What is the standard rate of VAT in Ireland?

23%. It applies to any supply that is not specifically given a lower rate, zero rated or exempted - which is most goods and services. If you cannot find your supply on a reduced-rate list, the standard rate is the answer.

What is the difference between zero-rated and exempt?

Both mean the customer pays no VAT, and they are not the same thing. A zero-rated supply is taxable at 0%, so you stay in the VAT system and can still reclaim VAT on your costs. An exempt supply is outside it, and VAT on the costs of making it is not reclaimable. The difference shows up in what you can deduct, not on the invoice.

Which VAT rate should I charge?

It depends on what is being supplied, not on who you are or what you registered as. The same business can invoice at several rates in one month. Revenue publishes a searchable database of rates by item, and that is the authority - the rate for a specific good or service belongs there rather than in a summary.

VAT rates in Ireland: 23%, 13.5%, 9%, 0% and which one applies

Q: Do the rates change?

The structure is stable; the items inside it are not. The rate on hospitality moved twice in three years, and the reduced rate on gas and electricity has been extended several times rather than settled. Check the current rate before pricing anything you have not invoiced in a while.

Most businesses only ever need two of them. Knowing which two, and why, is what stops a wrong rate reaching your VAT3.

Last reviewed 1 September 2026

Ireland has four VAT rates in general use, plus one that only concerns farming. Which one you charge is decided by what you are supplying — not by your turnover, not by your business type, and not by what you registered as.

Rate	Name	Broadly, what sits here
23%	Standard	The default. Everything not given another rate
13.5%	Reduced	Construction and building services, fuel and power, repair, cleaning, hairdressing
9%	Second reduced	A narrow list — newspapers, sporting facilities, some periodicals
0%	Zero	Most food, children’s clothing and footwear, oral medicines, books, exports
4.8%	Livestock	Livestock, horses, greyhounds. Ignore it unless you farm

The third column is a summary, and summaries of this go stale. The rate on hospitality moved from 13.5% to 9% and back inside three years, and the reduced rate on gas and electricity has been extended repeatedly rather than settled. Revenue publishes a searchable database of every item, and that is the authority for a specific good or service. Use it before pricing anything you have not invoiced in a while.

The default is 23%, and that matters more than the lists

The reduced rates are exceptions written down somewhere. If your supply is not on one of those lists, it is standard-rated. That is the useful way round to think about it: you are not hunting for your rate among five, you are asking whether an exception applies to you, and usually one does not.

It also means the question “what rate am I?” has no answer. A business is not on a rate. A supply is. A builder invoicing labour at 13.5% can sell a standard-rated product in the same week and put both on the same invoice at different rates.

Zero-rated is not the same as exempt

This is the distinction that costs money, and it is invisible on the invoice — both show the customer no VAT.

Zero-rated is taxable, at 0%. You are in the VAT system. You charge nothing and you can still reclaim the VAT on your costs.
Exempt is outside the system — financial services, medical services, education, insurance. You charge nothing, and the VAT on your costs is not reclaimable.

A business making only exempt supplies generally cannot register and cannot recover input VAT. A business making zero-rated supplies usually registers gladly, because it reclaims VAT on its costs and charges none on its sales. Same figure on the invoice, opposite positions.

Where the wrong rate actually surfaces

Not at the point of invoicing. It surfaces at the VAT3, because T1 is built from a rate at a time. An invoice raised at 23% that should have been 13.5% overstates what you owe; the other way round understates it, and that one is a correction with interest attached.

Two related cases have their own pages, because neither is really a rate:

Reverse charge — EU B2B services and construction supplies to a principal contractor carry no VAT at all, and the invoice has to say why. What the document must say.
Credit notes — a credit note carries the rate of the invoice it reverses, and lands in the period it was issued in rather than the period of that invoice. Why that matters.

The practical rule

Look the rate up once, per thing you sell, and then put it on the product rather than remembering it. A rate held in somebody’s head is applied from memory at eleven at night, and that is where the 23% that should have been 13.5% comes from.

This is a plain-English summary of how the rates are structured, not tax advice, and it deliberately does not list which rate applies to a specific item because those change. Revenue’s VAT rates database is the authority, and your accountant is the person to ask about a supply you are unsure of.

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