From 1 January 2026, Ireland's national minimum wage rose to €14.15 per hour for workers aged 20 and over — a 65 cent increase on the 2025 rate of €13.50. This page lets you check whether your hourly rate meets the legal minimum (including the lower sub-minimum rates for under-20s), see how minimum wage translates to weekly, monthly and annual pay, and understand the take-home pay after PAYE, USC and PRSI.
How the Irish minimum wage works
The National Minimum Wage is set under the National Minimum Wage Act 2000 and updated annually by the Minister for Enterprise on the recommendation of the Low Pay Commission. The 2026 rate of €14.15 applies to all employees aged 20 and over, regardless of contract type — full-time, part-time, casual, seasonal, agency, work experience and internship workers are all entitled to at least the applicable hourly rate. There is no exemption for small employers, hospitality, or trial periods.
Sub-minimum rates apply to younger workers, calculated as a percentage of the adult rate: 90% at age 19 (€12.74), 80% at age 18 (€11.32) and 70% under 18 (€9.91). These sub-minimum rates are due to be phased out as part of Ireland's transition to a Living Wage, with full equalisation expected by 2029.
What the calculator does
Enter your current hourly rate and select your age band. The tool checks your pay against the 2026 statutory minimum for your age and shows:
- Whether your rate meets, exceeds, or falls below the legal minimum
- Your weekly, monthly and annual gross pay at your current rate
- An estimate of take-home pay after PAYE, USC and PRSI at standard credits
- How much extra you'd earn if you moved to the Living Wage (independently calculated at around €15.40/hour)
| Age Group | Rate per Hour | Weekly (39hrs) | Annual (approx) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Age 20+ (standard) | €14.15 | €551.85 | €28,696 |
| Age 19 | €12.74 (90%) | €496.86 | €25,837 |
| Age 18 | €11.32 (80%) | €441.48 | €22,957 |
| Under 18 | €9.91 (70%) | €386.49 | €20,098 |
The Irish Living Wage is approximately €14.80/hour. Many employers pay above minimum wage to attract and retain staff.
| Date | Hourly Rate | Change |
|---|---|---|
| January 2026 | €14.15 | +€0.65 |
| January 2025 | €13.50 | +€0.80 |
| January 2024 | €12.70 | +€1.40 |
| January 2023 | €11.30 | +€0.80 |
| January 2022 | €10.50 | +€0.30 |
Who is — and isn't — entitled to minimum wage
The minimum wage applies to almost everyone working in Ireland on a contract of service. That includes full-time, part-time, casual, seasonal, agency, and temporary employees. Importantly, it also covers work experience placements paid by the employer, paid internships, work trials, and probationary periods. There is no "training rate" or "trial period" exemption in Irish law.
The narrow exemptions are:
- Close family members employed by the business owner (spouse, parent, grandparent, child, step-child, brother, sister and similar relations)
- Statutory apprentices on a recognised Solas apprenticeship, who follow a separate rate structure linked to the year of their apprenticeship
- Genuinely self-employed contractors — though Revenue and the WRC closely scrutinise misclassification, and "false self-employment" remains a frequent finding in WRC inspections
What counts towards the hourly rate
Calculating whether you're being paid minimum wage isn't always as simple as looking at the figure on your contract. The minimum wage is calculated over a pay reference period (typically your pay frequency — weekly or monthly). Within that period:
- Basic salary counts in full
- Shift premiums and unsocial-hours payments count
- Service charges paid through payroll count
- Board and lodgings can be partially counted, up to €1.27/hour for food and €33.42/week for accommodation (2026 limits)
- Overtime premiums do NOT count — only the basic hourly equivalent of overtime hours
- Tips and gratuities do NOT count — since the Payment of Wages (Tips and Gratuities) Act 2022, tips are legally distinct from wages
- Expenses, allowances, and pension contributions do NOT count
If you're a tipped worker, your base rate of pay before tips must be at least €14.15/hour. A restaurant cannot pay you €12/hour "because the tips will make it up". That's a clear breach of the 2022 Act.
Working out your weekly take-home on minimum wage
A full-time adult worker on €14.15/hour and a standard 39-hour week earns:
- Gross weekly: €551.85
- Gross annual: ~€28,696 (52 weeks)
- PAYE: approximately €0 — earnings sit entirely within the 20% band, fully offset by Personal (€2,000) and PAYE (€2,000) credits
- USC: approximately €394/year (0.5% on first €12,012, 2% above that up to €28,700)
- PRSI: approximately €1,217/year at the 4.24% blended Class A rate
- Estimated net annual: ~€27,085, or around €521/week take-home
Note that workers earning at or near the minimum wage may also qualify for additional supports: the Working Family Payment if they have children, the Rent Tax Credit (€1,000 in 2026), and the Fuel Allowance if their household is otherwise eligible. Always check your entitlements at Citizens Information.
What to do if your employer underpays you
If you believe you're being paid below the legal minimum, you have several options:
- Step 1: Request a written statement. Under the Act, you can ask your employer for a written statement of your average hourly rate over any pay reference period in the last 12 months. They must provide it within 4 weeks.
- Step 2: Raise it informally. Sometimes underpayment is a payroll error or a misunderstanding about which hours are counted. Many disputes resolve at this stage.
- Step 3: WRC complaint. If informal resolution fails, you can lodge a complaint with the Workplace Relations Commission via their online form. The WRC can order your employer to pay arrears going back up to 6 years.
- Anti-victimisation protection. It is a separate offence under the Act for an employer to penalise you in any way — reduced hours, dismissal, demotion — for asserting your minimum wage rights. If this happens, you have additional grounds for complaint.
The Living Wage and what's coming next
Ireland is in the middle of a long transition from a National Minimum Wage to a National Living Wage. The target is for the statutory floor to equal 60% of median hourly earnings — currently estimated at around €15.40/hour. That target was originally set for 2026 but has been pushed back to 2029 to give employers more time to adjust.
In practice, this means the minimum wage will continue rising each year through at least 2029. Sub-minimum youth rates are also being phased out — the long-term direction is a single statutory hourly rate that applies from age 18.
Some sectors already have higher minimum rates set through Employment Regulation Orders (EROs) issued by Joint Labour Committees. The most notable for 2026 is contract cleaning at €14.80/hour, and the security sector has its own ERO rates that exceed the national minimum. If you work in either, check your sector-specific rate as well.