Can I charge interest on a late invoice? Irish late payment rules
You are entitled to it automatically. Most businesses never claim it because nobody told them.
Almost every small business in Ireland treats late payment as something to be endured. It is not. Under the European Communities (Late Payment in Commercial Transactions) Regulations 2012 you are automatically entitled to interest on a commercial invoice paid late — and to a fixed sum on top of it.
Automatically means what it says. The Department's own wording is that enterprises are entitled to interest “without the necessity of a reminder”. You do not have to have written it on the invoice. You do not have to have warned anyone. You do not have to ask nicely first.
The rate
Eight percentage points above the European Central Bank main refinancing rate. The rate is set on 1 January and 1 July each year and holds for the following six months.
With effect from 1 July 2026 the rate is 10.4% a year — the ECB rate of 2.40% plus the 8 point margin. That figure changes on 1 January 2027. The mechanism above is what is stable; the number is not. The Department publishes the current rate here and it is the figure to use.
Interest runs daily, at the annual rate divided by 365.
The compensation, which is the part nobody knows about
On top of the interest, and regardless of how small the interest is, you are entitled to a fixed sum towards your recovery costs:
| Amount of the debt | Compensation |
|---|---|
| Not exceeding €1,000 | €40 |
| Exceeding €1,000 but not exceeding €10,000 | €70 |
| Exceeding €10,000 | €100 |
On a small invoice the compensation is usually worth several times the interest, which is exactly why it is worth knowing.
What that comes to in practice
At 10.4%, the rate in force from 1 July 2026:
| Invoice | Days late | Interest | Compensation | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| €500 | 30 | €4.27 | €40 | €44.27 |
| €2,000 | 30 | €17.10 | €70 | €87.10 |
| €2,000 | 60 | €34.19 | €70 | €104.19 |
| €15,000 | 45 | €192.33 | €100 | €292.33 |
When does an invoice actually become late?
- No payment term agreed: 30 days after the purchaser receives the invoice.
- A public authority: 30 days from delivery, and that is a cap.
- Between businesses: you can agree up to 60 days. Beyond 60 days needs express agreement, and a term that is grossly unfair to the supplier can be challenged.
Should you actually charge it?
Often, no — and that is a commercial decision rather than a legal one. A client you want to keep is worth more than €87.
But there is a large gap between charging it and not knowing you could. Knowing the number changes the conversation, because “this is now three weeks overdue” and “this is now three weeks overdue and I am entitled to €87 on it” are not the same sentence, even when you never send the second one.
This is a plain-English summary of the Regulations, not legal advice. The governing law is SI 580 of 2012, as amended by SI 74 of 2013, SI 196 of 2014 and SI 281 of 2016, and the Department's guidance is the authority.
The cheapest version is not being late in the first place
Kayment sends the reminders for you, on a schedule you set, and stops the moment the invoice is paid. Your customer opens the invoice as a page and pays on it — card, Apple Pay, or straight from their bank — with no account to create.
What it deliberately will not do is threaten anyone. The collections agent drafts the chase email, and it is instructed never to mention interest, late fees, debt collection or legal action — because it does not know what you agreed with that customer, and it cannot commit you to consequences you never signed up to. That call stays yours, which is the whole reason this page exists.
See how it works