Global Daily Tax News, Ireland Updates Guidance On Health Insurance Tax Reliefs, (Nov 7, 2025)

The Irish Revenue has released new guidance on income tax relief for health insurance covering medical and/or dental benefits.

The guidance has been updated throughout to advise taxpayers that, with effect from January 1, 2026, Revenue will accept that the standard rate of tax (currently 20 percent) will apply to all health insurance policies providing medical cover, applied to the lesser of the premium paid or the applicable cap.

The Revenue said, "This administrative practice seeks to recognize that most health insurance premiums providing medical cover are in excess of the current caps and that the premium available for tax relief is, in most cases equal to the cap. This administrative practice is subject to change based on a change in health insurance premium trends, the cap amount, and other factors."

Other changes to the guidance include:

• Paragraph 2.1 (previously paragraph 2) has been updated to reflect the way in which tax relief at source (TRS) is granted on health insurance policies providing medical cover differs before and after January 1, 2026;

• New paragraphs 2.2 and 2.3 provide guidance on TRS on health insurance policies providing medical cover and dental cover, respectively, from January 1, 2026;

• New paragraph 2.4 deals with TRS on all health insurance policies up to December 31, 2025;

• The Revenue contact details in respect of claims by authorised insurers, in Paragraph 4, has been updated; and

• Paragraph 6, which dealt with the tax treatment applicable to refunds of healthcare insurance premiums made due to COVID-19 circumstances, has been removed.