Moving back to Ireland, keeping UK job - how difficult is it?

Mattish

Hi all,

I'm sure with covid this is becoming a more common question/issue but I haven't seen any similar threads recently, so apologies if this has been posted before.

My partner and I are both from Ireland and we currently live and work in the UK. We've been working from home since the pandemic started, and working from home is feasible for both of us long term. We have started talking about moving back home to Ireland permanently while working from home in our current jobs to save money for a house deposit. This would be advantageous for two reasons:

1) Save rent money
2) Be in a better position to get a mortgage (compared to applying as a non-resident).

We would both be looking to keep our current jobs as we work in highly specialised fields. We can see two ways of doing this from a tax compliance perspective:

1) Ask our companies to set up Irish payroll (they're both global companies and I think they would entertain the discussion of doing this at least, but we obviously don't want to bring it up until we've fully made a decision). This has the added advantage of making it easier to get a mortgage as we would be paid in euro
2) Go down the contractor route (we don't particularly want to do this - would probably try to exhaust the possibility of changing to Irish jobs over this)

So my main question is whether anyone else has done similar recently and whether you have any learnings? How much hassle is it for companies to set up Irish payroll, and is there anything we need to make sure we take into account that I've missed? Is it just much to difficult and should we scrap the idea and focus on finding Irish jobs in order to move home?

Thanks all!

antix80

Recently? No. However, I have a friend whose UK employer told him he could work from Ireland. Over time they were told it wasn't working out .. I guess it suited the employer in the beginning rather than lose a staff member immediately.
Senior management may also decide to get everyone back into the office on a whim.

Jim2007

I would image that it very much depends on the type of work you do as to whether this even gets of the starting block at all.

If you are doing any kind of work that involves data covered by the GDPR, then it may be very difficult to get an employer to allow you to work remotely outside their jurisdiction.

Mattish wrote: »

2) Be in a better position to get a mortgage (compared to applying as a non-resident).

You should be aware that there is an EU Directive that restricts lending activities in cases where the borrower earns their income in a foreign currency. So the advantage may not be so great. In a nutshell it moves the FX risk to the lender in certain circumstances, which may mean lenders decide not to lend to you. So you'd be in no better a position than a non resident or possibly even a worse position.

Mattish wrote: »

1) Ask our companies to set up Irish payroll (they're both global companies and I think they would entertain the discussion of doing this at least, but we obviously don't want to bring it up until we've fully made a decision). This has the added advantage of making it easier to get a mortgage as we would be paid in euro

There are provisions within the EU for employing citizens in another member state, but they will not apply to the UK after the end of the year. So establishing an Irish Payroll means doing business here and may potentially expose the company to other legal requirements, so that will not be any easy sell.

CBear1993

Interesting observation on that last point Jim2007. I’m actually going the opposite way in the new year upto Ni from Dublin.

I’m working from home remotely for my firm at the moment and hoping to just carry that into working from home in NI after Xmas. Will continue to be paid in euros into Irish bank account.

Not sure if there will be any implications at present, maybe 1-2 days a week max travel to Dublin.

Jim2007

I expect it will be a couple of years before all the bumps are ironed out.

From what I see here (Switzerland) among the UK expats is that they are about to be shafted big time!

- Some pension authorities require them to have UK accounts to receive their pension, but banks are closing their accounts because of BREXIT

- The UK government have changed the pension rules applying to the souse of the pensioner, so they get a smaller pension after pensioner dies

- Healthcare coverage for UK citizens living abroad is being reduced