Start-Up Refunds for Entrepreneurs (SURE): get back PAYE tax you paid when you start a company

What you can get back

SURE stands for Start-Up Refunds for Entrepreneurs. Revenue's manuals call it Start-Up Relief for Entrepreneurs. It is an income tax relief for founders, not a grant.

You buy new shares in your own company for cash. A share of what you invest is then deducted from your income, in the year you invest or in any of the six tax years before it. Revenue refunds the income tax you overpaid for the years you pick.

Revenue's example: a founder invests €100,000 in a new company that has not started selling. The deduction is €125,000. He sets it against 2021, when he earned €125,000 and paid €34,532 in income tax. His refund is €34,532.

The refund can never be more than the tax you actually paid. The percentages are ceilings, and you only reach them with enough income taxed at the 40% rate.

You can claim on up to €140,000 of investment for each tax year. Across the year you invest and the six before it, that is €980,000. The €140,000 limit applies to investments made from 1 January 2025. It was €100,000 before that.

You can make a second investment, again up to €980,000, in one of the two years after the first.

Who qualifies

Revenue says you can claim if you are starting your own company and you are an employee, an unemployed person, or someone recently made redundant. You must also meet these conditions:

• Your income was mainly PAYE income in each of the three tax years before the year just before you invest. In each of those years, your other income was not more than your employment income or €50,000, whichever is lower. There is no income test for the year just before you invest.
• You work full-time in the company, as a director or an employee, for at least 12 months. You start by the end of the calendar year in which you invest, or within 6 months of the shares being issued, whichever is later.
• You hold at least 15% of the company's ordinary shares for a year.
• You do not own more than 15% of any other company. A dormant company does not count, and one small trading company with turnover of €127,000 or less is allowed.
• You make your first investment within two years of the end of the year in which the company was incorporated.
• You keep the shares for four years, and take nothing from the company except reasonable pay and expenses.

The company has conditions too. It must be an unlisted small or medium-sized company, incorporated in Ireland, another EEA state or the UK, that trades from a fixed place of business in Ireland. It must hold a tax clearance certificate. And it must have a written business plan, drawn up before you invest, with cashflow projections showing how the money will be spent.

If you are out of work and starting up, look also at the allowance for people on a jobseeker's payment who set up in business.

Who cannot use it

• Sole traders. The relief is for buying shares, so there has to be a company. Our guide helps you decide whether a company is worth the extra paperwork.
• A company that takes over an existing business. Revenue gives two examples. A shopkeeper moves his long-running shop into a new company. A buyer takes over a fast-food outlet and reopens it under a new name. Neither gets the relief, because the trade is not new.
• A business that reopens after closing down.
• Excluded trades. Professional services such as medical, legal, accountancy, architecture and surveying. Dealing in or developing land. Financial dealing and financing. Hotels and guest houses, unless Fáilte Ireland has approved a development and marketing plan. Forestry, film production, coal, steel and shipbuilding.
• People whose income was not mainly from employment in the three test years.
• Shares issued in place of wages. Revenue's example is a founder who drew no salary for ten months and was given shares to make up for it. That is not a cash investment.

The shares must be ordinary shares. They cannot be redeemable and cannot carry preferential rights.

If you lent the company money first

Many founders start by lending money to the company. A director's loan can count as a SURE investment if three things are true:

• the loan was based on a business plan drawn up before it was made
• it is converted into shares within one year
• the company's auditor confirms in writing that the money was used only for the trade, or for research and development before trading began

The investment is then treated as made on the date the loan is converted. Salary you did not draw is not a loan for this purpose.

How to claim, step by step

1. Write the business plan before any money goes in, and get the company's tax clearance certificate.
2. Buy new ordinary shares in the company for cash.
3. The company files the Return of Qualifying Investments (the RICT return) through ROS. The deadline is four months after the end of the tax year in which the shares were issued.
4. Filing generates a Statement of Qualification (SURE). The company must give it to you by 31 December of the year after the shares were issued.
5. Claim on your income tax return, Form 11 or Form 12, through ROS. You choose which year or years to use.
6. For years older than the usual four-year limit on tax refunds, send a copy of the statement to your Revenue office. That limit does not apply to SURE, but ROS may not accept the older years.

What goes wrong

• You do not take up the full-time job in the company, or you leave it inside the 12 months.
• You sell or give away the shares within four years.
• The company buys a business you or a relative ran before, or pays you more than reasonable wages and expenses.
• The company files its return late. The penalty is €2,000, plus €50 a day.

When relief is withdrawn, Revenue raises an income tax assessment on you for the year the relief was given, and charges interest. If the shares are later sold at a loss, there is no capital gains tax relief for the loss.

Very few people claim. In 2023, 29 founders used SURE, investing €2 million between them in 27 companies.

We do not give tax advice. Confirm your position with Revenue or an accountant before you invest on the strength of a refund. If other people will also invest, see the income tax relief that outside investors and family members can claim. The company itself may also get a cut in corporation tax during its first five years.

Common questions