New Salary Thresholds for Irish Work Permits: What the 2030 Roadmap Means for You
Ireland's minimum salary thresholds for employment permits rose on 1 March 2026 and will keep climbing gradually to 2030. Here is what employers and applicants need to plan for.
On 2 December 2025 the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (DETE) published a new roadmap for the Minimum Annual Remuneration (MAR) thresholds that underpin Ireland's employment permits. The first increase took effect on 1 March 2026, and for many of the clients we work with it changes the numbers on the offer letter. Here is our plain-English guide to what actually changed and how to prepare.
The headline figures
The MAR is simply the lowest annual salary an employer can pay a non-EEA worker for a given permit. From 1 March 2026:
- General Employment Permit (GEP): rose from €34,000 to €36,605
- Critical Skills Employment Permit (CSEP): the strategic-occupation threshold rose from €38,000 to €40,904
- Lower-threshold roles (meat processing operatives, horticultural workers, healthcare assistants and home support workers): rose from €30,000 to €32,691
These were increases of roughly 7.7% for the main permits and about 9% for the lower-threshold roles. Importantly, they are noticeably smaller than the jumps floated under the earlier 2023 plan, which had pointed to rises closer to 15%.
Why the approach changed
DETE reviewed the thresholds after receiving more than 150 submissions to a public consultation. Employers were candid about cost pressures and about the impact on permit renewals, and the Government responded by spreading the increases gradually out to 2030 rather than front-loading them by 2026.
Minister Peter Burke framed it as protecting Ireland's competitiveness in attracting skills, particularly in healthcare and construction, and said the phased timetable would give sectors sufficient time to prepare. Minister Alan Dillon added that economic migration plays a vital role in our economy and society. For our clients, the practical message is reassurance: the changes are real, but they are being introduced at a manageable pace.
