Guide · Ireland

Minimum wage and auto-enrolment in Irish restaurants: what changed on 1 January 2026

Two things changed on an Irish restaurant's payroll on New Year's Day: a higher national minimum wage, and the start of automatic enrolment into a workplace pension for staff who have none. Both are measured in hours and pay periods, and both have rules about tips and premiums that catch restaurants out.

Published 4 November 2026 · For employers in Ireland, from the Orders and Acts on the Irish Statute Book and the Law Reform Commission's revised Acts. Not legal, tax or payroll advice. UK restaurants have different rules.

The new minimum wage

The National Minimum Wage Order 2025 sets the national minimum hourly rate of pay at €14.15 from 1 January 2026 (S.I. No. 472/2025, articles 1 and 2). It was made on the Low Pay Commission's recommendation, and it applies to every employee the National Minimum Wage Act 2000 covers, kitchen porters and part-time weekend staff included.

Younger staff can be paid a lower rate. Section 15 of the 2000 Act lets the Minister prescribe a percentage of the full rate for employees under 18, aged 18 and aged 19, and sets the floors: no less than 70, 80 and 90 per cent respectively. From an employee's 20th birthday the full rate applies. If you employ school-leavers for the summer, check the prescribed percentages with your payroll provider rather than working them out from the floors.

How the minimum is measured: averages, not shifts

The test is an average. You choose a pay reference period of no more than a calendar month (section 10), and over that period an employee's pay for their working hours must average at least the minimum hourly rate (section 14). A quiet Tuesday paid at a flat rate does not break the law on its own; a fortnight whose reckonable pay, divided by the hours worked, comes out under the rate does.

What goes into that average is set by Schedule 1 of the Act, and this is where restaurants go wrong:

Basic pay counts, and so does the value of board and lodgings, up to the allowances set in the same Order. Staff meals given as board are part of the minimum only up to that allowance.
A service charge paid out through payroll counts, unless it is a charge that section 4D(1) of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 treats as a tip. Since the 2022 tips law, a mandatory charge called a "service charge" usually is one, and then it does not count.
Tips paid into a central fund and distributed through payroll do not count. Separately, section 4C of the Payment of Wages Act forbids any deduction from wages in respect of tips.
Premiums do not count: overtime premiums, unsocial hours premiums, and Saturday, Sunday and public holiday premiums. The basic rate under them has to reach the minimum by itself.

The practical consequence: a waiter's pay before tips and before the Sunday premium has to clear the minimum on its own. Tips and service-charge shares come on top, never underneath.

Records, and the statement an employee can ask for

Section 22 obliges the employer to keep, at the workplace, the records needed to show the Act is being complied with, for at least three years. If the records are missing, the burden of proving compliance falls on the employer.

Under section 23 an employee can ask, in writing, for a statement of their average hourly rate of pay for any pay reference period in the previous twelve months, and the employer has four weeks to give it. The request cannot be made for a period in which the employee averaged 150 per cent or more of the minimum. In a restaurant the statement is only as good as the hours behind it: rostered hours are not worked hours, and a shift that ran late is the one that gets questioned.

Automatic enrolment: who is enrolled

The Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024 created a state-run workplace pension, known to employees as MyFutureFund. Its enrolment and contribution chapters came into operation on 1 January 2026.

An employee is enrolled automatically when, on the last day of a pay reference period, they are aged at least 23 and under 60, they are in employment that is not exempt, and their gross pay across all their jobs is at least €20,000 a year, or the same rate for a shorter period (Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024, section 50). Employment is exempt when the employee or the employer already pays into a qualifying occupational pension, PRSA, trust RAC or PEPP through payroll (section 51).

You do not decide who is in. The Authority running the system notifies you (section 50), and it works from the pay you already report to Revenue through payroll: the Act measures gross pay by what the employer notifies to the Revenue Commissioners (section 47) and lets the Authority and Revenue share that information (section 108). Two consequences for restaurants: earnings are added up across all of a person's jobs, so a chef with a second job elsewhere can be enrolled even if your wages alone are under the threshold; and staff under 23, or under the threshold, are not enrolled automatically but can opt in from the age of 18 (section 53).

What the employer does

Pass on the notice within 14 days
When the authority notifies you that an employee is enrolled, you tell the employee, with their enrolment date, within 14 days. Failing to is an offence (section 50(7)–(8)).
Deduct and pay on every payday
Following the authority's payroll notification, on or before each payment of wages you deduct the employee's contribution and pay it, with your own employer contribution, to the authority (section 59).
Pay at the rate for the year
Section 61 sets the employee's and the employer's contribution at 1.5 per cent of gross pay each for 2026 to 2028, 3 per cent for 2029 to 2031, 4.5 per cent for 2032 to 2034 and 6 per cent after that. The State adds a third of the employee's rate: 0.5 per cent at the start.
Leave the opting out to the employee
An employee can opt out only in a window more than six and not more than eight months after their enrolment notice, and is re-enrolled after two years if still eligible (sections 54 and 55). After six months they can also suspend contributions (section 62). These are the employee's applications to the authority, not the employer's decision.

What it means for the rota and the wage bill

For most restaurants the wage bill rose twice on 1 January: once through the hourly rate, once through the employer's 1.5 per cent on the gross pay of every enrolled employee, and the contribution steps up again in 2029. Because tips and premiums do not count towards the minimum, the hours you roster at the basic rate are the hours that decide whether you comply. That is a reason to keep the record of worked hours as carefully as the takings: when a shift runs past closing, it is the clocked hours, not the rostered ones, that show the average.

The hours in Slotina, for an Irish restaurant

A weekly rota by person and station, with overnight shifts and last week copied in one step.
Staff clock in and out at the server's time, and the break they took is recorded when they clock out, so the hours count the shift without it.
The hours page sets rostered against worked hours per person and week, counts the cards a manager corrected, and lists a card still open instead of counting it as worked.
A manager's correction is stamped with who made it, and the hours export as CSV for whoever runs your payroll.
The tips ledger keeps the tips and the service charge taken apart from pay, with each hand-out to named staff recorded.
Hours only: Slotina works out no pay, no minimum-wage average and no pension contribution. Those stay with your payroll software or your accountant.

Join the early-access list

Irish restaurant payroll: short answers

Can tips count towards the minimum wage in Ireland?

No. Tips paid out of a central fund through payroll are not reckonable pay under Schedule 1 of the National Minimum Wage Act 2000, and neither is a service charge treated as a tip under the 2022 tips law. Basic pay has to reach the minimum by itself.

Does the Sunday premium count towards the minimum wage?

No. Saturday, Sunday and public holiday premiums, overtime premiums and unsocial hours premiums are listed as non-reckonable, so they are paid on top of a basic rate that already meets the minimum.

Which restaurant staff are auto-enrolled into a pension?

Employees aged 23 to 59 whose gross pay across all their jobs reaches the annual threshold in section 50 of the 2024 Act, and who are not already in a qualifying workplace pension through payroll. The authority decides and notifies the employer.

How much does the employer pay for auto-enrolment?

The same as the employee: 1.5 per cent of gross pay in 2026 to 2028, rising to 3, then 4.5 and finally 6 per cent in three-year steps. The State adds a third of the employee's rate.

Can a student who works weekends opt in?

Yes, if they are 18 or over and not in an exempt employment: section 53 lets employees outside the automatic criteria apply to join.

Sources (checked 4 November 2026; not legal, tax or payroll advice)

The staff rota and time clock, with an hours page for payroll · Pay at table, with the tip on every payment · Pricing in euro

How to build a restaurant rota · Tips and service charges under the 2022 Act · Slotina in Ireland · All guides