In short: Yes — an Irish care employer can hire a Filipino care assistant or home support worker on a General Employment Permit. DETE set aside 1,495 permits for care workers and home carers from 13 May 2026. The minimum pay is €16.12 an hour, not the standard €36,605 a year / €18.05 an hour threshold. You need a 28-day Labour Market Needs Test and a DETE application submitted at least 12 weeks before the start date. CA Recruitment does all of it.
Irish employers who have put their name to us
Overseas recruitment is a trust purchase. You are asking a stranger to find someone in Manila, put your company's name on a government application, and get that person onto your roster months from now. So start with the part most agencies can't show you: employers who went through the permit process with us and put their name to it.
"We were sceptical that anyone could actually manage the permit process for us — it looked complicated and time-consuming. CA Recruitment took the whole thing off our plate. The workers they placed are outstanding."
"I'd tried two other agencies and got nowhere. CA Recruitment got us fully permitted Filipino workers within the timeline they promised. The process was straightforward once Monette and the team were running it."
Those placements were in farming and construction, and we've labelled them that way on purpose — we are not going to dress up a pig farm as a nursing home, and we won't claim care placements we haven't made. What transfers is the machinery: the same Labour Market Needs Test, the same DETE portal, the same visa queue, the same agency running it. The care tier changes the salary threshold and the qualification check. It does not change who does the paperwork. Read more employer reviews →
The €16.12 care tier — and why most agencies quote you the wrong number
This is the part that decides whether a care home can afford an overseas hire at all, and it is where most enquiries go wrong before they start.
The standard General Employment Permit minimum is €36,605 a year, or €18.05 an hour — both bind. For a care assistant, that number is unaffordable and unrealistic — it is well above the going rate for the role. So the conversation ends. Plenty of operators have been told outright that care assistant roles don't qualify for a permit.
That is wrong. DETE applies a separate, lower threshold to Health Care Assistants and Home Support Workers under SOC 6145:
- €16.12 per hour — the minimum hourly rate
- €32,691 per year — the minimum annual remuneration, which is what a 39-hour week comes to
- €33,529.60 — the same hourly rate over a 40-hour week
Two things about that figure catch employers out. The hourly rate governs, so a roster below 39 hours still has to clear €16.12 an hour. And DETE is specific about what counts towards the threshold: basic pay, which may include premium payments where those are guaranteed, plus health insurance payments made to a registered insurer. Bonuses, shift allowances and overtime do not count. Build the offer on hours a worker might get rather than hours they are contracted for, and the application is exposed.
Agencies whose business is construction and engineering never learn this tier, because none of their roles sit in it. We built our care practice around it. Full General Employment Permit rules →
Been told care assistants don't qualify?
They do. Send us the role and the hours and we'll tell you within a day whether it clears the threshold — free, and before you commit to anything.
WhatsApp UsWhich care roles you can actually get a permit for
Care is not one occupation to DETE. It is a set of job titles, some eligible, some eligible only in disability services, and some barred outright. Getting the title wrong on the application is a refusal, and a refusal costs you months. This is where the role you have in mind sits:
| Role | Permit route | Minimum pay | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Care assistant / healthcare assistant | General Employment Permit | €16.12/hr | SOC 6145. Sits under the 1,495-permit care worker quota. The core role we place. |
| Home support worker | General Employment Permit | €16.12/hr | Also SOC 6145, same quota and same reduced rate. The employer must be the care provider, not the client's family. |
| Support worker | General Employment Permit | €36,605 (€18.05/hr) | Has its own quota — 200 permits from 13 May 2026. DETE publishes the reduced €16.12 rate for Horticulture Worker, Meat Processor Operative and HCA/Home Support Worker (SOC 6145) only, so Support Worker falls back to the standard threshold. |
| Senior care worker | General Employment Permit — disability services only | €36,605 (€18.05/hr) | Ineligible everywhere else. In a nursing home this title will be refused; in a disability service it is open. |
| Social worker | Critical Skills Employment Permit | €40,904 (€20.17/hr) | On the Critical Skills Occupations List, so no Labour Market Needs Test and a shorter route. |
| Registered nurse | Critical Skills Employment Permit | €40,904 (€20.17/hr), or the rate set by a public sector pay agreement where one covers the post (Section 38 employers included) | NMBI registration is required before practising, and it must be completed before the employer can apply for the permit. See our healthcare sector page. |
| Residential, day or domiciliary care manager | Disability services only | €36,605 (€18.05/hr) | On the ineligible list outside disability services. |
| Care escort | No permit available | — | On the ineligible list. |
| Live-in carer employed by a family | Barred as a rule — one narrow exception | — | Domestic worker in a private home is on the ineligible list. DETE runs a separate exceptional-circumstances route for a carer of a person with exceptional medical needs. See below — this one traps a lot of people. |
Eligibility comes from Schedules 4 and 5 of the Employment Permits Regulations, as amended by S.I. No. 213/2026. We confirm the correct title against the current lists before an application goes anywhere near the portal.
Live-in care: the rule that catches families and providers out
Ask about a live-in Filipino carer for an elderly parent and you will find agencies happy to take the enquiry. The general rule is against you. Schedule 4 of the Employment Permits Regulations lists domestic worker, in the category of work in the private home, as employment for which a permit shall not be granted. For an ordinary live-in hire, the bar sits on the employment itself, whoever the employer is.
So the mainstream route runs through a provider. DETE requires an employer registered with Revenue, trading in Ireland, who employs, salaries and pays the worker directly. A registered home care provider meets that. A family can register with Revenue as a domestic employer, so that is not the obstacle — the obstacle is the job itself, which is on the ineligible list whenever it is done in a private home, whoever signs the contract. The worker is employed by the provider and placed into the home — which is also the arrangement that gives the family a regulated service, PAYE, insurance and cover when the carer is sick.
There is one genuine exception, and it is narrower than it sounds. DETE operates a standing policy for a carer of a person with exceptional medical needs. An application for a carer in a private home can be made under it, but only with one of two evidence sets: either the candidate's qualifications showing they are a trained medical professional — a medical practitioner or a nurse — together with a letter from a registered medical practitioner specialising in that illness confirming the person has a severe medical condition; or documentary proof of a long history of caring for that particular person, together with a specialist's letter confirming special care needs. In that same situation DETE also waives the 28-day Labour Market Needs Test, where the non-EEA national was already providing the care and the person has developed a high level of dependence on them.
Read what that actually requires. It is not a route for hiring a care assistant you have never met from overseas — the evidence is built around a nurse-qualified candidate or a carer already in place. For almost every family enquiry we take, the provider route is the real answer. If you operate a home care service, that route is exactly ours.
1,495 permits, and a clock on them
The care worker allocation is not open-ended. S.I. No. 213/2026 set a maximum of 1,495 General Employment Permits for care workers and home carers from 13 May 2026, alongside 200 for support workers. Quotas are drawn down as permits are granted, and when a quota fills, it fills — DETE closes the category until it is reset.
Nothing about that should panic you into a bad hire. It does mean the operator who starts the Labour Market Needs Test in September is in a materially better position than the one who starts in February. If you know you will need care staff in the first half of next year, the work starts now.
What we do, and what you do
Most care operators we speak to have never handled an employment permit. That is fine. Here is the division of labour, plainly.
- 1
Free consultation — you tell us the role
Job title, hours, roster, setting, how many. We come back with the permit route, whether it clears €16.12, the realistic timeline, and the full cost. If the role doesn't qualify we say so on that call rather than three months in.
- 2
Labour Market Needs Test — we run it
The role is advertised for 28 days through the DSP Employment Services / EURES network plus a further online advertisement. We place them, we keep the evidence DETE asks for, and we hand you nothing to post.
- 3
Sourcing and vetting — in the Philippines, in person
We source through our own networks, interview, check references, and verify care qualifications against the QQI Level 5 standard before anyone reaches your shortlist. You interview a handful of people we would hire ourselves, not a database export.
- 4
DETE application — our name on the follow-up
We prepare and submit through the online system, assemble the supporting documentation, and handle DETE's queries directly. The application has to land at least 12 weeks before the intended start date, which is one of the more common reasons a start date slips.
- 5
Visa, arrival and the first 90 days
Entry visa, pre-departure briefing, travel, IRP registration with Immigration Service Delivery, PPS number. We stay in contact through the first 90 days — the period where a placement either settles or doesn't.
Your side of it: confirm the role and salary, sit the interviews, sign the contract and job offer, and pay the DETE fee. The full permit process, step by step →
Qualifications: QQI Level 5, and where NMBI does and doesn't apply
Two acronyms decide whether your new hire can work on day one, and they get mixed up constantly.
QQI Level 5 in Health and Social Care is the care assistant standard, and the timing of it is widely misunderstood. For the first permit, DETE's test is that the candidate holds the qualifications, skills or experience the job actually requires. Level 5 bites at renewal: DETE expects a health care assistant to have attained a relevant QQI Level 5 qualification after two years' employment in the State. A candidate already holding a health and social care qualification comparable to Level 5 is treated as having met it. Where the worker has not attained it by renewal, DETE takes a form certified by a clinical lead confirming the person has demonstrated the ability, qualifications and suitability for the role during their employment. A great many Filipino candidates hold a Bachelor of Science in Nursing or a caregiving qualification that meets the comparability test, which is a large part of why Irish care homes recruit from the Philippines rather than elsewhere. We check this before the shortlist, because a qualification that falls over two years in is your renewal problem, and your next HIQA inspection, not the agency's.
NMBI — the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland — registers nurses and midwives. It does not apply to care assistants or home support workers. If you are hiring a registered nurse, NMBI registration is required before that person can practise, takes months, and has to be completed before the employer can apply for the permit. Confusing the two is how an operator ends up waiting on a registration their care assistant never needed.
Garda vetting applies to care roles and we build it into the pre-arrival sequence.
Why Irish care operators choose us over a generalist agency
Filipino-Irish owned, based in Ireland
Monette founded CA Recruitment as a Filipino national living in Ireland. She recruits through her own community networks in the Philippines and answers the phone in Tipperary. That is one company on both ends of the placement, not an Irish front office broking through a Manila partner it has never visited.
We work the care tier deliberately
The €16.12 threshold, the 1,495 quota, the disability-services carve-outs, the private-home bar. This is a body of detail that only matters if care is a real part of your business. It is a real part of ours.
Licensed and accountable
CA Recruitment holds WRC Employment Agency Licence No. EA 5444. Under section 55 of the Employment Permits Act 2024 an employer cannot recover permit costs from the worker, and we structure placements accordingly — worth knowing when HIQA asks how your overseas staff were recruited.
Fixed fee, agreed in writing first
Our fee is set before we start. The €1,000 DETE fee and any visa and travel costs are billed at cost and never marked up.
Staff who stay
A first-time permit holder is expected to remain with the employer named on the permit for 9 months, and in practice permit-route workers who have relocated to build a career stay a great deal longer than agency cover. For a home carrying a rolling vacancy, that is the entire point.
We tell you when the answer is no
Some titles are on the ineligible list and some rosters won't clear the threshold. You get that at the consultation, in writing, before you have spent anything.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Care assistant and home support worker roles (SOC 6145) are eligible for a General Employment Permit under a dedicated DETE quota — 1,495 permits for care workers and home carers from 13 May 2026 under S.I. No. 213/2026. You must be a bona fide employer registered with Revenue and trading in Ireland, pay at least €16.12 per hour, and complete a 28-day Labour Market Needs Test. CA Recruitment sources the candidate and runs the entire permit application.
For Health Care Assistants and Home Support Workers (SOC 6145), DETE sets a minimum hourly rate of €16.12 and a minimum annual remuneration of €32,691. On a 39-hour week that is €32,691; on a 40-hour week it is €33,529.60. This is a reduced threshold specific to these roles — the standard General Employment Permit minimum is €36,605 a year, or €18.05 an hour. What counts towards the threshold is basic pay, which may include premium payments where those are guaranteed, plus health insurance payments to a registered insurer. Bonuses, shift allowances and overtime do not count.
No. NMBI (the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland) registers nurses and midwives. A care assistant or home support worker is not a registered nurse and does not go through NMBI. If you are hiring a registered nurse rather than a care assistant, NMBI registration is required before that person can practise, and it must be completed before the employer can apply for the permit.
Not for the first permit. At application stage DETE's test is that the candidate holds the qualifications, skills or experience the job requires. QQI Level 5 in Health and Social Care matters at renewal — DETE expects a health care assistant to have attained a relevant QQI Level 5 qualification after two years' employment in the State. A candidate already holding a health and social care qualification comparable to Level 5 is treated as having met it, and where the worker has not attained it, DETE accepts a form certified by a clinical lead confirming their ability and suitability in the role. Many Filipino candidates hold a Bachelor of Science in Nursing or a caregiving qualification that meets the comparability test. We check this before a candidate reaches your shortlist.
As a rule, no. Schedule 4 of the Employment Permits Regulations lists domestic worker, in the category of work in the private home, as employment for which a permit shall not be granted, so an ordinary live-in hire in a private home cannot be permitted — the bar is on the employment itself, whoever the employer is. Live-in and home care hires normally run through a registered care provider that employs, salaries and pays the worker directly. There is one narrow exception: DETE operates a standing policy for a carer of a person with exceptional medical needs, which requires either a candidate qualified as a medical practitioner or nurse plus a specialist's letter confirming a severe medical condition, or documentary proof that the candidate already has a long history of caring for that person plus a specialist's letter confirming special care needs. That case also waives the Labour Market Needs Test. It is not a general route for hiring a care assistant from overseas. If you are a home care provider, the provider route is open to you.
Plan for 6 to 8 months from first consultation to first shift — that is for a visa-required nationality such as the Philippines; from a non-visa-required country such as Brazil, which needs no entry visa, allow about 4 to 5 months. That covers sourcing and vetting, the 28-day Labour Market Needs Test, the DETE decision queue, the entry visa, and travel. The 12-week rule alone accounts for a chunk of it — DETE requires the permit application to be received at least 12 weeks before the intended start date. Current decision dates are published by DETE and tracked on our processing times page.
A first-time General Employment Permit holder is expected to remain with the employer named on the permit for 9 months. A move before then is only considered in defined circumstances such as redundancy. Beyond the rule, permit-route workers have relocated to build a career and tend to stay far longer than agency cover — which is the point for a care home carrying a rolling vacancy.
The DETE permit fee is €1,000 for a permit of 6 to 24 months, paid by the employer. Labour Market Needs Test advertising typically adds €200 to €500. CA Recruitment's fee is agreed with you in writing before anything starts. Under section 55 of the Employment Permits Act 2024, an employer cannot recover permit application costs from the worker — we structure every placement accordingly. Full breakdown at the free consultation.
Start with a conversation, not a contract
Send Monette the role, the hours and the setting. You will get a straight answer on whether it qualifies, what it costs, and when someone could realistically start — before you commit to anything. If the answer is that your role won't clear the threshold, you will hear that too.
Related reading: our full care & social services sector page, how home care providers hire overseas care workers, and the Work Permit Guide for Irish employers.