Late payment interest in Ireland: what you can actually charge (2026)

You know the text before you have finished typing it. “Just following up on that invoice there, whenever you get a chance.” Third one this week, to three different people, for work you did the guts of a month ago. Asking a second time for your own money, and somehow feeling like you are the one being awkward about it.

Here is what the law actually gives you when a customer pays late in Ireland: the exact rate, the fixed fee on top, and the catch nobody mentions until you try to use it on the wrong customer.

What you can charge a business that pays late

If you invoice another business and they pay late, you are entitled by law to charge interest on the money they owe you. The current rate is 10.40% a year, in force from 1 July 2026 to 31 December 2026. The government publishes it under the 2012 Late Payment Regulations.

It is not a made-up figure. It is built from the European Central Bank main refinancing rate plus 8 percentage points, and it resets twice a year: the ECB rate in force on 1 January sets the rate for the first half of the year, and the rate on 1 July sets it for the second half. That is why it moves. It was 10.15% for the first half of 2026, and ticked up to 10.40% on 1 July.

Period	ECB reference rate	Late payment interest
1 Jan to 30 Jun 2026	2.15%	10.15%
1 Jul to 31 Dec 2026	2.40%	10.40%

The interest runs automatically the day the payment is late. You do not have to send a warning or a reminder first to be entitled to it.

Say you invoice another business - a managing agent, a landlord, a bigger firm you sub for - EUR 1,200 for a grounds job, and they let it sit 30 days past the due date. The interest works out at about EUR 10: take the 1,200, multiply by 10.40%, divide by 365, and multiply by the 30 days it went unpaid. Ten euro, on twelve hundred, over a month. On its own, that is not the number that makes anyone pay up. The number that does is next.

The fixed fee on top: EUR 40, 70 or 100

On top of the interest, the law adds a fixed compensation sum for the bother of chasing. It is automatic, and you do not have to prove what the chasing actually cost you. The amount steps up with the size of the debt:

Size of the debt	Fixed compensation
Under EUR 1,000	EUR 40
EUR 1,000 to EUR 10,000	EUR 70
Over EUR 10,000	EUR 100

On that same EUR 1,200 job, the fixed fee is EUR 70 - seven times the interest, and it lands the moment the invoice goes late. Across a year of unpaid commercial invoices, the fixed fees are where it actually adds up, not the interest.

The catch nobody mentions: business customers only

Here is the part that catches people out. Everything above - the 10.40%, the fixed fee - applies to commercial transactions only. Business to business, or a business and a public body. It does not apply to your household customers.

So the landlord, the managing agent, the shop, the other contractor you invoice: statutory interest and the fixed fee are yours to charge. But the private homeowner whose lawn you cut every fortnight is a consumer, and the statutory regime simply does not reach them. For most lawn-care and window-cleaning rounds, that is most of the book.

That does not leave you with nothing on a household that will not pay. It leaves you with three things:

• A fair late fee you agreed up front. You can put a late-payment charge in the terms on your quote or booking form, but with a consumer it has to be fair. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2022, an arbitrary or punitive charge can be struck out as an unfair term. A genuine, reasonable figure for the cost of being paid late is defensible. A number you plucked to punish them is not.
• Plain, steady chasing. A polite reminder that simply keeps coming is perfectly lawful, and it shakes money loose more often than people expect.
• The District Court, as a last resort. More on that next, because there is a myth to clear up first.

The myth: “just take them to the Small Claims Court”

The advice you will hear in every trade WhatsApp group is wrong. You cannot use the Small Claims procedure to collect an unpaid invoice. Debts are expressly excluded. Courts.ie puts it plainly: you cannot use it for debt claims such as unpaid invoices. The EUR 2,000 Small Claims limit is for a consumer claiming against a business, and for two businesses in dispute over goods or services bought - not for a business collecting money it is owed.

The actual route for an unpaid invoice, whether the customer is a business or a household, is an ordinary court debt claim, in the court that matches the size of the debt:

• District Court: up to EUR 15,000
• Circuit Court: EUR 15,000 to EUR 75,000
• High Court: over EUR 75,000

For a typical trade bill, a few hundred to a few thousand euro, that is the District Court. (A proposed law, the Civil Reform Bill 2025, would lift the District Court limit to EUR 20,000, but as of mid-2026 that is not in force and the EUR 15,000 figure still stands.)

You rarely need to go that far. A formal letter of demand, or a solicitor’s letter before proceedings, is a normal first step and often shakes the money loose on its own. For anything sizeable or disputed, a quick word with a solicitor before you file anything is money well spent.

The 30-day rule between businesses

One more thing worth knowing for the commercial side of the book. When two businesses have not agreed payment terms in writing, the default is that payment falls due 30 days after the later of the day the invoice arrives or the day the work was finished. After that, the interest and the fixed fee start to run. Anything longer than 60 days between businesses has to be expressly agreed and cannot be grossly unfair to you.

That 30-day default is a business-to-business rule too. It does not hand you an automatic 30-day right against a household. (An EU plan to cap all commercial terms at a hard 30 days was proposed a couple of years back, then shelved, so nothing has changed there.)

The rights are real. Not needing them is better.

All of this is worth knowing, and worth using on a business customer who takes the mick. But the honest truth of a busy round is that the law is the back-stop, not the plan. Interest and fixed fees are what you reach for after an invoice has gone properly cold, and by then you are already down the time, the goodwill and the headspace.

The thing that actually keeps you paid is never letting an invoice age in the first place. Bill the day the job is done, while you are still fresh in their mind. Then a quiet nudge at day 3, a slightly firmer one at day 7, and a straight one at day 14 - all while it is still friendly, long before anyone is talking about interest or courts. Most late payment is not people refusing to pay. It is the invoice slipping down the pile, on both sides.

That day 3, 7 and 14 rhythm is the bit JobDiary handles for you. It sends those reminders automatically, in your own name - the message you would send yourself if you were not dreading sending it - and it stops the moment the money lands. You never have to type “just following up on that invoice there” again.

Checked against official sources - enterprise.gov.ie, courts.ie and citizensinformation.ie - in July 2026. This is a plain-English guide to how the rules generally work, not legal advice; for a large or disputed debt, talk to a solicitor.