Tax on short-term letting profit, treated as a trade, with USC and PRSI.
Total tax on the letting
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Profit
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Income tax
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USC
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PRSI
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Your breakdown
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Why Airbnb income is a trade, not rent
This is the single most misunderstood point in short-term letting. Revenue does not treat guest accommodation as rental income under Case V. It treats it as trading income under Case I, because you are providing a service with cleaning, linen, and check-in, not simply letting a property. That distinction changes everything: rent-a-room relief is off the table for short stays, and the profit is taxed at your marginal rate on top of whatever else you earn.
The practical effect is that your letting profit stacks. If your salary already fills the 44,000 euro standard rate band, every euro of letting profit is taxed at the top, which is why this calculator works it out as a marginal slice rather than from the first euro. It subtracts the tax on your other income from the tax on your combined income, leaving only the extra that the letting causes.
16,000 euro of bookings on a 55,000 euro salary
Suppose you host through the year and take 16,000 euro in bookings, with 3,500 euro of allowable costs such as platform fees, cleaning, utilities for the let space, and insurance. Profit is 12,500 euro. You already earn 55,000 euro from your job, which is above the 44,000 euro band, so the whole 12,500 euro is taxed at 40 percent. USC on that slice is 3 percent because your income sits inside the 27,382 euro to 70,044 euro band, and PRSI is 4.1 percent.
The chart stacks the three charges into one bar against the profit, so you can see that close to half of the 12,500 euro profit goes to the State once it lands on top of a higher-rate salary.
Registration rules that come before the tax
Tax is not the only thing short-term hosts need to plan for. In rent pressure zones you generally need planning permission to let a property that is not your principal private residence for short stays, and a national short-term letting register has been moving through the legislative pipeline. Letting your own home for under 90 days a year while you are away is treated differently from running a dedicated holiday let, so the rules that apply to you depend heavily on which of those you are doing.
A common and costly mistake is apportioning costs as if the whole house were a business. If you let one room of your own home, only the share of utilities, insurance, and wear that relates to the let space is deductible. Claiming 100 percent of the household bills against a single let room is exactly the kind of thing that turns a routine Revenue query into an audit.
Host questions answered
Does the platform report my earnings to Revenue?
Yes. Under the EU DAC7 rules, booking platforms report host earnings to tax authorities, and Revenue receives that data for Irish hosts. The days of assuming short-stay income flies under the radar are gone, so declare it on your Form 11.
Could I owe VAT as well?
If your short-term letting turnover passes the VAT registration threshold for services, you may have to register for and charge VAT, which is a separate layer this calculator does not cover. Most small hosts stay below it, but a busy multi-property operation can easily cross the line.