How do you set upa company in Ireland.
You register a private company limited by shares with the Companies Registration Office, appoint a director and a company secretary, give it an Irish address, then register it with Revenue for corporation tax and payroll. Teamed does all of it and runs the company afterwards.
Ireland at a glance
The facts most people need first
Ireland is one of the more straightforward places in Europe to put a company, which is part of why so many first European entities land here. The registry fee is small, the filing is electronic, and nobody has to travel to Dublin to do it. The rules that matter are about people and addresses rather than money.
- Usual company type
- Private company limited by shares, an LTD
- Governing law
- Companies Act 2014
- Directors needed
- One, and at least one must live in the EEA
- Company secretary
- Required, and a sole director cannot also be secretary
- Minimum share capital
- None
- Registration fee, filed online
- €50
- Corporation tax on trading profit
- 12.5%
The one rule that catches people out
Do you need an Irish director to open an Irish company
No, and this is the point most people get wrong before they start. Irish law does not ask for an Irish director. It asks for one who lives somewhere in the European Economic Area, which is thirty countries, and Ireland is only one of them. A director in Lisbon or Helsinki satisfies it exactly as well as one in Dublin.
Where it bites is when nobody on your board lives in any of them. British companies hit this immediately, because the United Kingdom left the EEA and British residence stopped counting. So does an American or Australian founder opening their first European company. The rule is about where somebody lives, not the passport they hold, so an Irish passport held by somebody in New York does not solve it.
There are two ways through, and they are genuinely different decisions rather than two versions of the same one.
Every Irish company needs an EEA resident director, or a bond instead
The registry checks this at incorporation, so it has to be settled before you file rather than after.
Anyone living in one of the thirty EEA states qualifies. They take on real legal duties, so this is a genuine appointment and not a name on a form.
An insurance bond covering unpaid fines and tax, bought for a two year term and renewed after it. It buys time while nobody local sits on the board.
Before you file
What you need to have ready
Six things have to exist before the Companies Registration Office will look at your filing, and gathering them is what takes the time. The filing itself is one form.
Start with the name, because it is the only item that can send you back to the beginning. It has to be clearly distinguishable from every company already on the register, and the word clearly is doing real work there. Adding a word, changing a spelling or dropping a hyphen is usually not enough. Names implying banking, insurance or another regulated activity need a consent you probably do not have.
Then the people. Every Irish company needs at least one director, aged eighteen or over, named on the public register and carrying personal legal duties. It also needs a company secretary, and if there is only one director the secretary has to be somebody else. Teamed acts as secretary for most of the companies we form, which is the usual answer when a founder is on their own.
The company needs an address in Ireland where official post will reach it. Not a post box, and not somewhere nobody collects from, because the registry writes to it and the public register publishes it. It needs a constitution setting out what it may do and who owns what. There is no minimum share capital, so most companies are formed with a nominal amount rather than a meaningful one.
Last, the directors verify their identity online. That is the reason nobody has to fly to Dublin to open an Irish company.
How it runs
How long does it take to register a company in Ireland
Two to three weeks end to end is normal once your documents are ready, and the registry is the fast part of that. What stretches a timeline is almost never the registry. It is waiting on an identity check, a name that comes back refused, or a bank taking its time.
Details confirmed, identities checked
We agree the name, the directors, the secretary and the registered office, then run the identity checks the registry requires.
The bond arranged, if you need one
Only when no director lives in the EEA. It runs alongside everything else, so it rarely adds time on its own.
The incorporation filed
The application goes to the registry with the constitution. Everything above has to be settled before this point.
The registry registers the company
You get a company number and a certificate of incorporation. The company legally exists from here.
Tax, payroll and the bank
Corporation tax and employer registration with Revenue, beneficial owners filed, and the bank account opened.
Setting up your own entity takes anywhere from a few weeks to several months, depending on the country's registry and how fast you can open a local bank account. Ireland sits at the faster end of that.
What it costs
How much does it cost to set up a company in Ireland
The state charges very little. €50 registers the company and €20 a year keeps it on the register, with no share capital requirement at all. What you actually spend is on the people who prepare the filing, act as secretary, and get the company registered with Revenue, plus the bond if you need one.
| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| Company registration, filed online | €50 |
| Minimum share capital | None |
| Annual return, filed online | €20 |
| Corporation tax on trading profit | 12.5% |
Market estimate
€2,000 to €4,000What the market charges to form the company and register it for tax. Not a Teamed price.
Income that is not from trading, rent and investment income among it, is taxed at a higher rate than trading profit. Worth knowing before you decide what the company will actually do.
After the company exists
What happens once you are registered
Incorporation is where the obligations start rather than where they finish. Revenue registration comes first. Corporation tax, then employer registration so you can operate payroll and actually pay somebody, then VAT if you trade above the thresholds. You must be registered as an employer before your first pay run, not within some window afterwards, so this step decides your first pay date rather than the certificate of incorporation does.
Your beneficial owners, the people who ultimately own or control the company, go on a separate register within five months. It is the one that gets forgotten, because it is neither the registry nor Revenue, and the penalty for missing it is real.
The bank account is the slow step and the one nobody can promise you. Every bank makes its own risk decision, and a company with no Irish resident director and no trading history is a harder case than one with both. Open it the week you incorporate, not the week you need it.
Then the first annual return, due exactly six months after incorporation. That first one needs no financial statements. Every one after it does, and they fall annually.
What you take on
The parts that stay with you
The first is the directors. Irish company law puts duties on named individuals and does not let them hand the consequences to an arrangement. If filings run late, or the company keeps trading when it cannot pay, that lands on a person. Decide who that person is before you file, because the form asks for them by name and the public register publishes it.
The second is tax. Once the company trades in Ireland it reports and pays Irish corporation tax on trading income, and the filing calendar does not pause because a quarter was quiet. Teamed keeps the calendar and does the filing, but the company is yours and so is the liability.
Before you commit
Sometimes an employer of record is the better fit
Not every team needs its own company. If the group in Ireland is small, still changing shape, or you are testing whether the market works at all, an employer of record can be the better answer, and it is a fair one rather than a lesser one. It is also reversible in a way incorporation is not. A company brings directors, filings and a tax registration that all outlive the decision to open it.
Teamed's employer of record in Ireland is a flat €560 per employee per month, with zero FX mark-up in any currency pairing and one invoice at the end of it. Contractors, employer of record and your own entity all run on one platform, so moving between them later does not mean changing provider or re-onboarding anybody. Real HR and legal experts handle the work, not a ticket queue.
Talk to a member of the team and we will tell you plainly which one suits where you are. If you would rather look at the numbers yourself first, the crossover calculator models it for Ireland using local salaries and employer costs rather than a headcount rule of thumb.
Who carries it
Your own entity, when it's time. We set it up, migrate you in, and hand it back intact.
Global Entity and Employment Operations, which we call GEMO, is how Teamed forms your company, registers it for corporation tax and payroll, runs it month to month and keeps its filings current, across 100+ countries. You stay the employer. We do the work behind it.
In Ireland that matters a little more than elsewhere, because Teamed employs through its own Irish entity rather than a partner. The people who would run your company are the people already running ours.
They set up our EU entity and moved hires across without missing a payroll.
Questions
Questions people ask before they register
Can a non resident open a company in Ireland?
Yes. There is no residency requirement to own an Irish company or to be its director. The only residency rule is that at least one director lives in the European Economic Area. If none does, a Section 137 bond covers you instead.
Is there a minimum share capital in Ireland?
No. A private company limited by shares under Part 2 of the Companies Act 2014 may choose to have no authorised share capital figure at all, so companies are commonly formed with a nominal amount. A public limited company is different and must have at least 25,000 euro allotted.
How long does it take to register a company in Ireland?
Two to three weeks end to end is normal. The Companies Registration Office publishes its own processing times daily, and in mid September 2026 the faster online scheme was working through filings received about a week earlier.
When do I have to register as an employer in Ireland?
Before your first pay run, not within a window afterwards. You must be registered before making any payment to an employee, and pay and deductions are reported to Revenue on or before the payment date.
What is the hardest part of setting up in Ireland?
The bank account. Every bank makes its own risk decision and none of them guarantee an outcome, so it is the step worth starting in the week you incorporate rather than the week you need it.
The rest of the Ireland guides
Looking for a job in Entity Setup yourself? Teamed does not hire people directly. Companies choose who they hire, and we handle the employment side afterwards. Here is why we cannot help with your search.
