Nine per cent is four different rules

Ask what Ireland's VAT rates are and you will be told five numbers: 23, 13.5, 9, 4.8 and zero. The Act itself is less tidy.

What section 46 actually contains

Value-Added Tax Consolidation Act 2010, section 46, sets out:

• 23 % — the standard rate
• 13.5 % — Schedule 3
• 4.8 % — livestock, and, in the words of the Act, live greyhounds and the hire of horses
• 0 % — Schedule 2
• and then four separate provisions at 9 %, lettered (ca), (caa), (cab) and (cb)

Each of the four covers a different paragraph of Schedule 3, and each carries its own validity period. One is permanent. Two run to 31 December 2030. And two have already expired — one in August 2023, one in November 2025.

Why that matters more than it sounds

A rate with an end date does not fail on that date. It simply becomes wrong, and everything keeps working.

That is the reason we hold a start date and an end date against every rate in our system, and it is the reason this page cannot tell you which 9 % applies to your line. We keep one set of rates per country; Ireland needs one validity period per rate. That is a limitation in our model, and we would rather name it than let a number look more certain than it is.

Check the schedule, not the number.

The zero rate is a rate here

This is the part that does not travel. In Ireland, zero is a domestic rate on a list of goods under Schedule 2: bread, vegetables, meat, books, newspapers, children's clothing, medical equipment. It is something you select on an invoice line.

In Poland, by contrast, zero is a status that sits alongside the rates and is distinguished by the right to deduct. Same number, two mechanisms — and anyone who applies one country's rule to the other gets it wrong.

A note on where these came from

Revenue's own rate pages returned no rates on three separate attempts: all three responded, all three were about 58 KB, and two were byte-for-byte the same size. The figures sit behind their search tool.

So the source here is the Act, through the Law Reform Commission's consolidated text — which is a better source than a rates page anyway.

Sources

• Value-Added Tax Consolidation Act 2010, section 46, consolidated text at the Law Reform Commission. Read 24 September 2026.