PRSI (Class A)
PRSI is assessed on your weekly earnings, per pay period — never annualised. Low earnings attract a tapered employee credit in a narrow weekly band, the employer rate steps up on a cliff that applies to the whole week’s pay, and the 2026 contribution year is split by a mid-year rate change. This page works the charge out week by week, the way the rules do.
Charged by the week, not by the year
Pay Related Social Insurance is the charge that buys your social-insurance record — contributions towards illness, jobseeker’s and maternity payments and, eventually, the State pension. Nearly every private-sector employee is in Class A, which is what this page describes.
The mechanic that makes PRSI different from everything else on your payslip is that it is assessed on your weekly earnings, per pay period. It is not cumulative the way income tax is, and it is never worked out on an annual figure and divided back down. Each pay period stands alone: the rules look at what you earned in that week, decide which subclass you land in, and charge accordingly.
The consequence is one most calculators skip. Two people with identical annual pay can owe different PRSI if one of them was paid unevenly — a bonus week, a holiday-pay lump, a few quiet weeks at reduced hours. This calculator walks a full contribution year week by week, at level pay, which is exact for a steady salary and honest about where irregular pay would diverge.
Work out your PRSI
PRSI is assessed on weekly earnings, per pay period — so this calculator asks for the week, not the year.
Assumes an Irish-resident PAYE employee on level pay for the full tax year, cumulative basis (see the notes).
Employee PRSI for the contribution year
€1,762.80
- Subclass
- A1
- A week before the mid-year step(4.2%)
- €33.60
- A week after the mid-year step(4.35%)
- €34.80
- Less the tapered PRSI credit
- —
- Employer charge (this week)
- €90.00
The employer step is a cliff
Above the employer threshold, the higher employer rate applies to the whole week’s pay rather than to the excess. It is the employer’s cost and is never deducted from your pay.
Above €552.00 a week: the higher employer rate applies to the whole week’s pay.
Class A weekly subclasses
Your subclass is decided by the week’s earnings. The employee rate is the same across the three charging subclasses — what actually moves between them is the credit and the employer’s rate.
€38.00 – €352.00 a week
Subclass A0
- Employee
- Nil
- Employer, earlier part of year
- 9%
- Employer, later part
- 9.15%
No employee charge at all — but the employer contribution is still due, and the week still counts for social insurance.
€352.01 – €424.00 a week
Subclass AX
- Employee
- 4.2% less the credit
- Employer, earlier part of year
- 9%
- Employer, later part
- 9.15%
The tapered credit band. The credit is at its maximum of €12.00 at the bottom and shrinks as earnings rise.
€424.00 – €552.00 a week
Subclass AL
- Employee
- 4.2%
- Employer, earlier part of year
- 9%
- Employer, later part
- 9.15%
Above the credit band, below the employer step: the full employee rate, the lower employer rate.
Above €552.00 a week
Subclass A1
- Employee
- 4.2%
- Employer, earlier part of year
- 11.25%
- Employer, later part
- 11.4%
The employee rate does not change here — the employer rate does, on the whole week’s pay.
Below €38.00 a week a different PRSI class normally applies, which is outside this calculator’s scope — it flags that case rather than charging Class A rates at you regardless. There is no annual earnings ceiling for employees: the charge keeps applying however high the pay goes. The employer rate shown includes the training fund levy, which is inside the employer contribution rather than a separate line.
The tapered credit, and why it exists
Without a credit, the employee threshold would be a cliff. Earn €352.00 in a week and you would pay nothing; earn a cent more and the full rate would apply to the whole week’s pay, leaving you worse off for earning more. The tapered credit is what stops that happening.
Between €352.01 and €424.00 a week, a credit is subtracted from the employee charge. It starts at its maximum of €12.00 at the bottom of the band and is reduced by 1/6 of the earnings above €352.01. Once weekly earnings pass €424.00 the credit is gone entirely. It reduces the employee charge only — the employer’s contribution is never credit-reduced.
The Department’s own published examples, recomputed by this engine
€377.00
Subclass AX
- Charge before credit
- €15.83
- Credit
- −€7.83
- PRSI for the week
- €8.00
€400.00
Subclass AX
- Charge before credit
- €16.80
- Credit
- −€4.00
- PRSI for the week
- €12.80
Both rows are the worked examples the Department publishes in its own PRSI guide, and neither figure was typed into this page: the wages are the inputs, everything else is the engine’s output. Reproducing a published example exactly is the cheapest honest test there is of whether a calculator has the rule right — so it lives on the page rather than in a test file nobody reads.
The employer step is a cliff
Above €552.00 a week the employer rate steps up — and it applies to the whole week’s pay, not to the part above the threshold. That is unusual. Other PRSI classes genuinely split their bands, charging one rate on the first slice and another on the balance; Class A does not. The published table says the rate applies to all of the week’s pay, and this calculator charges it that way.
Employer PRSI is not a deduction from your wage. It is a cost your employer carries on top of it, which is why the calculator shows it as its own figure and folds it into the total cost of employing you rather than subtracting it from your take-home. It is worth seeing: the gap between what a job costs and what it pays is the part of a salary negotiation nobody puts on the offer letter.
2026 is a split year
PRSI rates do not step on 1 January this year. They step part-way through it, so the contribution year runs at one set of rates for 39 weeks and another for 13. A full-year figure computed at a single rate is wrong for 2026 — which is why this calculator walks the weeks instead of applying an average.
Rates before and after the mid-year step
Before the step
Contribution weeks 1–39 (39 weeks)
- Employee
- 4.2%
- Employer (lower / higher)
- 9% / 11.25%
After the step
Contribution weeks 40–52 (13 weeks)
- Employee
- 4.35%
- Employer (lower / higher)
- 9.15% / 11.4%
The Department publishes its own blended full-year employee rate for the split: 4.2375%. That figure is exactly 39 weeks at 4.2% plus 13 weeks at 4.35%, which is an independent confirmation that the week split this calculator uses matches the Department’s own arithmetic. We carry the blend as a cross-check and walk the weeks for the result.
What it means on a payslip: at €377.00 a week, the employee charge is €8.00 in a week before the step and €8.56 in a week after it — €423.28 across the full contribution year. Nothing about your pay changed; the schedule did.
Scope and limits
The figures on this page follow the Department of Social Protection and the Irish Statute Book, cited where they are used. If a rule changed recently it may not be reflected here yet — for an official amount, check the cited source or ask Revenue.