The payment claim notice: five days that decide if you get paid

Before anything else: check whether the Act applies to you at all. Section 2(1) of the Construction Contracts Act 2013 takes two large categories out:

A contract is not a construction contract— (a) if the value of the contract is not more than €10,000, or (b) if— (i) the contract relates only to a dwelling, and (ii) the dwelling has a floor area not greater than 200 square metres, and (iii) one of the parties to the contract is a person who occupies, or intends to occupy, the dwelling as his or her residence.

And the Act only applies to contracts entered into after 25 July 2016, the day appointed by the Construction Contracts Act 2013 (Appointed Day) Order 2016, S.I. No. 165 of 2016.

So a 6,000 euro job is outside it. A house extension for the person living in the house is outside it, provided the house is under 200 square metres. A 40,000 euro subcontract on a commercial fit-out is squarely inside it, and so is the same subcontract on a housing development, because the developer is not occupying the dwellings.

What is inside the Act, however, cannot be contracted out of. Section 2(5) applies the Act "whether or not … the law of the State is otherwise the applicable law" or "the parties to the construction contract purport to limit or exclude its application".

What the contract must contain

Section 3 sets minimum content. Every construction contract must provide for:

• the amount of each interim payment and the amount of the final payment, "or for an adequate mechanism for determining those amounts" (s. 3(1)); and
• the payment claim date for each amount due, or an adequate mechanism for determining it, and "the period between the payment claim date for each such amount and the date on which the amount is so due" (s. 3(2)).

Where a main contract does not provide for these things, the Schedule applies instead (s. 3(3)). Where a subcontract provides terms less favourable to the executing party than the Schedule, the Schedule applies to that extent (s. 3(4)).

Read that last provision carefully, because it is unusual and it is in the subcontractor's favour. The Schedule is a floor for subcontracts, not merely a gap-filler.

The Schedule's default timetable

Paragraph 4 sets out how an interim payment is measured: the gross value of the work done at the payment claim date, plus any additional amounts and less any contractual deductions, minus the interim payments already made. Paragraph 5 caps the aggregate at the contract sum as originally concluded plus agreed amendments.

The five days, and the twenty-one

This is the operative machinery, and it is a two-sided clock.

Section 4(1) — five days. The section applies where, "not later than 5 days after the payment claim date", the executing party delivers a payment claim notice. Note what this document is not: a request for a stage payment that carries none of the Act's machinery is an ordinary commercial document, and the one most often used for it has rules of its own — Pro forma invoice: harmless until somebody pays it.

Section 4(2) — what the notice must say. It specifies:

(a) the amount claimed (even if the amount is zero), (b) the period, stage of work or activity to which the payment claim relates, (c) the subject matter of the payment claim, and (d) the basis of the calculation of the amount claimed.

Section 4(3) — twenty-one days. If the other party contests that the amount is due and payable, it "shall deliver a response to the payment claim notice to the executing party, not later than 21 days after the payment claim date", specifying the amount proposed to be paid, the reason or reasons for the difference, and the basis on which the proposed amount is calculated. And under section 4(3)(b), if the matter is not settled by the due date, it must pay the amount in its response on that day. Where that payment is going to a subcontractor, a separate step has to complete first: the principal cannot pay it until Revenue has issued a deduction authorisation under RCT, described in Relevant Contracts Tax: pay nothing before Revenue has been told.

Section 4(4) — the set-off rule. Where the reason for a lower figure is a claim for loss or damage from an alleged breach, or any other claim against the executing party, the response must also specify when the loss was incurred or how the claim arose, the particulars of it, and "the portion of the difference that is attributable to each such particular".

That subsection is the practical heart of the Act. A contractor cannot answer a payment claim with a round deduction and no explanation. Each element of the reduction has to be attributed and particularised.

Section 4(5) confirms that these rights and obligations are additional to whatever the contract itself provides.

Suspension

Section 5(1): where any amount due is not paid in full by the day it is due, the executing party may suspend work by giving written notice.

Section 5(2): the notice specifies the grounds and must be delivered "not earlier than the day after the day on which the amount concerned is due" and "at least 7 days before the proposed suspension is to begin".

Section 5(3): the right ends once payment is made, or once a notice of intention to refer the dispute to adjudication has been served.

And the protections that make it usable: under sections 5(4) and 5(5) the period of suspension "shall be disregarded for the purpose of computing the contractual time limit" where the ability to complete on time is affected — for the executing party unless the suspension was unjustified, and for a subcontractor without that qualification. Section 5(6) extends the same protection down a chain of subcontracts with the same other party.

Section 5(7) is the balance: an unjustified suspension leaves you exposed to a claim for the loss it causes.

Adjudication

Section 6(1) gives a party the right to refer "any dispute relating to payment arising under the construction contract" to adjudication, and section 6(2) allows the notice of intention to be served "at any time".

The timetable:

The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment operates the service: parties may select an adjudicator from the Ministerial panel, and where they cannot agree, "a party may apply to the Chairperson of the Construction Contracts Adjudication Panel to appoint an Adjudicator". The application is made "not earlier than five days from and including the day on which the Notice of Intention to Refer the Payment Dispute for Adjudication was served".

What comes out of it: under section 6(10) the decision is binding until the dispute is finally settled by the parties, by arbitration or in court. Under section 6(11) it is enforceable by action or, with leave of the High Court, as a judgment of that Court.

Two things to budget for. Section 6(15): each party bears its own legal and other costs. Section 6(16): the parties pay the adjudicator's fees, costs and expenses in accordance with the decision.

Pay-when-paid

Section 3(5):

a provision in a construction contract is ineffective to the extent that it provides that payment of an amount due under the construction contract, or the timing of such a payment, is conditional on the making of a payment by a person who is not a party to the construction contract.

The exception in section 3(6) is upstream insolvency — winding up, receivership, examinership, bankruptcy or an equivalent event.

A short checklist

1. Check section 2 before anything else. Under 10,000 euro, or a residential occupier's own dwelling under 200 square metres, and the Act does not apply.
2. Find your payment claim date in the contract, or fall back to the Schedule's 30-day cycle, and put the five-day deadline in the calendar off it.
3. Serve a payment claim notice with all four elements of section 4(2), every cycle, including the basis of calculation.
4. On day 22, check whether a compliant response arrived. A response that fails to particularise a set-off under section 4(4) is a weak response.
5. Never suspend without the seven days' written notice. Section 5(7) turns an unjustified suspension into your liability.

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Position as at 29 August 2026. This article describes the law and is not legal advice. The Construction Contracts Act 2013 applies only to construction contracts entered into after 25 July 2016, and a Code of Practice for adjudication is published by the Minister under section 9.

What Zirko does here: payment claims, the dates they went out and the documents behind them stay attached to the project, so the question of what was served on which day has a file behind it. Zirko does not calculate payment claim dates from your contract and does not serve notices.