Why We Wrote This Glossary
The Irish employment permit system runs on acronyms. CSEP, GEP, LMNT, MAR, ERO, SEO, the 50:50 rule, the ISL — most employers meet half a dozen of these for the first time when they're already mid-way through trying to hire someone.
This page defines each one plainly, from the point of view of the employer who has to sign the application. Where a figure or rule changes regularly, we've used the live position as of June 2026 and pointed you to the official source. If you only need one term, jump to it from the list above.
CSEP — Critical Skills Employment Permit
The Critical Skills Employment Permit is the route for high-skill roles the State has decided are in short supply. Nurses, doctors, engineers, certain IT and finance roles, and other occupations on the Critical Skills Occupations List sit here.
Two things make the CSEP attractive to both employer and worker:
- No Labour Market Needs Test. Because the skill is already identified as scarce, you skip the 28-day advertising step that a General Employment Permit normally needs.
- A faster path to settling. A CSEP holder can apply for Stamp 4 immigration permission after two years, and their spouse or partner is normally granted Stamp 1G — which lets the partner work in Ireland without a separate employment permit.
A role qualifies for the CSEP in one of two ways: it's on the Critical Skills Occupations List and pays at least €40,904 a year (€36,848 where the worker holds a relevant degree obtained in the 12 months before applying), or it's any eligible occupation paying €68,911 or more.
One point employers get wrong: the CSEP does not escape the 50:50 rule. It skips the advertising test, not the workforce ratio. More on that below.
GEP — General Employment Permit
The General Employment Permit is the workhorse of the system and the route most CA Recruitment placements use. It covers eligible roles that aren't on the Critical Skills list: health care assistants, chefs, construction trades, agricultural workers, meat-processing operatives, HGV drivers and many more.
The GEP minimum salary (its MAR) is €36,605 a year as of 1 March 2026, with a reduced €32,691 rate for specified roles including health care assistants, home support workers, horticulture workers and meat-processing operatives. A separate €34,009 rate applies to a graduate who holds a relevant degree from an Irish third-level college obtained in the previous 12 months.
Two qualifications matter here. First, the €32,691 reduced rate is built on a 39-hour week at €16.12 an hour — a 40-hour contract for a health care assistant needs at least €33,529.60 a year, because the hourly rate is what governs. Second, construction trades are not capped at the GEP minimum at all: they're covered by a Sectoral Employment Order that sets a legally binding hourly rate well above €36,605 (a construction craftsperson rate works out around €46,600 a year). Quote the GEP floor for a bricklayer or an electrician and you'll under-pay and risk a refusal.
A GEP normally requires the Labour Market Needs Test before you apply. We cover that next.
Not sure whether your role is a CSEP or a GEP hire? Our GEP vs CSEP comparison walks through the decision, or message us and we'll tell you in a sentence.
DMW — Department of Migrant Workers (Philippines)
DMW is the Philippine government department that regulates the deployment of Filipino workers abroad. If you're hiring directly from the Philippines, the worker's deployment has to be processed through DMW channels before they can travel.
DMW is the Philippine side of the process — it sits alongside, not instead of, the Irish DETE permit. The worker still needs their Irish employment permit and entry visa; DMW governs how a Filipino national is lawfully deployed out of the Philippines, including the requirement that the foreign employer and the recruitment arrangement are accredited and verified.
DMW absorbed the functions of the former POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration), so older guides that mention "POEA processing" are describing the same stage under its previous name. For an Irish employer, the practical point is simple: hiring a Filipino worker legitimately means the Philippine side is handled correctly too — not just the DETE permit. This is the part most Irish agencies don't manage. CA Recruitment does, because Monette is Filipino and knows both systems.
LMNT — Labour Market Needs Test
The Labour Market Needs Test is the step where you advertise the job before you're allowed to hire someone from outside the EEA. The idea is to give resident and EEA workers first refusal.
In practice the LMNT means advertising the role on the Jobs Ireland and EURES networks, plus one additional national or local platform, for 28 days. Only after that 28-day window — and only if no suitable EEA candidate comes forward — can the General Employment Permit application be submitted.
The LMNT is not required for every application. You skip it when the role is on the Critical Skills list, when the salary is €68,911 or more, when the employer holds an Enterprise Ireland or IDA recommendation, in certain medical-carer situations, and in a few other defined cases.
The most common employer mistake here is treating the LMNT as a formality you can rush. Get the wording, the platforms or the timing wrong and the whole 28 days has to be run again. Our Labour Market Needs Test guide sets out exactly how to run it once and get it right.
The 50:50 Rule
The 50:50 rule is a workforce ratio, not a permit type. It says that at least 50% of the people you employ must be EEA nationals at the time you apply for any employment permit. Below that threshold on the day you submit, and DETE refuses the application.
It catches employers out for two reasons. First, it applies to both the GEP and the CSEP — the Critical Skills route skips the advertising test but not the workforce ratio. Second, every non-EEA worker you place shifts your own ratio for the next application: an employer who qualified comfortably for their first overseas hire can be below the line by the time they apply for the third, without changing anything else about the business.
There are exactly two exceptions: a genuine sole-employee situation (the worker will be the only person in the business), and an Enterprise Ireland or IDA-backed start-up registered within the past two years that supplies a formal letter of support. Business size on its own is not an exemption.
The 50:50 ratio is the single most common preventable reason a permit gets refused. Our full 50:50 rule explainer shows exactly how it's counted and where employers get caught. We check it free, before anything else moves.
DETE — Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment
DETE is the Irish government department that runs the employment permit system. It's the body that receives your application, assesses it against the rules above, and issues or refuses the permit. You'll see it written as DETE, sometimes still as DBEI (its older name), and its permit pages live at enterprise.gov.ie.
For an employer, DETE is the decision-maker on everything permit-related: the occupation lists, the salary thresholds, the 50:50 rule, the LMNT exemptions, the fees and the processing queue. When this glossary refers to "the live source", it means the DETE pages — they're the authority that overrides any guide, including ours, if a figure has moved.
ERO and SEO — Employment Regulation Order and Sectoral Employment Order
These two sit slightly outside the permit rules but matter enormously for getting the pay right.
An Employment Regulation Order (ERO) sets legally binding minimum pay and conditions for workers in a specific sector — for example, contract cleaning or security. An Sectoral Employment Order (SEO) does the same thing for sectors like construction, electrical contracting and mechanical building services.
Why this matters for a permit: the salary on the application has to satisfy whichever is higher — the permit MAR or the binding sectoral rate. For construction trades, the SEO rate is well above the General Employment Permit minimum, so the SEO governs. Quote the lower permit figure on the application and you're under the legal rate, which means a refused permit and a possible Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) issue down the line. EROs and SEOs are published by the WRC at workplacerelations.ie, and the construction rates change each August.
MAR — Minimum Annual Remuneration
MAR is simply the lowest salary a role must pay to qualify for a given permit. Every permit type has one, and it changes as the State updates its roadmap of thresholds.
As of 1 March 2026 the headline figures are:
- GEP standard MAR: €36,605
- GEP reduced MAR (health care assistants, home support workers, horticulture, meat processing): €32,691
- CSEP, role on the Critical Skills list: €40,904 (€36,848 for a recent relevant graduate)
- CSEP, role not on the list: €68,911
Two cautions. MAR is a floor, not a target — and it's basic salary only, so bonuses, shift allowances and overtime generally don't count toward it. And where a Sectoral Employment Order or Employment Regulation Order sets a higher binding rate, that rate is the real minimum, not the MAR. Always check the live DETE roadmap before you commit to a salary figure, because these numbers move.
ISL and INOL — the occupation lists
Two lists decide whether a role can be sponsored at all.
The Critical Skills Occupations List (you'll sometimes see it shortened to CSOL or referred to as the "ISL", the in-demand/critical skills list) names the high-skill roles eligible for the Critical Skills Employment Permit — nurses, many engineers, certain IT and healthcare roles.
The Ineligible List of Occupations (often shortened to INOL or the "ineligible occupations list") names roles that cannot get any employment permit — general operatives in some sectors, most retail and clerical roles, and others the State has closed off. If a role is on the ineligible list, no permit route is open to it, full stop.
Most eligible roles sit in the middle: not critical-skill, not ineligible, so they go through the General Employment Permit. Checking which list a role falls under is the first thing to settle before you spend a day on anything else. Our Critical Skills list check and our guide to roles that can't get a permit cover both ends.
Other Terms You'll Run Into
- EEA — the European Economic Area: the 27 EU states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. EEA nationals don't need a permit to work in Ireland, and they're the group counted in the 50:50 rule.
- IRP — Irish Residence Permit, the card a non-EEA worker registers for with Immigration Service Delivery after arriving. It replaced the old GNIB card back in 2017.
- ISD — Immigration Service Delivery, the part of the Department of Justice that handles immigration registration and the IRP. The old "GNIB" name is retired.
- AWS — the Atypical Working Scheme, a short-term route for specific temporary situations, separate from the main permit system. We cover it in our Atypical Working Scheme guide.
- WRC — the Workplace Relations Commission, which enforces employment law, publishes the EROs and SEOs, and inspects employer records. Permit holders fall under the same protections as any other worker.
Lost in the Acronyms? We'll translate your hire into plain English.
Tell us the role you're trying to fill and we'll tell you which permit applies, what it has to pay, and whether the 50:50 rule is a problem for you — before you commit to anything. No obligation.
Frequently Asked Questions
CSEP stands for Critical Skills Employment Permit. It's the Irish permit for high-skill roles on the Critical Skills Occupations List, such as nurses, doctors, engineers and certain IT roles. It skips the Labour Market Needs Test and gives the worker a faster route to long-term residence, but the 50:50 workforce rule still applies. See our GEP vs CSEP comparison for when each route fits.
GEP stands for General Employment Permit, the most common Irish work permit. It covers most eligible roles that aren't on the Critical Skills list — care assistants, chefs, construction trades, agriculture and meat-processing roles among them. A GEP normally requires a Labour Market Needs Test before you can apply, and its standard minimum salary is €36,605 a year as of 1 March 2026.
DMW stands for the Department of Migrant Workers, the Philippine government department that regulates the deployment of Filipino workers overseas. If you're hiring directly from the Philippines, the worker's deployment must be processed through DMW channels alongside the Irish DETE permit. DMW replaced the former POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration).
LMNT stands for Labour Market Needs Test. It's a mandatory advertising step for most General Employment Permit applications: the job is advertised on the Jobs Ireland and EURES networks plus one additional platform for 28 days, to show no suitable EEA candidate is available before an overseas worker can be hired. The Critical Skills permit is exempt.
The 50:50 rule means at least 50% of your employees must be EEA nationals at the time you apply for an employment permit. If fewer than half your workforce are EEA nationals on the day you submit, DETE refuses the permit. The only exceptions are a genuine sole-employee business and certain Enterprise Ireland or IDA-backed start-ups under two years old. Read our full 50:50 rule explainer for how it's counted.
MAR stands for Minimum Annual Remuneration — the lowest salary a role must pay to qualify for an employment permit. It depends on the permit type and occupation. As of 1 March 2026 the General Employment Permit standard MAR is €36,605, with a reduced €32,691 rate for specified roles such as health care assistants and meat-processing operatives. MAR is basic salary only and is a legal floor, not a target. Where a Sectoral Employment Order sets a higher rate, that rate governs instead.
Want the whole process, not just the terms? Our Work Permit Guide for Irish Employers covers the GEP, the CSEP, the Labour Market Needs Test, salary requirements and what the process looks like start to finish. Or book a free consultation and we'll go through your specific hire.