or before payday, so your very first run is already correct, not corrected later.

Ongoing payroll, every pay period

We keep running payroll for you: RPN checks, submissions, payslips, and the amounts you owe Revenue, so this never becomes a surprise again.

In effect since 1 January 2019

PAYE Modernisation real-time reporting requirement

Revenue: PAYE reporting and employer registration →

Before your first payment of wages or salary, however small

When you must register as an employer with Revenue

Revenue: Registration of employers for PAYE purposes →

Payments to directors are reported to Revenue on or before the pay date, the same as for any employee

How directors are treated under PAYE

Applies to your own salary if you pay yourself as director, not only to outside hires.

Revenue: Directors, payments to employees →

What PAYE Modernisation actually requires

PAYE Modernisation is not a monthly filing you catch up on later. It is real-time payroll reporting, and it applies from your very first employee, including you if you pay yourself as director:

You must be registered as an employer with Revenue before your first payment of wages, however small.
Before you run each payslip, you fetch a Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN) for that employee, or you must apply emergency tax.
Every pay run, you submit the payroll data to Revenue on or before the pay date, not at month end and not once a year.
This applies to a director's own salary exactly the same way it applies to any other employee.

What it is not:

Not a return you file quarterly like VAT.
Not something you can reconstruct from memory after the fact.
Not optional just because you only have one employee, or that employee is you.

The most common first-payroll mistakes we see

Most of the founders we talk to are not careless. They simply did not know Irish payroll worked this way, because it does not work like this everywhere:

Registering as an employer after the first payday, instead of before it.
Assuming that paying yourself as director does not count as payroll, and skipping PAYE registration entirely.
Treating payroll like an end-of-month task, then missing the requirement to report on or before each payday.
Running a payslip without a current RPN, which pushes the new hire onto emergency tax.
Forgetting that employer costs sit on top of gross pay, so the salary you agreed is not your full cost.

None of these are unusual. They are the default outcome of setting up payroll without someone checking the sequence before the first payday, not after.

Start with a free setup conversation on WhatsApp

Tell us when you're hiring, or when you plan to start paying yourself as director. We tell you exactly what needs to be ready before that date, no generic checklist, before anything is billed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Revenue treats a director's pay the same as any employee's under PAYE, reported on or before each pay date. If you're a proprietary director, you also file a personal Form 11 every year, even when all your income is already taxed through payroll.

Revenue expects to see your payroll data in real time, not at month end. A missed submission is a visible compliance gap, not something that quietly disappears. We recommend fixing it immediately and adjusting your routine so it does not repeat.

Before your first payment of wages or salary to anyone, however small, including yourself as director. Registering after that first payday is treated as late, so plan this before you agree a start date or a first paycheck.

No, and that is the mistake we see most often. PAYE Modernisation requires a submission on or before every pay date, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, not a single filing after the fact like Income Tax or VAT can sometimes allow.

Yes. Once your Irish company pays anyone, including you, the same-day reporting rule applies regardless of where you live. We handle the Irish side end to end, so you are not learning PAYE Modernisation from scratch while running a business.

Yes. We review what has been submitted so far, correct what needs correcting, get your registration and RPNs in order, and set up a routine so every future pay date is reported correctly and on time.

Your first Irish payroll run has one rule most new employers miss