What is a Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN)?

An RPN replaces the old P2C tax certificate. It tells your payroll system how much tax to deduct for each employee, including their credits and standard rate band. We download and apply RPNs every pay period, because a stale RPN puts people on the wrong tax.

When do I have to submit payroll to Revenue in Ireland?

On or before the date employees are paid. Ireland operates real-time reporting under PAYE Modernisation, so there is no month-end filing window. The resulting monthly liability is then due by the 14th of the following month, or the 23rd when paid through ROS.

How do you handle new employees and leavers?

We register new employees with Revenue, retrieve their RPN, and add them to the next run. For leavers we calculate final pay and include the cessation in the payroll submission covering it, typically within 24 hours of you telling us.

Can you handle directors who take salary and dividends?

Yes. Proprietary directors have specific PAYE and PRSI treatment. We process salary through payroll and record dividends correctly for the CT1, including the dividend withholding tax.

What happens if I already use BrightPay?

We can work within your existing licence or migrate you to our bureau licence, whichever is more cost-effective for your headcount. Either way your year-to-date figures come across so cumulative tax stays right.

Do you handle employee expenses through payroll?

Yes. Where expenses are taxable we process them through payroll. Where they qualify for tax-free reimbursement under Revenue's rules we advise on the policy and the records you need to keep to support it.

Outsourced payroll services for Irish employers

Ireland runs payroll in real time: a submission has to reach Revenue on or before the day your people are paid, not at the end of the month. We run the whole cycle — weekly, fortnightly or monthly — so that never slips.

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In short

Irish payroll operates under PAYE Modernisation, which means a payroll submission must reach Revenue on or before each payment date. We retrieve and apply Revenue Payroll Notifications every period, calculate PAYE, PRSI and USC, issue payslips, submit in real time, and tell you the monthly liability due by the 14th, or the 23rd through ROS.

What real-time PAYE actually requires

PAYE Modernisation removed the old end-of-year reconciliation and replaced it with continuous reporting. Every pay run generates a submission, and that submission has to be with Revenue on or before the date the money reaches your employees.

This is the part employers underestimate. There is no grace period and no catching up at month end. A payroll run processed two days after payday is a late submission on the record, every time.

Obligation	When
Payroll submission to Revenue	On or before each payment date
Monthly PAYE, PRSI and USC liability	14th of the following month, 23rd via ROS
New employee registration	Before their first pay run, to retrieve a valid RPN
Cessation notification for a leaver	With the payroll submission covering their final pay

Employer payroll deadlines

Without a current RPN, an employee goes onto emergency tax. They notice immediately, and unwinding it costs more goodwill than it does time.

How the engagement runs

You send hours, changes, starters and leavers by an agreed cut-off, usually two working days before payday.
We retrieve the current RPNs from Revenue for every employee on the run.
We process the run, apply pension deductions and any benefit in kind, and send you a summary to approve.
On approval we issue digital payslips and file the real-time submission with Revenue.
We tell you the monthly liability and the date it is due, well before the deadline.

The areas that go wrong

Benefit in kind

Company cars, health insurance paid by the employer, preferential loans and many everyday perks are taxable through payroll. They are also the single most common finding in a Revenue payroll review, because employers treat them as a cost of the business rather than as pay.

Directors

Proprietary directors have their own PRSI treatment and their own PAYE rules, and taking money out of the company without processing it as salary or a dividend creates a director's loan with tax charges attached. Director payroll is not just payroll with one employee on it.

Expenses

Revenue's civil service rates can be reimbursed without a benefit-in-kind charge, but only for genuine business travel away from the employee's normal place of work. Where somebody attends the same site every day, that site is generally their normal place of work and the travel to it is commuting.

Who this suits

Employers with anywhere from one employee to around fifty, where hiring a payroll person is not justified.
Single-director companies that still need a compliant payroll running for the director's salary.
Businesses with a mix of frequencies — weekly staff alongside monthly management.
Anyone currently running payroll in a spreadsheet, which stops being viable the moment a rate changes or somebody leaves mid-period.

What it costs

Payroll is priced as a fixed monthly fee based on headcount and pay frequency, not on time spent. Starters, leavers, RPN retrieval and Revenue correspondence are inside the fee — they are the job, not extras.

Tell us your headcount and how often you pay, and you will have a fixed figure in writing within 48 hours.

Switching payroll provider mid-year

This can be done at any point, not only at the start of a tax year. We take over the ROS agent link, bring across year-to-date figures for every employee so cumulative tax stays correct, and run a parallel check on the first period. If you already hold a BrightPay licence we can work inside it, or move you onto our bureau licence where that is cheaper for your headcount.

Sources

Payroll questions we get asked

What is a Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN)?: An RPN replaces the old P2C tax certificate. It tells your payroll system how much tax to deduct for each employee, including their credits and standard rate band. We download and apply RPNs every pay period, because a stale RPN puts people on the wrong tax.
When do I have to submit payroll to Revenue in Ireland?: On or before the date employees are paid. Ireland operates real-time reporting under PAYE Modernisation, so there is no month-end filing window. The resulting monthly liability is then due by the 14th of the following month, or the 23rd when paid through ROS.
How do you handle new employees and leavers?: We register new employees with Revenue, retrieve their RPN, and add them to the next run. For leavers we calculate final pay and include the cessation in the payroll submission covering it, typically within 24 hours of you telling us.
Can you handle directors who take salary and dividends?: Yes. Proprietary directors have specific PAYE and PRSI treatment. We process salary through payroll and record dividends correctly for the CT1, including the dividend withholding tax.
What happens if I already use BrightPay?: We can work within your existing licence or migrate you to our bureau licence, whichever is more cost-effective for your headcount. Either way your year-to-date figures come across so cumulative tax stays right.
Do you handle employee expenses through payroll?: Yes. Where expenses are taxable we process them through payroll. Where they qualify for tax-free reimbursement under Revenue's rules we advise on the policy and the records you need to keep to support it.

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Tell us about your business and we will send a fixed-fee proposal within 48 hours.