Gross vs Net Salary in Ireland

What is gross salary?

Gross salary is your pay before any deductions: the figure quoted in a job advert, your employment contract, or the "annual salary" line on your payslip. It's also the number used for things like mortgage affordability calculations and pension contribution percentages, which is why it's often the figure people compare when weighing up job offers.

But two job offers with the same gross salary don't always leave you with the same take-home pay, if pension contributions, benefit-in-kind, or other deductions differ between them. Gross salary is a useful starting point, not the full picture.

What is net salary (take-home pay)?

Net salary is what's left after Income Tax (PAYE), USC and PRSI are all subtracted from your gross pay: the amount that's actually paid into your bank account. In Ireland, all three of these are calculated and deducted automatically by your employer under the PAYE system, so you never have to work them out or pay them separately yourself (unless you're self-employed, which follows different rules entirely).

Use the salary calculator on this site to see your own gross-to-net breakdown, with each of the three deductions shown separately rather than lumped into one number.

The three deductions that create the gap

Each of the three deductions between gross and net pay works differently:

• PAYE (Income Tax): 20% up to a threshold, 40% above it, minus your tax credits
• USC (Universal Social Charge): a separate charge on gross income in four progressive bands, with almost no reliefs
• PRSI (Pay Related Social Insurance): a flat percentage of gross pay above a weekly exemption threshold, which also builds up entitlement to certain social welfare benefits and the State pension

See Ireland tax rates 2026 for the exact current rates and bands for all three.

Why the gap grows as gross salary rises

The gap between gross and net pay isn't a fixed percentage: it grows as a proportion of income the higher your salary is, because both PAYE and USC are progressive (higher bands are taxed at higher rates). Someone on a modest salary might keep close to 90% of their gross pay as net pay, while someone well into the 40% tax band and 8% top USC band will typically keep noticeably less than 70%.

This is why a salary increase that pushes part of your income into a higher tax band doesn't translate euro-for-euro into extra take-home pay. Only the portion of the rise that falls in the higher band is taxed at the higher rate, the rest stays taxed as before. Try comparing two different salary levels on the salary calculator to see exactly how the net-pay percentage shifts.

Gross vs net when you're paid hourly

If you're paid an hourly rate rather than a fixed annual salary, the same gross-vs-net distinction applies: your hourly rate times your hours is a gross figure, and PAYE/USC/PRSI still come off it the same way. Use the hourly wage calculator to convert an hourly rate into an annual gross figure first, then feed that into the salary calculator to see the net (take-home) equivalent.

Gross vs net pay: a worked comparison

To make the widening gap concrete, here's what net pay looks like as a percentage of gross pay at three different salary levels for a single PAYE employee:

These figures come directly from the salary calculator on this site. Enter any of the three gross amounts yourself to see the full PAYE/USC/PRSI breakdown behind each net figure.

Other numbers on your payslip

Gross and net pay aren't the only two figures worth understanding on an Irish payslip. Your "gross to date" and "tax to date" columns show a running year-to-date total, which is how Revenue and your employer track whether you're on the right cumulative tax position for the year, especially if your income changes partway through the year (a new job, a raise, or a period of unpaid leave). If those year-to-date figures look wrong, it's usually worth checking your tax credit certificate on Revenue's myAccount service rather than guessing.