Do I need to register as an employer for my employee?

If someone works in your home, on hours you set, doing work you decide, they are almost always your employee. That makes you their employer, with the same duties as any business.

Employee or self-employed?

A employee who works in your home is usually an employee. It doesn't matter what you call the arrangement or whether they asked to be paid "cash". What counts is how the work is done:

• You set the hours and the tasks.
• They work in your home, with your things.
• They can't send someone else in their place.
• You pay them by the hour, week or month.

A childminder who minds children in their own home, for several families, may be self-employed. Revenue explains the difference in its guide to employment status.

When you must register

Revenue has a simpler rule for one domestic employee. If you employ only one person in your home and pay them less than €40 a week, you don't need to register, though a small amount of employer PRSI is still due once a year.

Pay €40 a week or more and you must register as an employer and run payroll each pay day. See Revenue: registering as an employer.

What an employer has to do

• Register with Revenue, before the first pay day.
• Work out tax, USC and PRSI every pay day, and send it to Revenue.
• Give a payslip every pay day.
• Give a written statement of the main terms within 5 days of starting.
• Give paid annual leave and public holidays, and statutory sick pay.
• Enrol them in the My Future Fund pension, if they qualify.
• Keep records.

Citizens Information sums up domestic workers' rights. It sounds a lot. Most of it is payroll, and that is what we do.

How Claricent Care helps

We register you with Revenue and My Future Fund, run the payroll each pay day, send the payslip to your employee and file it with Revenue. You pay your employee the amount we show you.