The Contract for Services Employment Permit: How Overseas Contractors Bring Staff to Irish Projects

An overseas contractor wins work on an Irish project and wants to bring its own crew. Everyone assumes that is a visa question. It is a permit question, and the permit involved is not the one most Irish businesses have heard of.

The Contract for Services Employment Permit exists for exactly this arrangement: a foreign undertaking has a contract to provide services to an Irish entity, and it needs to move its own non-EEA employees here to deliver it. The worker stays on the foreign payroll. That is what makes this permit different, and it is why the Department applies stricter criteria to it than to any other permit an Irish business is likely to encounter.

This guide is written for both sides of that contract: the Irish main contractor or client who needs the work done, and the overseas undertaking that has to make the application. It covers the pay floor, the six-month rule, the subcontractor question the legislation and the published guidance now answer differently, and the set of obligations that the permit does not touch at all.

What the permit is for

DETE describes it plainly: the permit is designed for situations where a foreign undertaking, which it calls the Contractor, has won a contract to provide services to an Irish entity, which it calls the Relevant Person, on a contract for services basis, and to facilitate the transfer of non-EEA employees to work on the Irish contract in Ireland.

Two roles, then, and it matters which one you are.

The Contractor is the foreign undertaking. It employs the worker, it pays the worker, and it makes the permit application. The Relevant Person is the Irish business receiving the service. It is named on the permit and it carries obligations, but it is not the applicant and it is not the employer.

That structure is the whole point of the permit, and it is also the reason DETE treats it warily. The Department states that its preference is for all employment permit holders to be employed, salaried and paid under an Irish employment contract, and that it therefore applies strict criteria here because the employee remains employed by a foreign based employer. Read the rest of this guide with that sentence in mind. Every unusual rule below follows from it.

The permit replaced the old Contract Service Provider class of work permit and now sits in the Employment Permits Act 2024 at section 9(2)(e), where the legislation calls it a "contract for service employment permit". DETE's website calls it the Contract for Services Employment Permit. Same permit, and the naming inconsistency runs through the Regulations too.

When it is the right route

Most Irish businesses that ask us about this permit do not actually need it. It is worth ruling it in or out early, because the alternatives are materially easier.

You need a Contract for Services permit when a foreign company has a contract with an Irish entity and will keep employing and paying the workers itself while they deliver that contract in Ireland. Specialist plant commissioning, a software implementation, an equipment installation, a construction package delivered by an overseas subcontractor.

You do not need it if the worker is going to be employed by the Irish business. That is a General Employment Permit or a Critical Skills Employment Permit, both of which have lower pay floors and no six-month qualifying period.

You may want the Intra-Company Transfer permit instead if the foreign company and the Irish company are part of the same group. The two permits look similar, and their pay floors are identical at €49,523, but the ICT route turns on a corporate connection while this one turns on a service contract. Our Intra-Company Transfer guide sets out that test.

For anything up to three months, look at the Atypical Working Scheme first. DETE says so on its own page: where the contract is short-term, that is, up to three months, the applicant may wish to consider applying to the Department of Justice under the Atypical Working Scheme. It is a different department and a different process, and for a short commissioning visit it is usually faster than a permit with a 12-week lead time.

The one-to-one contract, and subcontractors

Here is the part of this permit that has genuinely changed and where the published guidance and the legislation now say different things. If you take one thing from this guide, take this.

DETE's Contract for Services page states two rules together. The contract involved must be a one-to-one contract with an Irish entity, and documentary evidence of it may be requested. And: employment permits will not be considered in instances where work is being subcontracted to a third party.

The Employment Permits Act 2024 says something different. Section 9(2)(e) provides for a permit for a foreign national who is employed outside the State by a contractor or a subcontractor to perform duties in the State arising out of a contract service agreement. The Act defines a subcontractor, at section 2, as a person who enters into an agreement with a contractor to provide services, in whole or in part, the subject of the contract service agreement. Section 22(1)(b) applies the 50:50 workforce test to "the contractor, subcontractor or the relevant person concerned". Regulation 52 of the Employment Permits Regulations 2024 counts the six months of prior employment with "the contractor, or as the case may be, the subcontractor". Regulation 55 asks for documentary evidence of the business carried on by the relevant person and the contractor or subcontractor and the connection between them.

So the statute and the regulations plainly contemplate a subcontractor as the employer on a Contract for Services permit. The published guidance still reads as though they do not. We covered the statutory change when it landed, in our guide to the Employment Permits Act 2024.

What that means for you in practice:

• The route exists in law. A subcontractor employing the workers is not a defect in the application.
• The guidance a decision-maker reads has not been updated. Do not assume a subcontracting chain will pass without comment, and do not build a programme around it without checking.
• Document the chain before you apply. The contract service agreement, the subcontract, the relationship between all three parties, and confirmation in writing that the worker is required, pursuant to their employment, to perform those duties in the State. Section 9(5) of the Act requires that last confirmation and applications get returned without it.
• Ask the Department where it stands on your specific structure. In the current gap between the Act and the guidance, a written answer before you apply is worth more than an argument afterwards.

The six-month rule

An application cannot be made unless the worker has already been employed by the contractor, or the subcontractor, for at least six months. That is Regulation 52, and DETE explains the reasoning on its page: the requirement supports the contention that the contractor was awarded the contract on the basis of the skills and service that worker could provide.

This is the rule that most often kills a plan, because it kills it retrospectively. A contractor that wins an Irish contract and then recruits to staff it cannot use those new hires on this permit. Six months of documented employment has to be in place on the date the application is made.

Two practical consequences. If you are an overseas contractor bidding for Irish work, identify the people you would post and check their start dates before you price the bid. And if you are the Irish client, ask that question at tender stage rather than at mobilisation, because the six months cannot be created after the fact.

The other employee-side rules are shorter. The role cannot be one on the Ineligible List of Occupations in Schedule 4 of the Regulations, and permits are strictly limited to positions required for the service of the contract. Regulation 50 puts it as a negative: the employments for which a contract for service employment permit may be granted are all employments other than those listed in Schedule 4. On a construction package that matters, because general labourers and construction operatives sit on that list while craft trades do not.

€49,523, and what counts towards it

The minimum annual remuneration for a Contract for Services Employment Permit is €49,523, with a minimum hourly rate of €24.42. Those figures are set out in the Employment Permits Regulations 2024 as amended by S.I. No. 643 of 2025, which came into operation on 1 March 2026 and lifted the previous €46,000 threshold.

That is a long way above the €36,605 General Employment Permit floor, and the gap is deliberate. It is the price of leaving the worker on a foreign contract.

Three components count towards it, and only three:

All components must be paid by the contractor. The Irish client cannot make up the difference.

Two things employers get wrong here. The first is treating the €49,523 as a salary figure: it is a package figure, and a contractor housing a crew in Ireland will usually reach it through the accommodation component rather than basic pay alone. The second is the paperwork. It is a condition of the grant that payslips set out the basic salary, any additional payment where basic pay falls below the National Minimum Wage or a statutory rate, the total, all deductions, and the net amount to be paid over the permit period. Payslips that do not break the pay down that way will affect a renewal, and DETE says so expressly.

There is also a minimum of 20 hours a week under Regulation 54. In practice the annual figure is the binding constraint, not the hours: a genuinely part-time posting cannot reach €49,523.

For how the thresholds compare across permit types, see our guide to the minimum salary for an overseas worker.

The Labour Market Needs Test

A Labour Market Needs Test is required for this permit in most cases. It is one of only two permit types that need one, the other being the General Employment Permit.

The test means advertising before you apply. A notice with the Department of Social Protection Employment Services and the EURES network for a minimum of 28 continuous days, and the same notice on an additional online platform for 28 continuous days. Both must state the description of the employment, the name of the employer, the minimum annual remuneration, the locations and the hours of work. The vacancy cannot be amended or extended at any point during the 28 days, and the permit application has to be submitted within 90 days of the notice first being published.

There are three exceptions: roles on the Critical Skills Occupations List, applications recommended by Enterprise Ireland or IDA Ireland, and roles at or above the high-salary threshold.

That last exception is where the published figures diverge, and it is worth being careful. DETE's Contract for Services page still gives it as a minimum annual remuneration of €64,000. That was the figure in Regulation 9(5)(b) of the Employment Permits Regulations 2024 as originally made. Regulation 4 of S.I. No. 643 of 2025 amended Regulation 9(5)(b) by substituting €68,911 for €64,000, with effect from 1 March 2026, and DETE's own General Employment Permit and Critical Skills pages both now use €68,911.

Treat €68,911 as the working figure. A role priced between the two numbers is the dangerous case: an application built on €64,000 and no advertising would be an application with no valid Labour Market Needs Test behind it, and that is not a defect you can fix after submission. Advertise, or get the position confirmed in writing first.

The 50:50 rule has no escape hatch here

The 50:50 rule applies. Under section 22(1) of the Employment Permits Act 2024 a permit will not be granted unless, on the date of application, 50 per cent or more of the employees are EEA nationals, Swiss nationals, UK citizens, or a combination of those.

For this permit, section 22(1)(b) sets the test against the contractor, subcontractor or the relevant person concerned. That wording is more generous than it first looks. Where the overseas contractor's workforce is overwhelmingly non-EEA, which is common, the ratio can be satisfied by the Irish relevant person's workforce instead.

What is missing from this permit is every exception the others have.

• The sole-employee exception does not apply. Section 22(3) disapplies the ratio for a first-time employer with no employees, but it names only the dependant, general, reactivation and sports and cultural permits.
• The enterprise development agency exception does not apply. Section 22(2) covers critical skills, general and intra-company transfer permits. Contract for services is not on that list either.

So the ratio has to be met on its own terms, on the day the application is made, by one of the three parties. Work out which one before you apply, and be ready to evidence it.

What the permit does not cover

This is the section that costs employers money, because the permit is only half the compliance picture and nothing in the permit process tells you about the other half.

Irish employment law applies to the work done here. Section 20 of the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001 puts it beyond doubt: the employment enactments apply to a posted worker and to any person, irrespective of nationality or place of residence, who works in the State under a contract of employment, in the same manner as they apply to any other employee. A foreign payroll does not create a carve-out.

On a construction site, the Sectoral Employment Order binds. The Sectoral Employment Order (Construction Sector) 2024 sets legally binding minimum hourly rates for construction work in the State. Since 1 August 2026 those are €23.74 an hour for a craftsperson, €23.03 for a Category A worker, €21.37 for a Category B worker, and €17.28 for a new entrant operative in their first two years in the sector. A craftsperson rate works out at roughly €48,150 a year on a 39-hour week. Note what that means alongside the permit: the €49,523 permit threshold is a package figure including board and health insurance, while the Sectoral Employment Order rate is an hourly rate of basic pay. Clearing one does not clear the other. Our guide to hiring construction workers from overseas covers how those rates work across the trades.

If the contractor is established in another EU Member State, the posting rules bite as well. Regulation 4 of S.I. No. 412 of 2016 requires the service provider to make a declaration to the Workplace Relations Commission, using the prescribed form, no later than the date it starts providing the service, and to keep each worker's contract, payslips and timesheets available for inspection for the duration of the posting. Failure to submit the declaration is a criminal offence with a fine of up to €5,000 on summary conviction. Those regulations also create a subcontracting liability specific to construction: where a posted worker is not paid the applicable statutory rates by their direct employer, the contractor one step up the supply chain can be held liable for the shortfall in net remuneration, and the worker can name both in a complaint to the WRC. There is a due diligence defence, and it is the reason to insist on sight of payslips rather than take an assurance.

For an Irish main contractor, that last paragraph is the commercial point of this whole guide. You are not the permit applicant, and you can still end up paying someone else's wage shortfall.

Immigration is separate from the permit. A worker from a visa-required country applies to the Irish Embassy or Consulate for an entry visa once the permit issues, and must register their immigration permission after arrival. An employment permit is not a residence permission.

Duration, renewal and the five-year ceiling

A Contract for Services permit is granted for the defined period of the contract, up to a maximum of 24 months in the first instance. It can then be extended on application to a maximum stay of five years from the date it was first granted, which Regulation 53 sets as a hard ceiling.

A renewal can be submitted up to four months before expiry and up to one month after the permit has expired, and the holder may keep working while a renewal is processed. On Employment Permits Online, renewal applications open 16 weeks before expiry.

Three limits to set out to the worker before they travel:

No route to residency. DETE states that holders of Contract for Services permits do not accrue rights for long-term residency purposes, because the employment is temporary by design. At the end of the contract or the permit, the holder must leave the State.

No dependant permits. Spouses, partners and dependants of a Contract for Services permit holder are not eligible for a Dependant Employment Permit. They must qualify for a permit in their own right. Our guide to family and dependant visas covers the alternatives.

There is a way out after a year. A holder may, after one year on this permit, apply for a different permit type, such as a General Employment Permit or a Critical Skills Employment Permit, assessed on the ordinary criteria for that permit. For a worker who has proved themselves on an Irish project and whom the Irish client wants to keep, that is the conversation to have at month twelve, not month twenty-three.

One administrative duty gets missed constantly. If the worker ceases to be employed by the contractor during the permit's validity, for any reason, the permit must be returned to DETE within four weeks of termination. Section 43(1) of the Employment Permits Act 2024 makes non-compliance an offence for both contractor and employee.

There is also a transfer of undertakings route. Where a transfer takes place under the European Communities (Protection of Employees on Transfer of Undertakings) Regulations 2003, holders can change employers, and because the relevant person's name is on the permit the Department must also be told when the transfer happens on the Irish side. That is done on the prescribed Transfer of Undertaking form, and failing to notify can affect a renewal.

Applying: timing, fees and documents

The mechanics, in the order they actually happen.

1. Check the six months and the occupation. Before anything else. If the worker has not been with the contractor for six months, or the role is on Schedule 4, there is no application to make.
2. Run the Labour Market Needs Test, unless one of the three exceptions applies. 28 continuous days on two platforms, then submit within 90 days of first publication.
3. Count back 12 weeks from the start date. An application for any employment permit must be received at least 12 weeks before the proposed employment start date. With the advertising cycle in front of it, a realistic plan from decision to first day on site is four to five months.
4. The contractor applies, on Employment Permits Online. Not the Irish client.
5. Pay the fee. €500 for a permit of six months or less, €1,000 for six to 24 months. Renewals are €750 and €1,500, the latter covering six to 36 months. If the application is refused, 90% of the fee is refunded.
6. Supply the contract evidence. Documentary evidence of the businesses carried on by the relevant person and the contractor or subcontractor and the connection between them, confirmation of the duties, and a statement of remuneration setting out pay, deductions, any additional payment and its mechanism, board, accommodation and health insurance payments, and the currencies and exchange rate used. Where the relevant person supplied the business evidence on another application in the last two years that led to a grant or renewal, it does not have to be supplied again.
7. Answer any request for information within 28 days. A decision-maker can ask for more at any point in processing.
8. If refused, there is a review. Submit the prescribed form within 28 days and a separate, more senior official reconsiders it. A confirmed refusal does not stop a fresh application.

Applications are processed strictly in date order by employer type, and there is no fast-track. Our processing-times tracker shows where the queues currently sit.

One rule that applies whoever pays: under section 55 of the Employment Permits Act 2024, the employer cannot deduct from the worker's pay, or recover from them, any charge, fee or expense arising out of the permit application or renewal, the recruitment, or travel expenses already paid for taking up the job. Nor can the employer hold the worker's passport or other personal documents. Breach of either is an offence.

What CA Recruitment does

Most of our work is General Employment Permits, placing Filipino workers directly with Irish employers in farming, construction, healthcare, hospitality and manufacturing, and running the DETE application end to end. Monette is Filipino, based in Tipperary, and has been through the Irish permit system herself.

Where a Contract for Services arrangement is on the table, the useful thing we do is the part before the paperwork: working out whether this permit is genuinely the right route, or whether you are better off employing the workers directly on a General Employment Permit, using the Atypical Working Scheme for a short piece of work, or looking at the Intra-Company Transfer route. That decision changes the pay floor, the timeline and who carries the risk, and it is much cheaper to get right at the start.

If direct employment is the answer, we run the whole thing: the role and eligibility check, the Labour Market Needs Test, the application, the visa and the travel. Workers we place come with a 90-day guarantee. If the worker leaves, or is dismissed for gross misconduct, within the first 90 days, we cover our recruitment fee for the replacement. That applies to our fee only, not to the DETE, visa or travel costs.

The first conversation is free, and it starts with which permit route actually fits the contract.

Frequently asked questions