Every Irish employment permit application stands on one document that the employer writes themselves. Not the passport, not the Revenue statement, not the job advert — the contract. It is the only item in the pack where you decide what it says, and it is the item most likely to contradict something else you have already filed.
Correct as of 18 August 2026. Permit salary thresholds, DETE fees and Sectoral Employment Order rates all changed during 2026, and thresholds are now indexed. Get in touch and we will confirm the current figures for your specific role before you put them in a contract.
The short answer
DETE's position is one line on its own application forms page: a contract of employment signed by both parties MUST be submitted with each application. The permit checklists repeat it as a required document — "copy of contract signed by employer and employee".
What DETE does not publish is a list of mandatory clauses. There is no template, no prescribed wording, no statutory contract for permit hires. The test is different, and once you see it the whole thing gets simpler: the contract has to corroborate the application. Every figure the form asks you for, the contract has to say the same thing about. Where they disagree, the decision maker has a reason to come back to you, and coming back to you costs weeks.
This page is about what the contract must say. If you want the full document pack and the mechanics of filing, that is our step-by-step guide to the application — we won't repeat it here.
Why the contract is a hard gate
Three things make this document heavier than a normal Irish offer letter.
It has to exist before the job does. An application must reach DETE at least 12 weeks before the proposed start date, and the worker cannot legally start until the permit issues and they land. So you are signing a contract with someone who has no permit, no visa and no PPS number, for a job starting three months to six months out. That is normal and expected. The contract is what the permit is granted against, not a record of an employment that has begun.
Both signatures are required. Employers regularly submit a contract carrying only the company signature, or an offer letter that was never returned. That is an incomplete pack. The worker signs first, from abroad, before anything is filed.
You are declaring it is true. When you sign the employer declaration in Employment Permits Online you solemnly declare that the particulars in the application are true, that the worker will be employed, salaried and paid under an employment contract governed by the laws of the State by you, and that you have full responsibility for the PAYE deductions. The declaration also carries the offence provision for furnishing information that is false or misleading in a material respect. A contract that contradicts the form is not a clerical mismatch — it is a document you have both signed saying two different things.
The five fields that must match across advert, application and contract
Most General Employment Permit roles need a Labour Market Needs Test before you can file, which means there are three documents in play, not two: the job advertisement, the application, and the contract. The advert's contents are set in the Employment Permits Regulations 2024 themselves — Regulation 9(6) requires the notice to contain a description of the employment, the name of the person making the offer, the minimum annual remuneration, the locations at which the employment is to be carried out, and the hours of work. Those are the same five things the application asks for. So they are also the five things the contract has to agree with.
- Job title and duties. The application asks for the title and the detailed duties and responsibilities. The occupation determines eligibility, the quota position and the salary floor, so a loose title on the contract — "general operative", "farm assistant" — can put you on the wrong side of a rule the accurate title clears.
- Location of employment. DETE is explicit: the prospective employee can only work at locations of employment as stated on the application and noted on the permit. If the worker will move between sites or homes, every location goes in, and the contract's place-of-work clause should say the same. A mobility clause that reads "such other locations as the company may require" is not a substitute.
- Start date and duration. The application asks for the proposed period of employment and proposed start date. A General Employment Permit can be granted for up to 24 months in the first instance, so a fixed-term contract shorter than that shortens the permit — and a permit of six months or less costs €500 rather than €1,000.
- Weekly hours. Covered below, and the single most common contradiction we see.
- Pay. The application asks for the total annual salary, the hourly and weekly rates, the number of hours a week, and the amount and purpose of any deductions. Also covered below.
The advert is the one you cannot fix. It has to run for 28 days continuously and unaltered on JobsIreland, and DETE tells employers a vacancy should not be amended or extended at any time during those 28 days. The application then has to be submitted within 90 days of the day the notice was first published. So if the advert went out at the wrong salary or the wrong hours, you do not correct the contract to match the advert — you re-advertise, and you lose a month. Draft the contract before you advertise, not after.
The pay clause: what counts and what doesn't
Two numbers have to be in the contract and they have to be consistent with each other: the annual salary and the hourly rate. DETE publishes both.
- General Employment Permit: minimum €36,605 on a 39-hour week, an hourly rate of €18.05. A 40-hour week must show a minimum of €37,544.
- Care workers and home carers, horticulture workers, meat processing operatives, health care assistants and home support workers: €32,691 on a 39-hour week, an hourly rate of €16.12. A 40-hour week must show €33,529.60.
- Graduate General Employment Permit (a relevant Level 8 or higher degree from an Irish third-level college in the previous 12 months): €34,009 on a 39-hour week, an hourly rate of €16.77.
Salary means basic pay. DETE's checklists put it plainly: salary shall not include bonuses, shift allowances or overtime. Two carve-outs are worth knowing. Health insurance payments made to an insurer on the Health Insurance Authority's register count towards the threshold as a second component alongside basic salary — and if you are relying on that, the contract has to state it, because the application asks whether deductions are taken for health insurance and who the provider is. For health care assistants, DETE's checklist allows guaranteed premium payments to count. "Guaranteed" is doing the work in that sentence.
A contract that reaches the threshold only with overtime does not reach the threshold. Neither does one that quotes a range, or a basic plus an unspecified bonus.
If you are in construction, the permit floor is not your floor. The Construction Sector Sectoral Employment Order is a legally binding minimum that sits above it — €23.74 an hour for a craftsperson since 1 August 2026, roughly €48,150 a year on a 39-hour week, with €23.03 for a Category A worker and €21.37 for a Category B worker. It has to be contracted as basic pay. The same logic applies to any Employment Regulation Order covering your sector. Our guide to the minimum salary for an overseas worker has the per-permit figures in one place.
The hours clause
Permits are not full-time-only. Regulation 39 of the Employment Permits Regulations 2024 is one sentence long: the minimum number of hours of work required to be worked each week under a general employment permit is 20. There is no ceiling above it. What does not move is the annual remuneration: it is a flat annual figure, not scaled down for a shorter week. So a 25-hour contract still has to reach €36,605, which means an hourly rate far above €18.05.
The 48-hour number that gets quoted alongside permits is not a permit rule at all. It is the maximum average working week under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, which applies to employees generally. Some sectors have their own tighter limits — mobile road transport workers, for instance.
Write the hours you actually intend. If the role is a 39-hour week with occasional Saturdays, the contract says 39 and treats the Saturdays as overtime, and the annual salary in both contract and application is the 39-hour figure. If the role is genuinely 45 hours, say 45 and pay at least the hourly minimum across all of them — which raises the annual figure above the headline threshold.
Clauses that are an offence, not just unwise
Section 55 of the Employment Permits Act 2024 is the one to read before you reuse a contract template. An employer may not make any deduction from the permit holder's remuneration, or seek to recover from them, any charge, fee or expense arising out of:
- the application for the permit or its renewal, or anything relating to that application or grant;
- the recruitment of the holder for that employment;
- any amount previously paid to the holder for travel expenses incurred in taking up the employment in the State.
Contravening it is an offence. So is keeping a permit holder's personal documents — the section names passports, driving licences, identity cards, bank documents, qualification documents and travel documents.
In practice that rules out three clauses employers ask us about every month: a clawback if the worker leaves inside twelve months, a training bond that quietly bundles the €1,000 permit fee, and a final-payslip deduction for flights. If you paid for the recruitment and the permit, that money is yours to have spent, not yours to recover. The protection you do have is structural: a first-time permit holder is expected to stay with the initial employer for nine months, because under the Employment Permits Regulations 2024 a new permit for a different employer cannot be considered before then — see our guide on changing employer on a work permit.
One footnote for anyone comparing sources. DETE's own online user manual still prints the declaration citing section 23 of the Employment Permits Act 2006. The operative provision today is section 55 of the 2024 Act, and DETE's General Employment Permit page cites it correctly. Same prohibition, current number.
What Irish employment law adds on top
DETE cares whether the contract corroborates the application. The Workplace Relations Commission cares about something else entirely, and a WRC inspector reading your file will not be checking it against the permit form.
Under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 as amended, you must give every new employee the core terms in writing within 5 days of starting — the "Day 5 statement", eleven items including place of work, job title, start date, probation terms, remuneration and pay reference period, expected hours per normal day and week, and any terms relating to hours of work including overtime. The remaining written statement follows within one month, and it goes wider: paid leave, sick pay, pensions, notice periods, any collective agreement, any Employment Regulation Order or Sectoral Employment Order and where to get a copy, and the training entitlement you provide. Statements must be signed and dated by or on behalf of the employer.
A permit contract signed six months before the start date usually covers the Day 5 list comfortably. It frequently misses half the one-month list, because a contract drafted to satisfy DETE has no reason to mention pension terms or a Sectoral Employment Order reference. That gap is worth an hour of somebody's time — a WRC complaint upheld under this Act carries compensation of up to four weeks' remuneration, and the WRC publishes sample statements you can check yours against.
Three more provisions from the European Union (Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions) Regulations 2022 catch out reused templates:
- Probation is capped at six months, extendable to no more than twelve only in limited circumstances. On a fixed-term contract it must be proportionate to the length of the contract, and a renewal for the same functions gets no new probation.
- You cannot flatly prohibit other employment. A restriction needs objective grounds — health and safety, business confidentiality, conflicts of interest — and the grounds have to be stated in the contract or the written statement.
- Mandatory training is free and counts as working time where law or a collective agreement requires it. For a construction hire, that reaches things like Safe Pass.
And any change to the particulars in the written statement must be notified to the employee no later than the day the change takes effect.
When the contract changes after the permit is granted
The permit is issued to the worker, with a certified copy to you, and it authorises employment by you in the occupation and at the location or locations specified on it. Change one of those and the permit no longer describes the job.
Employment Permits Online carries a Permit Update Request for exactly this, covering job title, annual salary, working hours per week, employee location and additional employee locations. You submit the change and DETE processes it. Where a permit is multi-site and the contract end date is inside 30 days, the portal asks you to upload a new contract and confirm the dates.
DETE's guidance is broader than the portal fields: where a permit holder has been placed on short-time working, or there has been a change to any of the terms and conditions applying in respect of a permit in force, the Department must be notified, and failure to do so will affect future renewal applications. A pay rise is welcome. An unreported pay rise turns up at renewal as a discrepancy between the permit and the payslips.
If the employment ends for any reason during the permit's validity, section 43(1) of the Employment Permits Act 2024 requires notification within four weeks along with a copy of the permit. Failure is an offence for the employer and the permit holder both.
This is not a Contract for Services permit
Worth saying plainly, because the words overlap and the two things have nothing in common. Everything above is about the document — the contract of employment you and your new hire sign, which every permit application requires.
A Contract for Services Employment Permit is a permit type. It exists for a foreign contractor that has won a contract with an Irish business and wants to send its own employees here to service it. The worker stays employed by the overseas company, the salary threshold is different, and the paperwork is a different shape. If you are hiring someone onto your own payroll, that permit is not your route.
Where we come in
We draft the contract against the application, in that order, before anything is advertised. The salary is checked against the current threshold for that occupation and against any Sectoral Employment Order that applies, the hours are set so the annual figure holds, the locations are listed in full, and the wording is checked for the clauses section 55 makes an offence.
Then we file. CA Recruitment is Filipino-owned and based in Ireland, we place workers across agriculture, construction, healthcare, hospitality and care, and we manage the DETE process end to end — you do not touch the portal. If you want the wider picture first, our work permit guide covers the permit routes and the full timeline.
About to put a salary in a contract? Send us the role and we will confirm the threshold, the hours and the wording before you sign — free, no obligation.
Frequently asked questions
Does the contract have to be signed before the employment permit application?
Yes. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment states that a contract of employment signed by both parties must be submitted with each application, and the permit checklists list a copy of the contract signed by employer and employee among the required documents. Signed by both parties is the part employers miss: a countersigned offer letter, or a contract carrying only your signature, is an incomplete pack. The worker signs before they have a permit and before they can travel, which is normal — the contract is what the permit is granted against.
What must the employment contract say for an Irish permit application?
There is no DETE-published list of mandatory clauses. What DETE checks is that the contract corroborates the application, so the contract has to state the same job title, the same duties, the same location or locations of employment, the same start date and duration, the same weekly hours, and the same annual and hourly rate of pay as the form and the job advertisement. Anything the application asks for, the contract should be able to prove. Deductions are the quiet one: the application asks for the amount and purpose of any deduction from salary, so a deduction that appears in the contract and nowhere else is a contradiction.
Can I put the permit fee in the contract as repayable if the worker leaves early?
No, and doing it is a criminal offence. Section 55 of the Employment Permits Act 2024 prohibits an employer from making any deduction from the permit holder's remuneration, or seeking to recover from them, any charge, fee or expense arising out of the permit application or renewal, the recruitment for that employment, or any travel expenses previously paid to them for taking up the job. A clawback clause, a training bond that bundles the permit fee, or a final-payslip deduction all breach it. The same section prohibits keeping a permit holder's passport or other personal documents.
Does the contract have to state a specific number of hours?
It has to state the hours you actually intend, and they have to match the application and the advert. Regulation 39 of the Employment Permits Regulations 2024 sets a floor of 20 hours a week for a General Employment Permit and no ceiling above it, so a permit hire does not have to be full-time. The annual remuneration threshold is not scaled down for a shorter week, though, so fewer hours push the effective hourly rate up. The 48-hour figure often quoted alongside permits is the maximum average working week under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, which applies to employees generally — it is not a permit rule.
What happens if the salary or job title changes after the permit is granted?
You tell DETE, through Employment Permits Online, before it takes effect. The portal carries a Permit Update Request covering job title, annual salary, working hours per week, employee location and additional employee locations, and the request goes to DETE to process. DETE's own guidance is that where there has been a change to any of the terms and conditions applying in respect of a permit in force, the Department must be notified, and failure to do so will affect future renewal applications. A pay rise is fine. A quiet pay rise is a renewal problem.
Is the signed contract the same thing as the written statement of terms?
No, and one does not automatically discharge the other. Under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 as amended you must give the employee the core terms in writing within 5 days of starting, and the remaining written statement within 1 month, and those statements must be signed and dated by or on behalf of the employer. A permit contract signed months earlier will usually cover the 5-day core terms, but it often omits items the one-month statement requires — pension terms, sick pay, notice periods, training entitlement, and a reference to any Employment Regulation Order or Sectoral Employment Order that applies. Check the contract against the WRC list rather than assuming.