Moving to Ireland

An English-speaking EU country with high salaries, a genuine skills shortage, and nowhere to live.

Ireland is the only English-speaking country in the euro area, and it has built its economy on foreign companies that hire internationally. The result is an immigration system that is unusually welcoming at the top of the labour market: if an Irish employer wants to hire you into a listed shortage occupation at a decent salary, the state largely gets out of the way.

The structure catches people out, because two different government departments are involved. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment issues the employment permit, which is permission to work. The Department of Justice, through Immigration Service Delivery, issues the immigration permission and the Stamp that goes with it, which is permission to be in the country. They are separate applications with separate fees, separate timelines, and separate refusal grounds, and holding one without the other is worth very little.

The dominant practical problem is housing. Rents in Dublin have risen for more than a decade against a structural shortage of supply, and arriving without accommodation already arranged is the single most common reason a move to Ireland goes badly. Salaries are high by European standards and the shortage occupations are real, but the housing market absorbs a great deal of that advantage.

Region	Western Europe
Capital	Dublin
Population	about 5.4 million
Foreign-born residents	roughly 20% of residents
Official language(s)	English, Irish
Currency	Euro (EUR)

Why people move to Ireland

• English is the working language, so there is no language test and no years of study before you can function.
• The Critical Skills Employment Permit is fast, comes with immediate family reunification, and leads to Stamp 4 after two years.
• Salaries in technology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and finance are high by European standards.
• An Irish passport is an EU passport, and it also carries Common Travel Area rights in the United Kingdom.
• Anyone with an Irish grandparent can usually claim citizenship by descent without ever having lived in Ireland.
• Naturalisation is possible after five years of reckonable residence, and dual citizenship is permitted.

What to know before you commit

• Housing is the real barrier: Dublin rents are among the highest in Europe and supply is genuinely scarce.
• The employment permit and the immigration permission are two separate systems, and delays in either can strand you.
• General Employment Permits require a labour market needs test, which many employers will not run.
• Healthcare is two-tier: most adults pay to see a GP, and public waiting lists push people into private insurance.
• Ineligible occupation lists exclude a long list of jobs from any employment permit at all, regardless of salary.
• Time spent on a student permission does not count as reckonable residence toward naturalisation.

The eight guides

Official sources

• Immigration Service Delivery, Department of Justice
• Employment permits, Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment
• Citizens Information — moving to Ireland

Checked against these pages in September 2026. Fees and processing times change without notice — confirm before you act.