Employment Permit Processing Times in Ireland
Current DETE Dates for Employers

Current DETE processing dates

These are the dates DETE reached in each queue as of 23 October 2026 — DETE’s own most recent stamp, which we read on 27 October. Read them as: "if you submitted a completed application on this date, yours is the one being decided now."

Source: DETE, Current processing dates for employment permits — DETE's figures as of 23 October 2026, checked by us on 27 October 2026. "Wait at that date" is the calendar gap between the published date and DETE's own as-of date, which is how the May baseline was measured too. DETE published no separate General Employment Permit line in May, so that row has no like-for-like baseline. Movement compares against DETE's own published position as of 8 May 2026, from the Internet Archive capture of 10 May 2026 — the last capture of that page before our August read. Verify the live figures on DETE's own page.

What moved, what stalled, what slipped

DETE publishes the dates. It does not tell you which direction they are heading. That is the part that decides whether you can promise a candidate a start date, so we track it.

The headline: DETE's 23 October stamp, three days after its 20 October one, moved every queue except reviews and appeals. All other new applications cleared seven days of applications, intra-company transfers (new) and general renewals six each, and Critical Skills and new GEPs four each, so all five of those waits shortened. Intra-company transfer renewals cleared two days and appeals none, so those two waits grew a little. The 20 October stamp before it moved every queue, and the 13 October stamp before that moved everything too, with new GEPs clearing thirteen days of applications in eight to make up the ground they lost in late September.

• Critical Skills — still the fastest first-time queue. A three-week wait in May, about a week now. Between DETE's 5 and 13 October stamps it cleared eight days of applications in eight days of calendar, so the wait held at a week. It did not move on the 15 October stamp, then cleared six days on 20 October, to 12 October, and four more on 23 October, to 16 October, so the wait is now seven days, about a week. It remains the strongest argument there is for checking whether your role qualifies for the Critical Skills route before defaulting to a GEP.
• New General Employment Permits — holding at about five weeks. DETE did not publish a separate GEP line in May; it sat inside a combined "all new applications except Critical Skills" row with a nine-week wait, so there is no like-for-like May figure for this row. Our own reading on 5 August had the queue at 26 June; it now stands at 20 September. It had held at about five weeks on every stamp we read from early August, then advanced only three days in the week to 28 September and six in the week to 5 October, taking the wait to forty days. The 13 October stamp cleared thirteen days in eight and brought the wait back to thirty-five days — five weeks. The 15 October stamp moved it two more days, to 10 September, the 20 October stamp six more, to 16 September, and the 23 October stamp four more, to 20 September, so the wait is thirty-three days, still about five weeks. The two slow weeks did not become a trend. This is the queue most of our clients' roles sit in, so it is the one we will be watching.
• All other new applications — creeping. It sat on 21 July on every DETE stamp we read from 19 August to 21 September, and its wait stretched from about four weeks to nine with nothing cleared. DETE's 28 September stamp moved it to 13 August, twenty-three days cleared in seven. It held there on 5 October, and the 13 October stamp moved it only six days, to 19 August. It held there on the 15 October stamp, the 20 October stamp moved it five days, to 24 August, and the 23 October stamp seven more, to 31 August, so the wait is about seven and a half weeks — about a week and a half faster than May. This queue moves in jumps, not steadily. The category was split out from the combined May row, so that comparison is not exact.
• Intra-company transfers (new) — the shortest wait on the table. Flat at five weeks from May right through mid-August, then it moved: 13 July on DETE's 19 August stamp, 7 August on 31 August, 8 September on 11 September, 16 September on 21 September, 21 September on 28 September, 1 October on 5 October, 12 October on 13 October, where it held on 15 October, 14 October on 20 October and 20 October on 23 October. The wait is three days, inside about a week for an eighth consecutive stamp.
• Renewals — moving, but only just keeping pace. Ten and a half weeks in May, about eleven now. Our 19 August reading had the queue on 11 May, DETE's 31 August stamp had it on 3 June, 11 September on 22 June, 21 September on 29 June and 28 September on 3 July — the last two of those clearing less than a week of applications per week, so the wait grew. The 5 October stamp put it on 13 July and the 13 October stamp on 23 July — ten days cleared each time, bringing the wait down from about twelve and a half weeks to just under twelve. The 15 October stamp, two days later, moved general renewals four days to 27 July and intra-company transfer renewals five days to 28 July, so both waits were then about eleven and a half weeks. The 20 October stamp moved general renewals four more days, to 31 July, and intra-company transfer renewals seven, to 4 August: waits of about eleven and a half weeks and about eleven. The 23 October stamp moved general renewals six days and intra-company transfer renewals two, which put both on 6 August, a wait of about eleven weeks. General renewals are now about half a week slower than May. This is the line that catches employers out, and it is covered below.
• Reviews and appeals — moving slowly. Twenty-two weeks in May and about thirty-three at the start of September, before DETE's 21 September stamp cleared eighty days of this queue in ten days of calendar and brought it to 14 April 2026. It then sat on 14 April for three stamps while the wait grew from about twenty-three weeks to twenty-five. The 13 October stamp moved it to 28 April, fourteen days cleared in eight. It held there on the 15 October stamp, moved one day, to 29 April, on 20 October, and did not move on 23 October, so the wait is now about twenty-five weeks, close to six months. That is still a long time to wait for a decision you should not have needed. A refused application is still not something you appeal and expect back quickly.

What this means for your hire

The processing date is one stage of five. Here is what today's dates translate into if you start the process now, on 27 October 2026.

If your role needs a General Employment Permit

Care assistants, chefs, most construction trades, dairy and pig farm assistants, HGV drivers.

• Role definition, salary check and the 28-day Labour Market Needs Test — you cannot apply until the 28 days are complete. Realistic submission: late November 2026.
• DETE decision queue at today's pace, about five weeks — decision around 29 December 2026.
• Employment D-visa for a worker from a visa-required country such as the Philippines, four to eight weeks — late January to late February 2027.
• Travel, arrival, IRP registration and onboarding — a further one to two weeks.

Add those up and the arithmetic lands on a start date between early February and early March 2027 — roughly three to four and a half months. We tell employers to plan for about six months, which puts a realistic first day around 27 April 2027. The gap between the two is not padding, and the section below explains exactly where it goes.

If your role qualifies for a Critical Skills Permit

Doctors, engineers, certain IT roles — anything on the Critical Skills Occupations List.

No Labour Market Needs Test, and a decision queue currently running at about a week. Submit in early November, expect a decision inside a fortnight, then four to eight weeks for the visa. Plan for three to five months — a first day between about 27 January and 27 March 2027. Same worker, same country, three months earlier, purely because of the permit type.

If you have a permit coming up for renewal

This is the one that quietly bites. The renewal queue is sitting on 6 August 2026 — about eleven weeks. It lost about half a week on each of two updates in September, then cleared ten days of applications on each of DETE's 5 and 13 October updates, four more on each of the 15 and 20 October updates, and six on the 23 October update, and it is now about half a week slower than it was in the spring.

Apply today and, if the queue holds at about eleven weeks, a decision lands around 13 January 2027. This queue has swung in both directions in four months, so we add a margin: if a worker's permit expires before mid-February 2027 and you have not applied yet, you are already inside the queue's own wait. You can apply to renew a General Employment Permit up to four months before it expires. At the current pace, use every week of that.

Why we say about six months when the stage-by-stage arithmetic is shorter

You will see shorter numbers quoted elsewhere — four to six months is common. Those figures are not wrong; they are the sum of the published stages with nothing going sideways. We quote about six months, the top of that range, because in practice something usually does.

The time that is missing from the arithmetic:

• Embassy appointment availability. The four-to-eight-week visa window starts when the application is lodged, not when the permit lands. Appointment slots in Manila are not available on demand.
• Document gathering. Qualifications, references, police clearance and medicals sit with the candidate, in another country, on another timezone.
• Candidate notice periods. Good candidates are usually employed. Four to eight weeks of notice is normal.
• Returned applications. A missing document or a salary below the legal floor sends the file back, and you lose your place in the queue. With appeals running at about twenty-five weeks even after DETE's September clearance, a refusal still costs you months on top of the months already spent.

So: about six months for a General Employment Permit hire, three to five for Critical Skills. That is the figure we plan against and the figure we quote in a proposal. If today's dates hold and nothing slips, you may well beat it. We would rather you were early than disappointed.

There is no fast-track queue — and no Trusted Partner stream

DETE publishes one queue per application type and works through it in date order of receipt of the fully completed form and fee. There is no second, faster column on that table for any category of employer, and no registration you can now apply for that would put you in a different queue.

The Trusted Partner Initiative no longer exists as a separate registration. Every employer now holds a portal account with current Revenue and CRO details, and DETE states that because all employers must submit Revenue documentation and a CRO number to maintain that account, there is no longer a requirement for a separate Trusted Partner Initiative. What the scheme used to give you comes as standard. DETE's own General Employment Permit and Critical Skills pages still describe an application being placed in a queue "depending on the Employer type, that is, Trusted Partner or Standard". We can't reconcile that with the Trusted Partner update above, and DETE publishes only one date per application type — so if employer type still affects your position, DETE does not publish it. Either way, there is no registration open to you that would change it.

The lever you do control is the date on your application. Your place in the queue runs from the day DETE holds a fully completed form and the fee — so anything sent in short of a document is not holding the date you think it is.

How CA Recruitment keeps your hire on track

We track these dates against your live application and tell you when they move. We run candidate sourcing in parallel with the Labour Market Needs Test so the 28 days are not dead time. We prepare the application to go in complete, because a returned file costs you your queue position and, at current appeal times, a refusal costs you months you cannot get back. And we give you a start date you can repeat to your candidate without having to walk it back.

Monette is Filipino, based in Ireland, and has run this process from both ends. No recruitment fee is payable until your worker starts.

For the full stage-by-stage explanation of how these dates fit into the wider hiring journey, read our detailed employer guide to permit processing times.

Frequently asked questions