Payroll Outsourcing in Ireland: Costs, Duties and How to Choose

Outsourcing payroll in Ireland means handing the pay run, Revenue reporting and payslips to an accountant or bureau, while you keep the decisions and the legal responsibility. For most small employers it is worth it once payroll starts eating hours, or once one mistake would cost more than a year of fees. This guide covers what a provider does, what stays with you, how pricing works, and how to pick one without regret.

TL;DR

Since 1 January 2019 every pay run must be reported to Revenue on or before the pay date, so even a two-person payroll carries a fixed, repeating deadline.
Auto-enrolment through MyFutureFund began on 1 January 2026, which added a new pension step to payroll for eligible employees.
Outsourcing moves the processing and the rule-tracking to a specialist. It does not move your liability as employer.
Compare providers on what is included (Revenue submissions, pension files, year-end), who you actually speak to, and whether payroll connects to your bookkeeping and VAT.
Our payroll service costs 25 € per month per employee or director, as published on our pricing page.

What outsourced payroll actually covers
What the law asks of an Irish employer
Outsource, software or in-house?
What outsourcing costs in Ireland
Why payroll should not sit on its own
How to choose a payroll provider
Perspective: what we see in small-business payroll
Payroll with Stratancy
A short checklist before you switch
FAQ
Sources

What outsourced payroll actually covers

A payroll provider takes the recurring work of paying people correctly and reporting it. In practice that usually means:

Setting up new starters and processing leavers.
Calculating gross to net: Income Tax, PRSI and USC.
Submitting each pay run to Revenue.
Producing payslips and a payment file or schedule for your bank.
Preparing the figures you owe Revenue each month.
Handling year-end reporting and answering employee queries about their payslips.

The boundary matters. Providers process what you tell them. If you do not tell them that someone has left, or got a raise, or moved from 35 to 20 hours, the payroll will be accurate to the wrong facts. Good providers make this easy with a simple monthly change form or a shared inbox, but the information still starts with you.

What the law asks of an Irish employer

To judge any provider, you need to know what they are doing on your behalf.

Reporting every pay run

Under PAYE Modernisation, employers must report pay and statutory deductions to Revenue on or before each pay date, whether you pay weekly, fortnightly or monthly. A monthly payroll therefore means 12 submissions a year. Revenue builds a monthly statement from those submissions by the 5th of the following month, and it becomes a statutory return if not amended by the 14th.

The same page is clear that the employer is responsible for making sure its system complies. Hiring a provider does not hand that responsibility over. It means you choose someone who will do it properly, and you check.

Paying over the tax

You must also pay to Revenue all tax deducted from employees' pay. Late payment is the part of payroll where small businesses most often get into trouble, usually because cash was spent before the liability was due. A provider who tells you each month exactly how much to set aside, and by when, is worth more than one who only sends payslips.

Starters and leavers

When someone joins, you register them with Revenue by requesting a Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN), unless it is their first job or first job in Ireland. Late or wrong start and leaving dates can result in a nil RPN for the employee at their next job, which often triggers emergency tax. Employees notice emergency tax immediately, and they blame whoever ran payroll. Tell your provider about leavers the same week, not at month end.

MyFutureFund auto-enrolment

The newest addition. From 1 January 2026, eligible employees aged over 22 earning at least €20,000 a year who are not already saving through a payroll pension are automatically enrolled. Employers must match employee contributions, starting at 1.5% of gross pay, with the State adding 0.5%. The rates rise in steps every three years towards 6% each by 2035, and contributions stop once gross earnings pass €80,000 in a calendar year.

For payroll this means checking eligibility, deducting and matching contributions, and reporting them correctly. If you already run a qualifying pension through payroll for an employee, that employee is not enrolled, so the pension details in your payroll need to be right. Ask any prospective provider how they handle this now, not in general terms.

Outsource, software or in-house?

There are three realistic routes for a small Irish employer.

Option	Best for	What you carry
Do it yourself with payroll software	One or two employees, simple pay, an owner who likes detail	All calculations, submissions, deadlines and law changes
Outsource to an accountant or bureau	Most SMEs with 1 to 50 staff, or owners whose time is worth more than the fee	Supplying accurate changes on time, approving each run, funding the tax
Hire a payroll person	Larger or complex payroll with frequent changes	Salary, cover for holidays and sickness, training

If you want to price software first, an Irish roundup such as Vendors.ie's guide to payroll software lists the main products and their annual licence costs. Software gives you the tool, not the knowledge. The first time an employee has a part-year start, a benefit in kind, or a mid-month change in hours, you are the one who has to know what to do.

A useful rule: if you spend more than an hour or two per pay run, or you dread a particular month, outsourcing usually pays for itself in time alone. If you have one employee on a fixed salary and no complexity, software may be enough.

What outsourcing costs in Ireland

Pricing varies, and models differ, which is why quotes are hard to compare. The common structures are:

Per employee per month, which scales neatly as you grow.
Per payslip or per pay run, which can be cheaper for monthly payroll and dearer for weekly.
A minimum monthly fee, which matters if you have one or two staff.
Bundled into a monthly accounting package, where payroll sits alongside bookkeeping and VAT.

We publish ours. Payroll at Stratancy is 25 € per month per employee or director. Directors count, which surprises some owners of one-person limited companies: if you pay yourself through payroll, you are one payroll.

One-off set-up work is separate. Our published fees are 119 € for PAYE Registration, 119 € for VAT Registration and 119 € for RBO Registration, all one-off. If you have fallen behind, catch-up bookkeeping is from 35 € per hour.

When you compare quotes, ask these questions:

Is there a joining or set-up fee?
Is there a minimum monthly charge?
Are Revenue submissions, payslips and the year-end included, or charged extra?
Is pension processing, including MyFutureFund, included?
What happens to the price if you add a starter mid-month?
Are payroll journals posted to your accounts, or do you have to key them in?

The last question is where cheap quotes often become expensive. A bureau that sends you a PDF and leaves you to enter it into your books has only moved part of the work.

Why payroll should not sit on its own

Payroll feeds three other things: your accounts, your cash flow and your tax position. When the payroll provider, the bookkeeper and the VAT preparer are three separate businesses, you get three versions of the truth and reconciliation falls to you.

Some examples of what goes wrong:

Wages in the bank do not match wages in the profit and loss, so the management numbers are wrong.
PAYE/PRSI/USC liabilities are not accrued, so the tax bill on the 14th is a surprise.
A director's pay changes mid-year and nobody adjusts the corporation tax or personal tax planning.
Company formation and registration, including PAYE registration, are done by one firm and payroll by another, with gaps between them.

This is why we run payroll as part of the same service as bookkeeping, VAT returns and annual compliance, rather than as an isolated task.

How to choose a payroll provider

Check who does the work

Ask whether payroll is handled by qualified accountants or by a processing team, and who you talk to when something unusual comes up. For a small company, an unusual situation (a redundancy, a company car, a director taking dividends instead of salary) is where the value is.

Check the systems

You want payroll linked to your cloud accounting package. We work with Xero, QuickBooks and Sage, so payroll postings land in the same ledger as everything else.

Check the cut-off dates

Every provider has a deadline for changes before each pay run. Get it in writing, in days. Then compare it with your own routine: if you decide bonuses on the 27th and the cut-off is the 22nd, you will have a problem every month.

Check the compliance claims

Ask specifically about ROS submissions, RPN handling, MyFutureFund and year-end. A provider who answers with specifics (pay date submissions, nil RPN risks, eligibility checks) understands the Irish rules. One who answers with phrases like "fully compliant" and nothing else may not.

Check the exit

You should be able to leave with your payroll history: year-to-date figures, employee details and previous submissions. Ask how a handover works before you sign.

Perspective: what we see in small-business payroll

Most payroll problems we meet are not calculation errors. They are information problems: a leaver reported late, a pay rise agreed verbally, a director's salary changed without telling anyone, tax money spent before the 14th. The arithmetic is the easy part.

That is why we do not treat payroll as a standalone product. Our accountants are ACCA-qualified, and the same team that runs your pay run sees your bookkeeping, VAT and management accounts. When payroll cost jumps, they can see why. When cash is tight in the month the Revenue liability falls due, they say so before it happens.

Our advice to an owner thinking about outsourcing is simple. Do it before you have a problem, not after. Moving payroll mid-year, with a Revenue query open, is harder than starting at the beginning of a tax year with clean records. And choose on connection and clarity, not on the lowest monthly figure. A saving of a few euro a month disappears the first time you pay a penalty or lose a Saturday to a reconciliation.

— Stratancy

Payroll with Stratancy

If you want payroll handled alongside your books and tax, our payroll service for small businesses covers the pay run and the Revenue reporting, for 25 € per month per employee or director. Our monthly packages for sole traders, limited companies and e-commerce businesses, and every published fee, are on the pricing page. If you are setting up a new company and will employ people from the start, we can also handle company formation and the PAYE registration together.

A short checklist before you switch

Gather your employee list: PPS numbers, start dates, pay rates, pay frequency and any pension arrangements.
Get your year-to-date figures from the current system or provider, so the new one picks up mid-year without gaps.
Confirm who will submit to Revenue and that the provider is properly authorised to act for you.
Agree the monthly timetable: change cut-off, draft payslips, your approval, payment date, Revenue payment date.
Check one test employee's net pay against our take-home pay calculator or your own previous payslips before the first live run.
Decide which MyFutureFund questions you need answered, and by whom.

Most switches go smoothly if they start at the beginning of a month or, better, a tax year. Ask for a parallel run if you have a complicated payroll.

FAQ

How much does it cost to outsource payroll in Ireland?

It depends on the pricing model, the number of employees and how often you pay. Common structures are per employee per month, per payslip, or a minimum monthly fee. Our payroll service is 25 € per month per employee or director, and one-off set-up items such as PAYE Registration are 119 €.

Is it worth outsourcing payroll?

For most small employers, yes, once payroll takes more than a short block of time each month or you employ more than a couple of people. You save time, and you reduce the risk of late submissions and wrong deductions. The legal duty stays with you, so you are buying accuracy and specialist knowledge, not a transfer of liability.

Can I outsource my payroll if I only have one employee, or just myself as a director?

Yes. Many limited-company owners outsource payroll for a single director. A provider can register you as an employer if needed, submit each pay run to Revenue and keep your salary consistent with your accounts. Directors count as a payroll in our pricing.

Do I still need to report to Revenue if I outsource?

Each pay run must still be reported on or before the pay date, but your provider can make the submissions for you. You remain responsible for ensuring the reporting is correct, which is why you should approve each run and keep your change information up to date.

Does outsourcing cover MyFutureFund?

It should, but check. Since 1 January 2026, eligible employees may need to be enrolled and contributions deducted and matched through payroll. Ask any provider exactly how they handle eligibility, contributions and reporting before you sign.