Staffing

A large number of businesses in Ireland have staff who are UK citizens and/or travel over and back from the UK.

Likewise, there are a large number of UK companies that operate and employ people in Ireland including Irish citizens and other nationalities.

A key concern for companies and their staff are the practical impacts of Brexit including in relation to visa requirements for travelling to the UK, and recognition of professional qualifications and licences to practice.

For information on travelling to and from the UK including for business purposes, please see travelling and visiting, which covers a range of issues including transport, and mobile roaming.

Where people are travelling to the UK for work purposes, they should be aware of arrangements for income tax and related payments. For information on this, please see here.

Irish and UK citizens continue to enjoy Common Travel Area rights and privileges including the right to move freely between Ireland and the UK. They continue to enjoy the right to live, work, study and access services, including health and education services.

Immigration requirements, as appropriate, continue to apply to non-EU and non-UK citizens. For further information, please see here.

Professional qualifications are specific qualification requirements that a person needs to possess by law in order to access or pursue a regulated profession or to engage in regulated activities in a given country. Qualification requirements vary between professions.

Following the conclusion of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), new professional qualifications issued by UK bodies will no longer be automatically recognised in Ireland under EU law, and vice-versa. This may have implications for those working or seeking to work in an EU Member State on the basis of professional qualifications obtained in the UK. However, if you have already had these qualifications recognised by the relevant EU regulator before the end of the transition period, there will be no change and you can continue to practice in Ireland or elsewhere in the EU.

The Government of Ireland has encouraged regulatory authorities in Ireland, some of whom operate on an all-island basis, to engage with their counterparts in the UK in order to manage the process of continued recognition of UK qualifications in national law in Ireland.

The EU-UK TCA provides a path to enable the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, which may be exercised at a later date. Information will be updated on this website as it becomes available.

If you have a query about your professional qualification, you should contact the relevant regulatory body for your profession.

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