Relief on home utility costs for days worked from home.
Tax refund
—
Allowable utilities
—
Allowable broadband
—
Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Step | Amount |
|---|
What counts and the 30 percent rule
If you work from home, Revenue lets you claim tax relief on a slice of the running costs your house incurs while you are there. The qualifying bills are heat, electricity, and broadband. The relief is set at 30 percent of those costs, and only the portion attributable to the days you actually worked from home counts. This calculator takes your annual utility and broadband bills, applies the 30 percent rate, apportions the result by your remote days, and refunds it at your tax rate of either 20 or 40 percent.
Two limits keep the claim modest. It is 30 percent of the bills, not the whole amount, and it is scaled down by the fraction of the year you spent at home. The relief is then a refund of tax on that allowable figure, not the figure itself, so the cash back is the allowable amount multiplied by your marginal rate.
Apportioning by the days you were home
The day count is the lever that drives the size of the claim. Revenue wants the relief tied to days genuinely worked from home, so someone home two days a week claims far less than a fully remote worker. The tool divides your remote days by 365 to get the fraction, then applies it to the 30 percent allowable costs. Weekends and annual leave are not working-from-home days, so do not pad the count. Keep your utility and broadband bills and a simple log of remote days, because Revenue can ask you to back up the claim.
180 days at home on the higher rate
Take €2,000 of annual heating and electricity, €600 of broadband, 180 days worked from home, and the 40 percent higher rate. The home fraction is 180 divided by 365, about 0.493. The allowable utility cost is 30 percent of €2,000 scaled by that fraction, roughly €295.89. The allowable broadband is 30 percent of €600 scaled the same way, about €88.77. Add those and refund at 40 percent, and the tax back is around €153.86.
Making the claim worthwhile
Hybrid and remote employees who want a realistic figure before claiming through their Revenue account, and anyone wondering whether the paperwork is worth it, are who this is meant for. Be honest about the modest size of these refunds. As the example shows, a partly remote year on the higher rate returns a touch over €150, so it is real money but not life-changing. One trap to avoid. If your employer already pays you the tax-free remote working daily allowance of €3.20, you cannot also claim relief on the bills for those same days, because the allowance is meant to cover them. Claim one route or the other, not both.
A standard-rate taxpayer on the same numbers would get half the refund, since the relief follows your marginal rate. You claim it through your annual Income Tax return or, for PAYE workers, via the Revenue online service by uploading the bills, and you can backdate claims for previous years if you missed them.
Can I claim if I am self-employed?
This particular relief is designed for employees. If you are self-employed and run your business from home, you instead deduct a reasonable proportion of your household running costs as a business expense against your trading profits, which works differently and is often more generous. Do not use this 30 percent employee relief for self-employment.
What records does Revenue expect?
Keep the actual bills for heat, electricity, and broadband for the year, and a record of the days you worked from home. You do not submit these with the claim, but Revenue can request them afterwards, and a claim with no supporting evidence can be disallowed. A simple spreadsheet of remote days is usually enough.