PAYE Real-Time Reporting Ireland

What is PAYE Real-Time Reporting? The employer explainer.

PAYE Real-Time Reporting (also called PAYE Modernisation or simply PSR filing) requires employers to report each employee's pay, tax, USC, and PRSI to Revenue on or before the date they are paid. Revenue receives this information simultaneously with the employee — there is no period of grace and no annual return to fall back on. Revenue does produce a year-end Employment Detail Summary (EDS) for each employee, but this is generated from the PSR submissions made throughout the year, not from a separate employer return.

This applies to every employer with staff — regardless of size, sector, or payroll frequency. A sole trader with one employee has exactly the same PSR obligation as a company with 200.

What Irish employers are required to do

File a Payroll Submission Report (PSR) with Revenue on or before every pay date
Include accurate PAYE, USC, and PRSI figures for every employee on every run
Report new starters correctly using their RPN (Revenue Payroll Notification)
File a Final Payroll Submission when an employee leaves
Retrieve updated RPNs regularly — Revenue issues them when employee circumstances change
Pay PAYE/PRSI/USC to Revenue by the due date (monthly for most employers)

Where most employers are not yet up to speed

These are the errors CBCR finds most often when reviewing payroll for new clients:

Filing PSR monthly instead of at every pay run. This is a common error with weekly payrolls
Using stale RPNs — if Revenue has updated an employee's tax credits and you haven't retrieved the new RPN, every subsequent payslip is incorrect
Incorrect PRSI class. This applies particularly to directors, proprietary directors, and workers on non-standard contracts
Missing the final payroll submission when an employee leaves
Failing to report new starters on their first pay run
Submitting the PSR after the pay date rather than on or before it

How CBCR handles it

CBCR files your PSR on or before every pay date as standard. We retrieve RPNs before each run, apply the correct PAYE, USC, and PRSI to every employee, submit the PSR on time, and pay Revenue by the monthly due date. If Revenue contacts you about a submission, you forward the correspondence to us — we handle it.

Not sure if you're compliant?

Book a free Payroll Health Check — 30 minutes, no obligation. We review this and every other compliance area — and tell you exactly where you stand. No obligation.

Frequently asked questions

A Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN) contains each employee's current tax credits, cut-off points, and USC rate. Employers must retrieve the latest RPN for each employee before running payroll. If Revenue updates an employee's tax position. For example, after they submit a tax credit claim — and you don't retrieve the updated RPN, you'll deduct the wrong amount of tax.

Revenue can charge interest on late PAYE payments at 0.0219% per day. Persistent late filing can trigger a Revenue audit. The reputational and administrative cost of an audit typically far exceeds any penalty.

Yes. If you pay employees weekly, you file weekly. If fortnightly, you file fortnightly. The PSR must be filed on or before the pay date. Not at the end of the month.

The P35 annual return was abolished in January 2019 when PAYE Modernisation was introduced. It was replaced by real-time PSR submissions. Employers no longer file a separate annual return. Revenue collects the data in real time throughout the year and generates an Employment Detail Summary (EDS) for each employee at year-end — available to employees via their myAccount.

When an employee leaves, you must file a Final Payroll Submission indicating it is their last pay run with your business. This allows Revenue to close that employment record and issue the employee's end-of-year statement.

Official Revenue & Government resources

Book your free Payroll Health Check ← Back to Payroll Services