Your Year-End Financial Planning Guide for Ireland

The first deadline of the year-end run is 31 October 2026 — the Pay and File date for your 2025 income tax return.

For a lot of people that date is not really about the return at all. It is the last chance to decide on a pension contribution and have it count against last year’s income. That single decision is usually worth more than everything else on the year-end list combined, and it has to be made before you file — not after.

After that come the December dates, when three separate allowances expire on the same night and do not come back.

This guide walks through all of it in plain English, with the 2026 figures. It is written for people with ordinary financial lives: a pension, a mortgage, maybe some savings or shares, possibly a business.

The dates that actually matter

Most of year-end financial planning comes down to four dates. Put them in your calendar now and the rest of this guide becomes a series of small decisions rather than a scramble.

Date	What falls due
6 October 2026	Budget 2027 is announced.
31 October 2026	Pay and File deadline for the 2025 income tax return. Also the date by which a backdated pension contribution must be paid and elected.
15 December 2026	Capital Gains Tax is payable on gains realised between 1 January and 30 November 2026.
31 December 2026	Annual allowances reset. The small gift exemption, the Capital Gains Tax annual exemption and the four-year window for 2022 refund claims all end here.

One extra date for completeness: Capital Gains Tax on anything you sell in December 2026 is not due until 31 January 2027. That six-week difference is occasionally useful, and we come back to it below.

Pensions: the single biggest lever before year end

For most people reading this, a pension contribution is the largest tax decision available in the final quarter of the year. Contributions attract income tax relief at your marginal rate, which for a higher-rate taxpayer means the Revenue Commissioners effectively fund 40 cent of every euro contributed.

There are two limits. The first is age-related and applies as a percentage of your earnings:

Age	Maximum percentage of earnings qualifying for relief
Under 30	15%
30 to 39	20%
40 to 49	25%
50 to 54	30%
55 to 59	35%
60 or over	40%

The second limit is the earnings cap. Revenue takes a maximum of €115,000 of earnings into account when calculating relief, so a 52-year-old earning €150,000 is working from 30% of €115,000, not 30% of €150,000.

What that looks like in practice

Take someone aged 45, earning €80,000, paying tax at the higher rate. Their age band allows 25% of earnings, so up to €20,000 can qualify for relief in the year.

If they have already contributed €6,000 through payroll, there is €14,000 of headroom left. Contributing that €14,000 costs them €8,400 out of pocket, because relief at 40% covers the other €5,600. The full €14,000 lands in the pension either way.

That is the shape of the arithmetic for most people: the higher your marginal rate, the more of the contribution the relief carries. Relief is given against income tax only — it does not reduce the Universal Social Charge (USC) or Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI), so the saving is smaller than the headline rate suggests if you are on the standard rate.

Whether filling the headroom is the right call is a separate question from whether it is available. It depends on what else the money is doing, when you expect to draw on the pension, and what is already invested. That is the conversation worth having before the deadline rather than after it.

The backdating rule most people miss

A contribution paid now, in late 2026, can be set against your 2025 income instead of your 2026 income — provided you make the election on or before the return filing date for 2025. In practice that means by 31 October 2026 — the contribution has to be paid and the election made by that date.

This matters more than it sounds. If 2025 was a strong year and 2026 is looking flatter, relief against the better year is worth materially more. If you have already filed, the window has closed for 2025 — but the same logic will apply again next October for the 2026 year, so it is worth understanding now.

If you run a company

A company contribution to a director’s pension is treated differently again. It is generally deductible against corporation tax in the accounting period in which it is paid, not the period in which it is declared — so a contribution that slips past your company year-end lands in the following period’s accounts. If your financial year ends on 31 December, the payment needs to clear before then.

Employer contributions to a Personal Retirement Savings Account (PRSA) are not treated as a benefit in kind for the employee, up to 100% of that employee’s salary. That is a generous allowance and one of the more useful planning tools available to owner-directors, but the 100% ceiling is real and worth checking before a large contribution is made.

If any of this is live for you, it is worth a conversation rather than a guess. Call 01 853 2727 and we can work through the numbers with you.

Two changes to be aware of

The Standard Fund Threshold — the maximum pension fund value that can be built up without an additional tax charge — rose to €2.2 million for 2026, and is scheduled to continue rising in annual steps. If you are anywhere near it, the sequencing of contributions and drawdown starts to matter a great deal.

Separately, automatic enrolment went live on 1 January 2026 under the scheme name MyFutureFund. It captures employees aged between 23 and 60, earning €20,000 or more a year, who are not already in a workplace pension. In the first phase the employee pays 1.5%, the employer pays 1.5% and the State adds 0.5%. If you are enrolled, that is a start — but it is a floor, not a plan, and for most people it will not be enough on its own.

The dates, the election and the different rules for company contributions are set out in full in our guide to the pension contribution deadline in Ireland.

Capital Gains Tax: the 15 December deadline nobody diaries

Capital Gains Tax in Ireland is charged at 33% on the gain, not the sale price. The first €1,270 of gains each year is exempt, and that exemption is per person, cannot be transferred between spouses, and does not carry forward. Use it or lose it on 31 December.

Three things are worth doing before the year closes.

Check whether you have gains at all. If you sold shares, a fund, a second property or a business asset this year, the tax on gains realised between 1 January and 30 November is payable by 15 December 2026 — and it is payable whether or not you have filed a return. The return itself is not due until 31 October 2027. People are regularly caught out by paying late on a return that is not due for another ten months.

Consider realising losses against those gains. If you are holding an investment that is worth less than you paid for it, selling before 31 December crystallises a loss that can be set against gains made in the same year. Unused losses carry forward indefinitely. This is a genuinely useful technique, though it should never be the reason to sell something you would otherwise want to keep.

Mind the December split. A disposal on 30 November means tax due on 15 December 2026. The same disposal on 2 December means tax due on 31 January 2027. If cash flow is tight, the date you press the button matters.

Our fuller explainer on how Capital Gains Tax works in Ireland covers rates, exemptions and the filing mechanics in more detail.

Gifts: the €3,000 allowance that resets on 1 January

The small gift exemption lets you receive up to €3,000 from any one person in a calendar year without any Capital Acquisitions Tax arising. It applies per giver, per recipient, per year — and it applies to gifts only, never to inheritances.

The arithmetic is quietly powerful. Two parents can each give €3,000 to each of their children in a single calendar year, and again in January, without touching anyone’s lifetime threshold. Done consistently over a decade or two, that moves a substantial sum out of an estate with no tax cost at all.

Behind the small gift exemption sit the lifetime thresholds, above which Capital Acquisitions Tax applies at 33%:

Group	Relationship to the person giving	Threshold
A	Child	€400,000
B	Brother, sister, niece, nephew, grandchild	€40,000
C	Everyone else	€20,000

If you expect to pass on more than the relevant threshold, the small gift exemption is one of several tools worth using early rather than late. Our guide to gift tax in Ireland goes further into how the thresholds interact.

Savings and investments: check what your money is actually earning

Deposit interest is subject to Deposit Interest Retention Tax at 33%, usually deducted at source by the bank. Many people have money sitting in current accounts earning nothing at all, which is a different problem and a more common one.

Investment funds and life assurance policies are taxed differently again. Gains are subject to exit tax, which was reduced from 41% to 38% in Budget 2026. The eight-year deemed disposal rule remains: every eight years, the fund is treated as if it had been sold, tax is charged on the growth, and the clock restarts — even though you have not actually sold anything and have received no cash.

If you hold a fund bought around 2018, a deemed disposal may already have happened or may be approaching. It is worth knowing which, because the tax falls due whether or not you were expecting it. Our post on the taxes you pay on investments in Ireland sets out how the different structures compare.

Tax credits and reliefs: the four-year rule

You can claim a refund of overpaid income tax going back four years. That means 31 December 2026 is the last day to claim anything relating to 2022. After that the money stays with the Revenue Commissioners permanently.

The credits most commonly left unclaimed:

• Health expenses. Relief is given at the standard rate of 20% on qualifying medical and dental costs — doctor’s visits, consultants, prescriptions, certain dental work — less anything reimbursed by insurance. Nursing home expenses are relieved at your highest rate of tax, up to 40%.
• Rent Tax Credit. Worth up to €1,000 a year for a single person and up to €2,000 for a jointly assessed married couple or civil partners. It has been extended to 2028.
• Mortgage Interest Tax Credit. For 2026 the credit is calculated on 50% of the increase in the interest you paid in 2026 over what you paid in 2022, with qualifying interest capped at €3,125 per property. It is worth less this year than last, but it is not nothing.
• Flat-rate expenses and remote working relief, depending on your occupation and circumstances.

Four years of unclaimed health expenses for a family of four is rarely a trivial sum. This is the single easiest item on the list and the one most often left undone.

If you are self-employed or a company director

Everything above applies, plus a few items that are specific to running your own business.

Preliminary tax. Alongside the balance owed for 2025, the Pay and File deadline carries a preliminary tax payment for 2026. The usual safe harbour is to pay 100% of the prior year’s liability, which removes the guesswork about how 2026 will finish. Paying too little triggers interest; paying too much is an interest-free loan to the State.

The small benefit exemption. An employer can give up to five small benefits a year, tax-free, with a combined value of no more than €1,500. They must not be in cash — vouchers are the usual route — and only the first five benefits in the year can qualify. Directors of their own companies are employees for this purpose. This is a use-it-or-lose-it allowance that resets on 1 January.

Pension funding through the company. Covered above, but worth repeating that the payment date, not the decision date, is what counts for the corporation tax deduction.

Our guide to income tax for the self-employed in Ireland covers the return itself in more depth.

The things that are not about tax

Year-end planning tends to get framed entirely around deadlines and reliefs, which is understandable but incomplete. Three questions are worth asking once a year, and the quiet weeks in December are as good a time as any.

Would your household cope if your income stopped? Income protection and serious illness cover are the products people most often intend to arrange and never do. State Illness Benefit is modest and is not designed to replace a salary.

Is your life cover still the right size and the right shape? Cover arranged when you had a €400,000 mortgage and no children is answering a question you are no longer asking.

Is your will current, and does anyone know where it is? Not a financial product, but the cheapest hour of planning most people will ever spend.

Your year-end checklist

1. File and pay your 2025 return by 31 October 2026.
2. Decide on a pension contribution, and whether to backdate it against 2025.
3. If you run a company, make sure any company pension contribution is paid before your year-end.
4. Work out whether you have Capital Gains Tax due on 15 December, and pay it.
5. Use your €1,270 Capital Gains Tax exemption, and consider realising losses against gains.
6. Use the €3,000 small gift exemption before 31 December if gifting is part of your plan.
7. Claim everything outstanding for 2022 before the four-year window closes on 31 December.
8. Use the €1,500 small benefit exemption if you are an employer or a director.
9. Review your protection cover, your investment charges and your will.

Where we can help

Greenway Financial Advisors is a whole-of-market advisory firm working with clients across Ireland — self-employed people, company directors, professionals and people approaching retirement. We look at the whole picture rather than a single product, which is usually where the value in year-end planning sits: the decisions interact, and the order you take them in matters.

If you would like someone to look over your position before the year closes, call 01 853 2727 or book a free initial meeting at a time that suits you. There is no charge and no obligation for the first conversation.

You can read more about how we work on our financial planning services page.

Reviewed by the advisory team at Greenway Financial Advisors Ltd. · Dublin · Updated September 2026

General information for the 2026 tax year. Not personal advice. Figures are correct at the time of writing and may change in Budget 2027. Greenway Financial Advisors Limited. Regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Registered No. C168372.