Good news for people claiming subsistence

The rates for subsistence have increased with effect from 29th January 2025. For new readers of our Newsletter, let me explain what subsistence is. The civil service introduced this allowance to essentially compensate themselves for being away from their “normal place of work (NPOW)” and having to buy their lunch rather than being able to avail of a subsidised canteen.

 The rules around it are: 

• You must be at least 8kms away from your normal place of work
• If away for more than 5 hours, you may claim €19.25
• If away for more than 10 hours you may claim €46.17
• If you have to stay away overnight, you may claim €205.53
  (you must be away more than 100kms from your NPOW to claim overnight allowance).

Points to note

No receipts are needed to show you incurred any expenditure. For example, I leave my office in Dublin at 7.30am to travel to Portlaoise to meet a client at 9am. I meet them, finish the meeting at 1pm and get back to the office at 2pm. I have been away for 6½ hours so therefore can claim €19.25.

To claim this, I merely transcribe the above details on to a claim form (we have a
template on Excel so please contact us if you need one) or click here to download. Revenue suggest you make a claim on a regular basis – once per month is generally accepted as being regular.

Let me give you another example: I have a meeting in Cork at 9am on a Thursday.
To avoid getting up at 5am on Thursday I leave Dublin at 6.30pm on Wednesday and arrive to Cork at 9.30pm, and book into a budget hotel (Premier Inn €70 as of today) and pay the bill of €70 from my own funds. I attend the meeting the next day and the client buys me lunch so I leave Cork at 3pm, and get back to the office/home at 6pm.

In this case I may claim €205.53 for the overnight on Wednesday €46.17 for being away from my NPOW for more than 10 hours on Thursday. That’s a total tax-free payment of €251.70 which deducting the €70 I paid out leaves me up €180.70. Not bad!

If you happen not to have a company car, and claim mileage, for this same trip, even using the lowest mileage rate of €0.5182 per km, and claiming 520kms for the return journey, this pays me a further €269.46 for fuel. I estimate fuel would cost €120 for the return trip, thus again I am up €149 in mileage payments, or a total of €330 for
my trip to Cork.

Feel free to call us to discuss your personal circumstances if you are not availing of subsistence in particular.

Any grants going?

Clients are always asking us are there any grants available for various projects.
The answer is there are but mostly focused on early-stage companies (within 18 months of start-up) or for those who are manufacturing or focusing on exporting. In this edition I would like to focus on start-ups, and see if you can avail of this.

Priming Grants

A Priming Grant is a business start-up grant, available to micro enterprises within the first 18 months of start-up. Priming Grants may be available for sole traders, partnerships or limited companies that fulfill the following criteria:

• the enterprise must not employ more than 10 people – in some cases, depending on certain criteria, businesses with 10 employees or more may be eligible, please contact your Local Enterprise Office advisor for more information on eligibility;
• the enterprise must be established, registered and operate within the geographic location of the Local Enterprise Office;
• the enterprise must operate in the commercial sphere;
• the enterprise must demonstrate a market for the product/service;
• the enterprise must have potential for growth in domestic and/or export markets and also potential for new job creation.

Eligible clients may be awarded a Priming Grant within the first eighteen months of setting up the business. The maximum Priming Grant payable shall be 50% of the investment or €150,000 whichever is the lesser.

Expenditure may be considered under the following headings:

• Capital items
• Salary costs Consultancy/Innovation/ Marketing costs
• General overhead costs

All grants of a value greater than or equal to €50,000 or with a cumulative value of €100,000 over three years require Enterprise Ireland approval. Grants over €80,000 and up to €150,000 shall be the exception and shall only apply in the case of projects that clearly demonstrate a potential to graduate to Enterprise Ireland. In all other cases, the maximum grant shall be 50% of the investment or €80,000 whichever is the lesser. Subject to the 50% limit, a maximum grant of €15,000 per full time job created shall apply in respect of any employment support granted.

If you think you may qualify for such a grant, please contact us for assistance, or your local LEO office.

What have the British ever done for us?

– Given us the chance of a stg£300,000 pension potentially

We have featured this in a previous newsletter, but as the final, final deadline draws near (there have been others that were extended), I really think it is worth one last mention.

If you have ever worked in the UK for at least 3 years, you can avail of the opportunity to claim a UK pension, if you wish to put a bit of work to avail of it. If you don’t have the time or knowledge, we can refer you on to a company who will do all of the work for a fee of circa €400 – €500, and whom we have good feedback of.

How do I qualify?

You must have 10 qualifying years on your national insurance record to receive the minimum UK state pension. If you want the full pension, which currently stands at £185.15 (€210.85) a week, you’ll need 35 years on your record.

However, even if you haven’t worked the required amount of time to reach the minimum 10 years, you can make voluntary contributions to increase your record, as long as you already have three years contributions. Having ten years on your record would entitle you to 10/35ths of the full pension, or £52.90 per week.

You have until April 2025 to pay voluntary contributions to make up for gaps between 2006 and 2016. But after this deadline, you will only be able to pay contributions to cover the previous six years. Buying 16 years’ worth of contributions would bring you closer to the 35 years required for the full state pension. And if you have enough years left until you retire to continue making voluntary contributions, you could reach the 35-year threshold and claim the full UK state pension. Combined with the full state Irish pension of €265.30 per week, you could be commanding €475.87 a week, or €24,745.24 a year (excluding double payments), in state pensions alone.