A career in teaching in Ireland is fantastic for work life balance, however often, from time to time, teachers need to subsidise their income by doing private tuition (grinds). In this blog post, we will take a brief dive into all of the different tax implications that you should be aware of if earning a side income from grinds in Ireland.
Read more: Teachers’ Grinds Income – How is it Taxed in Ireland?Despite what some people may think, if you earn any additional income on top of your salary, even if it is cash in hand, it is taxable. What forms you need to complete will depend on the level of the income.
Commonly most teachers providing private tuition would not go down the road of setting up a company to house this income due to the adminstrative burden – so we will focus most of our efforts here on chatting through the most common set ups.
Earning less than €5k per annum from private tuition
As a PAYE employee you will be used to doing your income tax through your ‘My Account’ on Revenue.ie. In the past you may have claimed tax credits for rent, health expenses, home carer, etc to put some money back in your pocket.
Well if the profit (income less related expenses) you have made from providing your serivce of private tuition is less than €5,000 per annum, then not a lot will change for you. You will also see a facility here where you can declare additional income you have received. This is where you can record the profits you have made from your private tuition.
The tax will be collected by either reducing your other tax credits – ie you’ll oay more tax on your teachers income, or if you are backdating then a one time payment can be made. You will have until mid November of the following year to report this income. For example profits earned in 2026, will need to be declared in your income tax return by mid November 2027.
Earning more than €5k per annum from private tuition
If you are earning more than €5,000 per annum profit from the provision of grinds, you will need to register for income tax and report your income through a Form 11.
You can register for income tax through your My Account on Revenue.ie. There you will see an option to manage tax registrations. Once you register for income tax you will essentially become a business customer of the Revenue Commissioners.
Where you submit the Form 11 will be on ROS – Revenue Online Service. This is a completely separate portal used by businesses for tax submissions. The Form 11 is much lengthier than the equivalent form you submit when profits are less than €5k. Depending on your knowledge you may need the assitance or at least guidance of any accountant to make sure it is completed correctly.
The Form 11 will encapsulate all of your income, your teacher’s salary (already taxed), private tuition, interest income from deposit accounts, investment income, rental income, and any other sources of income you may have. All this income gets accumulated and you will be presented with a balance of tax due, after taking into account your tax credits, and tax paid to date.
Is the provision of private tuition in Ireland Vatable?
The provision of children’s or young people’s education, and school or university education, is exempt from Value-Added Tax (VAT). Private tuition covering school or university education is also exempt from VAT. Vocational training and retraining services are exempt from VAT where certain conditions are met.
What this means in practice is, that you will not be required to register for VAT or charge VAT on your invoices to private students no matter what level your income is. You will also not be able to claim back any VAT on business expenses you expend when providing the service.
The only situation where VAT can become a factor is if you import services into Ireland – e.g a software from a US based company – that details on its invoice that a reverse charge applies.
When you import services into Ireland that do not already have Irish VAT charged on them (4th Schedule Services), you will yourself need to register for VAT for the specific purpose of paying VAT on those services yourself. Reverse charge means the responsibility of collecting the VAT passes from the supplier to the customer.
For example, you use a software that costs €50 per month to deliver your private tuition. When you inspect the invoice, you note that the reverse charge applies. You then must register for VAT and do bi-monthly VAT returns and pay over an additional 23% on these services (€11.50 for this particular invoice. There are no VAT registration thresholds applicable to the importation of services into Ireland.
If you are set up as a company, you can also qualify as being VAT exempt provided you are a ‘recognised body’.
Disclaimer: this blog post is for informational and eduactional purposes only, and should not be construed as financial advice.
