Revenue Compliance Calendar and VAT Submissions for Irish Businesses

Staying compliant with Revenue deadlines is essential to avoid penalties and keep your financial operations running smoothly. This guide covers the full compliance calendar across VAT, payroll, and tax filings, plus a closer look at how VAT submissions specifically work, since VAT is the filing most businesses deal with most often.

Key Filing Deadlines

Here’s a breakdown of the main filing types, based on the services RizFin offers:

For the official schedule, see Revenue’s tax calendar. If you’re self-employed, our Form 11 Self-Assessment Checklist covers that filing in detail; for limited companies, see our CT1 Corporation Tax Filing Checklist.

Additional Forms

Some clients have additional filings to keep in mind:

The VAT RTD summarises your total sales and purchases for the year, including vatable supplies and purchases, and is required if you’re VAT-registered. We prepare and file this automatically as part of your VAT workflow. See Revenue’s VAT RTD guidance for the detailed process.

Form 46G applies if you make payments exceeding a certain threshold to certain suppliers, such as contractors, consultants, and professionals, in a year. We handle preparation and filing; see Revenue’s guidance on Form 46G for current thresholds and detail.

How VAT Submissions Work

If your business is VAT-registered in Ireland, you must charge VAT on eligible sales, reclaim VAT on eligible purchases, and submit VAT returns to Revenue on time. If you’re unsure whether VAT registration applies to your business, we can help you work out whether registering makes sense for your business model. Good VAT submissions start with clean records. See our Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist for what to keep on top of each month.

Filing Frequency

Revenue typically assigns a bi-monthly VAT cycle, but depending on your turnover, less frequent filing may be an option:

We’ll let you know if a different filing cycle would suit your business better, so you don’t need to track eligibility yourself.

What You Need to Submit

This depends on whether RizFin manages your bookkeeping.

If RizFin manages your bookkeeping, we already have access to your sales, purchases, and reconciliations. You’ll typically just need to provide any missing receipts or invoices, reverse charge/international purchases (e.g. Meta Ads, Google), credit notes or refunds, and any missing bank statements for manually tracked accounts.

If you manage your own bookkeeping, we’ll need sales invoices (with VAT rate, customer details, and description), purchase invoices and receipts (supplier name, VAT breakdown), reverse charge/international purchases, credit notes referencing the original invoice, and bank statements for the full VAT period. Exporting reports directly from your accounting platform makes this step much easier.

Submission Timeline

The typical process: you submit your VAT documents to us by the agreed date, we review and prepare the return within a few days, you review and approve the submission, and once approved, we file your VAT return with Revenue by the deadline.

How to Send Documents

Documents are submitted through your intake and ongoing document-sharing process with us. Never send sensitive VAT documents as email attachments.

VAT Registration Thresholds

Whether you’re required to register for VAT depends on your turnover. See Revenue’s current VAT registration thresholds for the up-to-date figures by business type. If your turnover exceeds or is likely to exceed the applicable threshold, you must register; even below it, you can register voluntarily.

An Important Reminder

VAT is not your money; it belongs to Revenue. Keeping VAT in a separate account from your operating funds is a simple way to avoid spending it by mistake.

VAT Rates and Rules Reference

The basics above cover most businesses’ day-to-day VAT submissions. This section goes a level deeper, useful if you’re dealing with mixed-rate sales, cross-border transactions, or digital services.

VAT Rates

Ireland applies several VAT rates depending on the goods or services involved, from a 0% rate on certain essentials up to the standard rate that applies to most goods and services. Check Revenue’s VAT rates database for the current rate on a specific item.

Exempt vs. zero-rated: these aren’t the same thing. Zero-rated goods/services have no VAT charged on sales, but the business can still reclaim input VAT. Exempt items have no VAT charged either, but input VAT cannot be reclaimed. Knowing how your sales are classified affects both your pricing and your ability to reclaim VAT.

The Reverse Charge Mechanism

For cross-border transactions, particularly within the EU, Irish businesses purchasing services from outside Ireland generally need to account for VAT as if they’d supplied the service themselves, reclaim that VAT as input where eligible, and report both on their VAT3 return. This mechanism helps prevent tax evasion and simplifies intra-EU trade compliance.

What’s in a VAT3 Return

Most VAT-registered businesses file a VAT3 return every two months, covering: VAT on sales/output (T1), VAT on purchases/input (T2), net VAT payable (T3), VAT repayable (T4), and EU goods/services transactions (E1–ES2).

The EU SME VAT Scheme

Eligible small businesses can sell goods or services across the EU up to a set annual threshold without registering for VAT in each individual country, reporting instead through Revenue’s simplified quarterly process. This is particularly useful for digital or service-based businesses expanding across borders. See Revenue’s overview of the EU VAT SME Scheme for eligibility and current thresholds.

VAT on Digital Services

For digital services and virtual events, different rules apply depending on who you’re selling to: for B2B transactions, the reverse charge generally applies; for B2C transactions, VAT is applied based on the customer’s location. If you sell digital services, it’s worth staying on top of this to avoid charging the wrong rate or missing a foreign transaction report.

What Happens If You Miss a VAT Deadline

Missing a VAT deadline can mean interest on the unpaid amount, a potential late filing surcharge, and increased scrutiny, including possible audits. See Revenue’s guidance on interest and penalties for current rates.

If it happens, submit the return as soon as possible, pay what you can (Revenue may accept part payments), and let us know. We’ll guide you through the process and help with late filings.

To avoid missing future deadlines: submit documents on the agreed schedule, keep your records up to date, and let us send you reminders ahead of each deadline. We’ll always give you a prompt before filings are due, but the ultimate responsibility for meeting deadlines rests with you as the business owner.

Corporation Tax and Preliminary Tax

RizFin prepares your financial records and files your Corporation Tax return directly as your accountant and tax agent. See Revenue’s Corporation Tax information for more detail.

Preliminary tax is an advance payment of your income tax for the current year, paid before the year ends. If you’re a sole trader, a company director with untaxed income, or have rental income, you’ll likely need to pay preliminary tax annually. See Revenue’s Preliminary Tax guide for how it’s calculated.

Your Responsibilities

Although RizFin handles most of the work, we rely on you to respond to data requests promptly, confirm sign-off on filings before submission, and ensure access to your Revenue account when required. If you anticipate any delays, let us know as soon as possible. Revenue deadlines are strict, and extensions are rarely granted.

Final Thoughts

A clear view of your compliance calendar, and an understanding of how VAT submissions specifically work, takes the guesswork out of staying on top of Revenue. With reminders, structured document handling, and a clear submission process, deadlines become routine rather than a source of stress.