Rental Income breakdown in Ireland
A synopsis of private residential rental income from individuals (or couples) in 2018.
How much rent is declared as income in this country?
Statistics are from 20181.
Rental income is self declared by landlords via Form 11. This corresponds to the individual private rental accommodation landlords.
In 2018, 160,000 landlords self declared rental income. This was a part of a total 197,400 tax “units” (Married persons or civil partners who have elected or who have been deemed to have elected for joint assessment are counted as one tax unit ). 56,400 commercial landlords were also recorded at the time. This gives an overlap of 19,000 tax units that suggests there are 19,000 tax units that own both residential and commercial properties.
I wanted to explore what the average yearly and monthly income is per landlord and per property, before and after tax deductible reductions.
Breakdown
Total Gross Rental Income 2018: 3,043,000,000€
Number of Properties: 292,2902
Average Gross Income/Property: 10,410.89€
Average Gross Monthly Income/Property: 867.57€
Total Deductions: 1,140,000,000€
Tax free deductions such as Mortgage Interest Relief and Repairs.
Net Loss declared by landlords of 29,700,000€
Total Income minus deductions: 1,903,000,000€
Tax @51%: 970,530,000€
I am estimating that a full 51% - PAYE/USC/PRSI tax would be calculated on the remainder.
Total Net Rental Income 2018: 2,072,470,000€
Average Net Income/Property: 7,090.46€
Average Monthly Income/Property: 590.87€
Overall Income
It is reported that the rental income declared represents 21% of the overall income for declarants.
Average Overall Gross Income/Landlord with one property: 49,575.68€
Average Gross Income/Property: 10,410.89€
Average Gross Monthly Income/Property: 867.57€
Deductions
1,140,000,000€ was declared for 2018 on Form 11s.
This is broken down into:
Average per landlord: 6808.25€
Average per property: 3900.24€
% declared for repairs: 28.25%
% declared for mortgage interest: 31.31%
% declared for “Other”: 39.64%
Issues
The average rent paid per property in Ireland for 2018 was 1,261€.3
The average declared rent per property was 867.57€.
There is a shortfall of 393.43€ per property, or 31.12% less.
If the full income was properly declared, scaling up the numbers.
Total Amended Gross Rental Income 2018: 4,422,932,280€
Number of Properties: 292,290
Average Amended Gross Income/Property: 15,132€
Average Amended Monthly Income/Property: 1,261€
Total Deductions: 1,140,000,000€
Total Income - Deductions: 3,282,932,280€
Estimated Tax @51% 1,674,295,463€
Shortfall: 703,765,463€
Estimated Total Net Rental Income 2018: 2,748,636,817€
Average Estimated Net Income/Property: 9,403.8€
Average Estimated Monthly Income/Property: 783.65€
Overall Estimated Gross Income of a landlord with one property: 72,057€
I wanted to present these numbers to show that the little old lady defense means nothing. These are hilariously large numbers. We seem to have a problem with doing anything to affect landlords in this country. If I am widely off, or am missing a key component from the data, there is still hundreds of millions of euros missing from rental income declarations.
I would ask the government to properly investigate any discrepancies into the declaration of rental income in this country. This isn’t even the companies, it’s the private individual landlords who seem to be underpaying tax to the tune of billions over the last three years alone.
The system is broken. Rents keep increasing, landlords are now “afraid” of losing money on their properties. They have been scamming us out of it.
I will reiterate; I presenting the data and doing back of the envelope calculations. The average rent charged in 2018 may be completely off - but then that’s a problem too; rents were gauged from that report. We need open access to data and more control in the industry.
https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/documents/statistics/income-distributors/rental-income-2018.pdf
https://www.rtb.ie/images/uploads/general/RTB_Technical_Appendix_-_Rental_Sector_Survey_August_2021.pdf
https://www.rte.ie/documents/news/2018/05/rent-report.pdf