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Information on payroll submission

  1. Overview
  2. Who do you include on a payroll submission?
  3. What employee pay details do you include?
  4. What other details go into payroll submission?
  5. What benefit information do you provide?
  6. Employment Identifier
  7. Definition of pay date
  8. Corrections

Employment Identifier

Note

The information on this page refers to your current obligations. For your obligations before 01 January 2019, please see the Employer’s Guide to PAYE.

The Employment Identifier is a new field included on both the Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN) and the payroll submission. This is a mandatory field on the payroll submission where an employee’s Personal Public Service Number (PPSN) is available. The Employment Identifier is unique for each separate employment for an employee. It will be used to distinguish between:

  • multiple employments for an employee with the same employer
  • different periods of employments (where an employee ceases and re-commences employment with the same employer in the same year).

The Employment Identifier must be set by employers when registering an employment. If you use:

  • a payroll software, the Employment Identifier will be assigned by the payroll software
  • Revenue Online Service (ROS), you will set the Employment Identifier.

The first payroll submission you make will update our records with the Employment Identifier. We will use the Employment Identifier with both your employer registration number and the employee's PPSN to check if an employment record exists. If an employment record does not exist, a new one will be created.

Dual employment

A dual employment occurs if you:

  • have an employee on your payroll with two active employments
  • and
  • want to keep the two sets of pay separate on your payroll records.

The Employment Identifier will allow you to distinguish between the two employments when filing your payroll submission.

  • Example 1

    John and Mary start working for a new employer (registration number 1234567T) on 1 February 2021. As this is the first time that either has worked for this employer, each are given an Employment Identifier of ‘1’.

    The employer requests an RPN for each of these new employees. Revenue issues a new RPN for both John and Mary.

    The employer runs the payroll for that week and sends their payroll submission to Revenue.

    Payroll details
    Employer numberPayroll Run ReferenceEmployee nameEmployee PPSNEmployment IdentifierEmployment start date

    1234567T

    Week 1

    John

    0000001B

    1

    01-02-2021

    1234567T

    Week 1

    Mary

    0000002D

    1

    01-02-2021

    Mary starts a second employment with the same employer on 1 June 2021. To distinguish between her two employments, a new Employment Identifier of ‘2’ is given to the new employment. The new employment start date is also noted.

    The employer requests a new RPN for this new employment using the new Employment Identifier. Revenue issue a new RPN for this employment.

    RPN details
    RPN Employee nameEmployee PPSNEmployment IdentifierYearly Tax CreditYearly Rate 1 COP

    5

    Mary

    0000002D

    2

    €0

    0

    The employer runs the payroll and sends the payroll submission to Revenue commencing a second employment with the same employer.

    Payroll details
    Employer numberRun ReferenceEmployee NameEmployee PPSNEmployment IdentifierEmployment Start date

    1234567T

    Week 9

    John

    0000001B

    1

     

    1234567T

    Week 9

    Mary

    0000002D

    1

     

    1234567T

    Week 9

    Mary

    0000002D

    2

    01-06-2021

Continuous period of employment

The Employment Identifier that you give to your employee must remain the same for a continuous period of employment. It cannot be changed while this employment is active. This applies even if the employment spans consecutive tax years.

Employment recommencement in the same tax year

An employee may cease working for you and then recommence employment with you in the same tax year.

In this case, you must treat the second period of employment as a new employment. A new Employment Identifier must be given to the employee.

You should request a new RPN for the new employment using the new Employment Identifier.

  • Example 2

    John finished working on 1 July 2021. The date of leaving is included in the final payroll submission for John.

    Payroll details
    Employer numberRun referenceEmployee nameEmployee PPSNEmployment IdentifierDate of leaving

    1234567T

    Week 13

    John

    0000001B

    1

    01-07-2021

    1234567T

    Week 13

    Mary

    0000002D

    1

     

    1234567T

    Week 13

    Mary

    0000002D

    2

     

    John returns to work with the same employer on 4 September 2022. A new Employment ID of ‘1’ is allocated to John, as this is a new employment. (If John had returned to work with the same employer in 2021, a new Employment ID of ‘2’ would have been allocated to John).

    The employer requests a new RPN using the Employment identifier of ‘1’ for John. Revenue issues a new RPN for John’s new period of employment.

    RPN details
    RPNEmployee nameEmployee PPSNEmployment IdentifierYearly Tax CreditYearly Rate 1 COP

    3

    John

    0000001B

    1

    €3,400

    €36,800

Recommencements in following years

An Employment Identifier '1' can be re-used for an employee who re-commences employment with you in the following tax year. This is because the previous period of employment using Employment Identifier ‘1’ will have ceased in the preceding year.

Next: Definition of pay date

Published: 03 November 2023 Print this page

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