Cost of Buying a House in Ireland: Buyer's Cost Calculator | AH Property
AH Property • Tools & Guides

How Much Does It Cost to Buy a House in Ireland?

A calculator that works out your stamp duty and the total cash you need on closing day, built on the current Revenue rates and the statutory Land Registry fee scale. Every figure is sourced and linked. No sign-up, no email.

Revenue rates, cited Statutory registry fees Euro and dollar totals
Open the Calculator

By Alanna Hughes, licensed buyer’s agent, PSRA Licence No. 004850. Last reviewed 14 July 2026. See sources.

What does it cost to buy a house in Ireland?

Buying a house in Ireland costs more than the purchase price. You pay stamp duty, which is 1% of the price up to €1 million, 2% on the portion between €1 million and €1.5 million, and 6% on anything above €1.5 million. You also pay a Land Registry fee of between €400 and €800 depending on the price, plus your solicitor, a structural survey, and a lender’s valuation if you are borrowing. All of these are the buyer’s cost, and none is included in the asking price.

The calculator below works out the exact figures. Stamp duty and the Land Registry fee are computed from the current rates and the statutory fee scale. Your solicitor and survey costs vary genuinely between firms, so the tool asks you to enter your own quotes rather than inventing an average. Until you do, it marks them as not included and tells you the total is incomplete. It will never show you a €0 next to a cost you are definitely going to pay.

Irish Property Buying Costs Calculator

Enter your purchase price. Everything updates as you type. Sources for every rate are listed below the tool.

What are you buying?

Stamp duty on a second-hand home is charged on the full purchase price.

How are you paying?

Set this to the deposit your lender or broker has actually asked you for. Non-resident buyers are usually asked to put down more than a buyer living in Ireland. Your broker will confirm.

Your professional fees — you must add these
These are not free, and they are not optional. We will not invent an average for you, because solicitor and survey fees genuinely vary by firm and by property. Until you enter your own quotes, these costs are left out of the total and marked as missing. Your total is not a real total until they are in.

Do not have quotes yet? Ask two or three solicitors and a surveyor before you bid. Your solicitor must give you a written section 68 letter setting out their charges. If a cost genuinely does not apply to you, such as a lender’s valuation on a cash purchase, enter 0 and it will count as nil.

Land Registry fees

Set automatically from the statutory scale in the Land Registration (Fees) Order 2012, Schedule Item 1. Change your price and this updates. You can override it.

Item 10 of the same Fees Order sets this at €175. A separate waiver has applied to mortgages registered electronically since 2024, so you may not pay it. Your solicitor will confirm. Set it to zero if it is waived.

Buying more than one property?
Multiple-unit rules

Standard residential rates apply.

Buying from outside the eurozone?

Deliberately left blank. We will not print a stale exchange rate and call it a figure. Enter the rate your bank or currency provider is actually offering you, not the mid-market rate on a news site.

If your provider builds its margin into the rate rather than charging a visible fee, ask what the all-in cost is and put it here.

Cash you need to complete
€0
  • Deposit towards the price€0
  • Stamp dutyCharged on the full purchase price€0
  • Land Registry, transfer€0
  • Land Registry, mortgage€0
  • SolicitorNot included
  • Structural surveyNot included
  • Lender’s valuationNot included
  • Searches & outlaysNot included
  • Total so far€0
  • Mortgage required€0
This is not your full cost. not included, because you have not entered a quote. These are real costs that you will pay. Add them above for a true total.
How your stamp duty is made up

    Rates from Revenue: Stamp Duty and property, Rates.

    An estimate for planning, not a quote, and not tax or legal advice. It does not include Local Property Tax, home insurance, mortgage protection, buyer’s agent fees, furnishing or moving costs. Confirm every figure with your solicitor and your lender before you commit.

    Talk it through with Alanna
    Show our working

    Where every figure comes from

    A calculator that gets the law wrong is worse than no calculator. Every rate and fee this tool applies is set out below, with the primary source and the date we last checked it. If you find something out of date, please tell us and we will correct it.

    Rates and fees applied by this calculator
    What we applyPrimary source
    Residential stamp duty: 1% up to €1m, 2% from €1m to €1.5m, 6% above €1.5m. In force for instruments executed on or after 2 October 2024. Revenue, Stamp Duty and property: Rates. Checked 14 July 2026.
    Non-residential stamp duty: flat 7.5%. Revenue, Rates. Checked 14 July 2026.
    Three or more apartments in the same block: 1% up to €1m, 2% on the balance. The 6% rate does not apply. Revenue, Rates. Checked 14 July 2026.
    Ten or more residential properties, excluding apartments, in any 12 month period: 15%, under Section 31E of the Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999. Revenue, Rates. Checked 14 July 2026.
    Stamp duty is charged on the consideration excluding VAT. On a new build this means duty is calculated on the price divided by 1.135, not on the price you pay. Revenue, Consideration, and the worked example on Citizens Information, Stamp duty on property. Checked 14 July 2026.
    Land Registry fee on a transfer on sale: €400 up to €50,000; €600 to €200,000; €700 to €400,000; €800 above €400,000. Land Registration (Fees) Order 2012, S.I. No. 380 of 2012, Schedule Item 1. Administered by Tailte Éireann. Checked 14 July 2026.
    Land Registry fee on registering a charge (your mortgage): €175. A waiver has applied to electronic registrations since 2024, so ask your solicitor whether you will pay it. Land Registration (Fees) Order 2012, Schedule Item 10. Checked 14 July 2026.
    Solicitor, survey, valuation and search costs: not estimated, and not assumed to be zero. Until you enter a quote, the calculator marks each one as Not included and leaves it out of the total, so you are never shown a €0 that you might mistake for free. Entered by you. Get written quotes. Your solicitor must give you a section 68 letter setting out their charges.
    Exchange rate: not supplied. The tool will not print a stale rate. Entered by you, from the rate your provider is actually offering.
    The biggest line

    Stamp duty in Ireland, explained

    Stamp duty is a tax paid to Revenue by the buyer when ownership of a property transfers. It is usually the largest single cost on top of the price, and your solicitor files the return and pays it on your behalf as part of closing.

    Residential stamp duty in Ireland is tiered. You do not pay one rate on the whole price. Each rate applies to the slice of the price that falls into that band, which is why a €1.6 million home does not suddenly attract 6% on the lot.

    Residential and non-residential stamp duty rates
    Portion of the considerationRate
    Up to €1,000,0001%
    Over €1,000,000 and up to €1,500,0002%
    Over €1,500,0006%
    Non-residential property7.5%
    Ten or more residential properties, excluding apartments, in 12 months15%

    Source: Revenue, Stamp Duty and property: Rates. These rates apply to instruments executed on or after 2 October 2024. Rates can change in the Budget. Checked 14 July 2026.

    New builds are charged on the price excluding VAT

    Stamp duty is charged on the consideration, and consideration excludes VAT. A new home carries VAT at 13.5%, so the amount your duty is charged on is lower than the price on the brochure. Citizens Information gives the worked example: a new home bought for €454,000 including VAT has a base price of €400,000, and it is the €400,000 that is stamped.

    This one catches a lot of people out, including some of the free calculators currently ranking on Google, several of which either ignore the rule or apply it backwards. The calculator above handles it correctly when you select New build.

    Everything else

    The costs that are not the price and not the stamp duty

    These are the ones that catch buyers out, particularly buyers arriving from a market where the seller carries more of the cost.

    Your solicitor

    Handles the conveyancing, the contract and the title. Fees vary between firms, quoted as a flat fee or a percentage, plus VAT and outlays. Your solicitor must give you a written section 68 letter setting out charges. Get two or three quotes.

    Structural survey

    An independent check of the condition of the property before you are legally committed. Not a legal requirement. Not optional in practice, especially if you are buying from abroad.

    Lender’s valuation

    Required by your bank if you are borrowing. It protects the lender, not you, and it is not a survey.

    Land Registry fees

    Set by statute, not by anyone’s opinion. The transfer fee runs from €400 to €800 depending on the price, under the Land Registration (Fees) Order 2012.

    Local Property Tax

    An annual tax on the home, based on its value, payable by the owner. Not an upfront purchase cost, so it is not in the total above, but budget for it from the year you own it.

    Currency exchange

    If your money is in dollars, moving it into euro has a real cost. Compare a specialist currency provider against your bank before you transfer anything.

    Timing

    When do you actually need the money?

    Buyers often ask for a single number. In reality the money leaves your account in stages, and knowing the order matters more than knowing the total.

    • Booking deposit, paid to the estate agent when your offer is accepted. It is normally refundable and it comes off the price later. It does not commit you legally.
    • Contract deposit, paid when you sign contracts, commonly 10% of the price less the booking deposit already paid. Your solicitor will confirm the figure in your contract. This is the moment the purchase becomes legally binding.
    • The balance, paid at closing, made up of the rest of your own funds and, if you are borrowing, your mortgage drawdown.
    • Stamp duty and fees, settled through your solicitor at closing. The stamp duty return is filed electronically with Revenue.

    An accepted offer in Ireland is not legally binding until contracts are signed. That cuts both ways, and it is one of the biggest differences from the American system. We cover it in our guide to buying a house in Ireland from the USA.

    The buyers who get caught out are almost never the ones who misjudged the house. They are the ones who budgeted for the price and forgot the rest.

    Knowing the cost is not the same as knowing the value

    A calculator tells you what a purchase will cost. It cannot tell you whether the property is worth it, or whether you are about to bid against yourself.

    What is it really worth?

    Asking prices are a marketing position. We work from what comparable homes actually sold for, and we tell you when a guide price is optimistic.

    What are you bidding against?

    An independent read on the competition, the seller’s position and the agent’s strategy, so you know when to push and when to walk.

    What will it cost after you own it?

    Management charges, sinking funds, remedial works and running costs. The things that quietly turn a good buy into an expensive one.

    Who is on your side?

    In Ireland the estate agent works for the seller. We work only for buyers and investors, which means the advice you get is genuinely yours.

    The best and most important decision when moving to Ireland from the US was hiring Alanna. She found exactly what we were looking for and I arrived in Dublin with a home ready for me.
    Caithlyn M. • relocated from the United States

    Buy on a number, not on a feeling

    The strongest buyers are the ones who know exactly what a purchase costs before they walk into the first viewing, because it is very hard to negotiate well when you are not sure what you can afford.

    If you would like a second opinion on your budget, your brief or a specific property, we are always happy to talk it through.

    Frequently asked questions

    How much is stamp duty in Ireland?
    Residential stamp duty in Ireland is 1% on the first €1 million of the consideration, 2% on the portion between €1 million and €1.5 million, and 6% on any amount above €1.5 million. Non-residential property is charged at a flat 7.5%. These rates apply to instruments executed on or after 2 October 2024. Stamp duty is paid by the buyer, and your solicitor files the return and settles it with Revenue at closing.
    Do first-time buyers pay stamp duty in Ireland?
    Yes. First-time buyers in Ireland pay stamp duty at exactly the same rates as everyone else. There is no first-time buyer exemption and no reduced rate. Some websites state otherwise and they are wrong. The separate Help to Buy scheme is a tax refund, not a stamp duty relief.
    Is stamp duty different on a new build?
    Yes. Stamp duty is charged on the consideration, and consideration excludes VAT. A new home carries VAT at 13.5%, so the duty is calculated on the price excluding that VAT rather than on the price you pay. Citizens Information gives the example of a new home bought for €454,000 including VAT, which has a base price of €400,000, and it is the €400,000 that is stamped.
    Can an overseas buyer claim the Help to Buy scheme?
    Usually not. Help to Buy is a refund of Irish Income Tax and DIRT paid over the previous four tax years, so it is only worth anything if you have been paying Irish tax. It is also restricted to first-time buyers of a new build or self-build costing €500,000 or less, who must live in the property as their home for five years. Someone relocating from abroad who has never paid Irish tax will normally get nothing from it.
    What are Land Registry fees in Ireland?
    The fee for registering a transfer on sale is set by statute in the Land Registration (Fees) Order 2012. It is €400 where the price is up to €50,000, €600 up to €200,000, €700 up to €400,000, and €800 above €400,000. Registering a mortgage is a separate item at €175, although a waiver has applied to electronic registrations since 2024.
    Who pays the estate agent in Ireland?
    The seller pays the estate agent, because the estate agent is acting for the seller. As a buyer you are not paying their fee, and you are also not being represented by them. A buyer’s agent is the person who works on your side of the table.
    Can a non-resident buy property in Ireland?
    Yes. There are no restrictions on non-residents, including US citizens, buying property in Ireland. You buy on the same legal basis as a local buyer and you pay the same stamp duty. Note that owning a home in Ireland does not by itself give you the right to live here, as immigration permission is a separate matter.

    Got your number? Now let’s find the right property.

    Working out what a purchase costs is the easy part. Knowing what to buy, what it is worth and how hard to push is where a buyer’s agent earns their place. Book a consultation and we will talk through your budget and your brief.

    Book a Consultation
    Scroll to Top