Irish Work Permit Processing Times: Where DETE Stands in July 2026
As of early July 2026, DETE is processing Critical Skills applications from late June and General Permit applications from late May. Here is how to read the dates and plan your timeline.
One of the most common questions we hear is simply: how long will my permit take? The honest answer is that it depends on the permit type and when you apply, so let us walk through where the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (DETE) actually stands as of early July 2026.
The current processing dates
DETE does not publish a fixed number of weeks. Instead it tells you the date of the applications it is currently working through, in strict order of receipt. As of 10 July 2026, the department was processing fully completed applications received on or before these dates:
- Critical Skills Employment Permit: 24 June 2026
- New General Employment Permit: 30 May 2026
- Intra-Company Transfer (new): 5 June 2026
- All other new applications: 27 May 2026
- Renewal applications (all types): 2 April 2026
- Intra-Company Transfer (renewal): 3 April 2026
- Reviews and appeals: 29 December 2025
How to read these numbers
The gap between today's date and the processing date is, in effect, your likely wait. On these figures, a application was moving through in a couple of weeks, while a was taking roughly six weeks. Renewals were sitting further back, at around three months, and reviews or appeals were the slowest queue of all.
