The Rent Tax Credit has been available since 2023. An estimated 300,000 renters who qualify still have not claimed it. This site exists to change that.
When the Rent Tax Credit was introduced in Budget 2023, the announcement lasted roughly thirty seconds in the Minister's speech. The amount — €500 per person, later increased — was described as relief for renters facing a housing cost crisis. What was not described, in that speech or in much of the subsequent coverage, was how to actually claim it, who exactly qualified, what the landlord's registration requirements meant in practice, and what renters living in informal arrangements or with unregistered landlords were supposed to do.
That gap between announcement and reality is something we see directly in the accounting practice. Marina Luna Oliveira d'Emilia, who handles tax work at D'Emilia Accounting, began encountering Rent Tax Credit questions almost immediately after the 2023 Budget — not from clients who had successfully claimed it, but from clients who had tried and hit a wall. The landlord refused to give a receipt. The RTB number was not available. The tenancy was informal. The client rented a room and was unsure whether it counted. The student rented from a private landlord but had been told the credit only applied to "main residences."
Each of those cases had a specific answer — but finding it required reading Revenue's Tax and Duty Manual, cross-referencing the Residential Tenancies Act, and understanding how the RTB registration system interacts with the credit eligibility rules. That is not information most renters can assemble on their own, and it was not presented clearly anywhere in one place.
Rent Credit Ireland was built to be that single reference. Not a general article about the credit being good policy. Not a three-paragraph explainer that stops before answering the hard questions. A detailed, sourced guide that covers the eligibility conditions precisely, explains what to do when the standard path does not work, and tells you what documentation Revenue actually asks for when you claim through MyAccount.
The site went through significant revision after Budget 2024 increased the credit and broadened the eligibility conditions, and again after Revenue updated its guidance on informal arrangements and parent-with-child renting. Each time the law or the guidance changed, we reviewed every page and updated the relevant sections.
Marina Luna Oliveira d'Emilia is the accountant behind the technical content on this site. Marina has been filing Rent Tax Credit claims for D'Emilia Accounting clients since the credit was introduced, and she has dealt with the full range of complications that arise in practice — RTB registration issues, landlord non-cooperation, informal tenancy arrangements, and claims for prior years that require supporting documentation.
Vitor Oliveira Alves handles research, content structure, and production. Vitor's background is in operations and communications, not accounting, which means his primary role on this site is ensuring that Marina's technical knowledge is written in a way that makes sense to a renter who is not familiar with how Revenue's systems work.
Both are co-founders of D'Emilia Accounting, an Irish accounting firm that works primarily with immigrants and PAYE employees. A significant proportion of the firm's clients are private renters, which is why the Rent Tax Credit has become a regular part of the work.
One of the most common complications we cover on this site — and one that is not adequately addressed anywhere in Revenue's standard guidance — is what to do when a landlord refuses to provide a rental receipt or a statement confirming rent paid.
Revenue requires proof of rent paid when you claim the Rent Tax Credit. Bank statements showing the rent payment to the landlord's account are generally accepted. A formal receipt from the landlord is helpful but not always required if you have a clear paper trail. Understanding what documentation actually works — and what Revenue will and will not accept when the ideal documentation is not available — is something that took direct experience with the claims process to understand properly.
That experience is the basis for the guidance on this site.
This site is funded by advertising through Google AdSense. It is operated by D'Emilia Accounting, which also offers professional accounting services. The content on this site is written to be useful to renters making their own claims through MyAccount, without requiring any engagement with our firm. Links to demiliaaccounting.ie are clearly marked and represent a legitimate commercial interest that we disclose rather than obscure.