The reduced rate, and the three things that left it

If the standard rate is the default and the zero rate is the exception people notice, the reduced rate is the one that quietly does most of the work. It is the rate on building services, repairs, cleaning, hotel rooms, tour guides and a scattering of things that look unrelated until you notice they are all in Schedule 3 to the Value-Added Tax Consolidation Act 2010.

Section 46(1)(c) charges 13.5% on goods or services of a kind specified in that Schedule — subject to the paragraphs that route some of those same Schedule 3 entries to 9% instead. That subordination is the whole architecture: Schedule 3 is the list of things that are not standard-rated, and the 9 per cent paragraphs then lift named parts of it down a further step. Which is how three trades left this rate in 2026 without Schedule 3 changing at all.

What sits here now

Building services is the entry with the most money attached and the most argument in it: what counts as a supply of building services rather than a supply of goods with installation is a question Revenue has issued guidance on repeatedly, and this site does not attempt to resolve it. Short-term hire means vehicles and equipment; a longer hire can be a different supply. Certain fuels is not the same category as domestic electricity and gas, which sit at the second reduced rate — that distinction catches people every winter.

And two entries are there purely because Ireland has a horse and greyhound industry with its own VAT treatment: live horses not intended for food or agriculture, and greyhounds. Horses that are intended for those uses fall to the livestock rate instead, which is a genuine fork in the legislation and not a drafting quirk.

The three that left on 1 July 2026

Catering and restaurant supplies, hot takeaway food and hot drinks, and hairdressing were all at this rate from 1 September 2023 until 30 June 2026. Section 71 of the Finance Act 2025 moved them to 9% with effect from 1 July 2026. Revenue’s own reduced rate page still lists them, under a heading it calls “Past rates”, with those exact dates.

The practical consequence is that two invoices for the same meal, one from June 2026 and one from July 2026, are correct at different rates. Neither is a mistake. That change has its own page, because the exclusions inside those categories did not move and that is where the errors are.

Worked, both ways

A builder’s invoice is the obvious example, so this one is a job rather than a round number:

Note how much smaller the reverse figure is than a naive subtraction would suggest. The VAT inside a 13.5% gross price is thirteen-and-a-half one-hundred-and-thirteen-and-a-half of it — a little under twelve per cent of the gross, not 13.5% of it.

Where this comes from