Statutory Sick Pay in Ireland: What Small Employers Must Pay

It is 7am on a Tuesday. Sinéad owns a café in Wexford with four staff, and her phone buzzes: Tom, a part-time barista, has a temperature and will not be in. Sinéad covers the shift herself, but by mid-morning she is wondering what she owes him for the day.

The answer sits in statutory sick pay in Ireland, the legal minimum every employer must pay. This guide follows Sinéad through Tom's sick day: whether he qualifies, how much to pay, how it goes through payroll and what records to keep.

What statutory sick pay in Ireland covers

So, what is statutory sick pay? It is the minimum paid sick leave set by the Sick Leave Act 2022. It applies to every employer, whatever the size of the business.

You can offer a better company scheme, with more days or full pay, and many employers do. What you cannot do is offer less. If your contract says nothing about sick pay, the statutory minimum still applies.

Statutory sick leave in Ireland is counted per calendar year, from 1 January to 31 December, not on a rolling 12 months.

Who qualifies: service, certs and part-timers

An employee qualifies when two conditions are met:

• 13 weeks' continuous service with you before the sick day. A gap of up to 26 weeks before returning to the same employer does not break continuity.
• A medical certificate from a registered medical practitioner stating they are unfit to work. The certificate is needed from day 1 of the absence.

Part-time and casual staff qualify on the same terms, so sick leave in Ireland applies to them as well as full-timers. There is no minimum number of weekly hours. Tom has worked for Sinéad for eight months and sends a cert from his GP that afternoon, so he qualifies.

How many days and how much you pay

The figures in force now are:

• 5 days of statutory sick leave per year
• 70% of the employee's normal daily earnings
• A cap of €110 per day

Unused days do not carry over into the next year. The Government decided in 2025 to keep the entitlement at 5 days rather than increase it, and no change to the number of days has been confirmed since.

So how much is sick pay in Ireland? For most staff it is 70% of what they would have earned that day, up to €110.

For staff on variable hours, normal daily earnings are based on what they would have earned on the day. Where that does not fit their pattern, use their average over the 13 weeks before the sick leave.

Working it out: one sick day for a part-time barista

Here is Tom's day. The figures are invented for illustration.

Tom gets €58.80 because 70% of his day falls below the cap. The manager's 70% is over the cap, so she gets €110.

That answers how much is sick pay in Ireland for Tom. Sinéad notes the day against Tom's record. He now has 4 statutory days left this calendar year.

Running sick pay through payroll

Statutory sick pay in Ireland is paid by you, through your normal payroll. Revenue treats it like ordinary pay, so you deduct Income Tax, PRSI and USC in the usual way. It shows as a separate line on the payslip and goes into your regular payroll submission to Revenue.

If you have only just taken on staff, make sure you have finished registering as an employer before the first payday. The PRSI side works as normal, and our guide to PRSI classes covers the basics.

Keep a running total of days used per employee. Most payroll software can track this, and our payroll services include it as standard.

Records to keep and when Illness Benefit takes over

For each employee you must record:

• Their period of employment
• The dates and times of statutory sick leave taken
• The rate paid

Keep these records for four years. Failing to keep them is an offence, with a fine of up to €2,500. Store them alongside the rest of your payroll files, as part of keeping proper records for the business.

If an employee believes they were not paid correctly, they can complain to the Workplace Relations Commission within 6 months, extendable by a further 6 months for reasonable cause. Employers in severe financial difficulty can apply to the Labour Court for a temporary exemption, which lasts between 3 and 12 months if granted.

When the statutory days run out, the Department of Social Protection's Illness Benefit can take over. It is usually paid from day 6 of an absence, or from day 4 if the employee has already used their 5 statutory days that year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Want sick pay handled in your payroll?

Abbey Blue Formations runs payroll for small employers in Wexford and across Ireland, including sick leave tracking and records. Our bookkeeping services keep the rest of your accounts in step. Starting a new company to employ staff? Try our formation calculator. To talk to us, click here.