RCT invoice: €10,000 billed, €8,000 paid, no VAT

€10,000 on the invoice, €8,000 in the bank, and not one euro of VAT anywhere on the page. All three of those statements are true of the same correct Irish subcontractor's invoice, and the last two are the ones templates get wrong. An invoice is supposed to be the document that says what you charged and what you will be paid. On a relevant contract in Ireland it says the first and cannot say the second, because the figure has not been decided yet — and it says nothing at all about VAT, because the VAT is somebody else's to account for.

If you came looking for a sample invoice for Ireland, the one below is a subcontractor's invoice to a principal contractor, which is the case where every one of those peculiarities applies at once.

What Revenue asks the invoice to show

Start from the ordinary list, because the reverse charge subtracts from it rather than replacing it. An Irish VAT invoice carries "the date of issue", "a unique sequential number", "the supplier's full name, address and registration number", "the customer's full name and address", "the quantity and nature of the goods supplied" or "the extent and nature of the services rendered", "the VAT exclusive unit price", "the discounts or price reductions", "the breakdown by the rate of VAT", "the total VAT payable in respect of the supply" and "the date on which the goods or services were supplied".

Under the construction reverse charge, Revenue's manual on the VAT treatment of construction services removes two of those and adds one:

"The VAT registered sub-contractor issues an invoice to the principal contractor, which shows all the same information as appears on a VAT invoice, except the VAT rate and VAT amount. The invoice should include the VAT registration number of the sub-contractor."

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"The invoice should also contain the statement 'VAT on this supply to be accounted for by the principal contractor'."

That sentence is the whole endorsement. It is not a note in small print at the foot of the page — it is the line that tells the principal it owes the VAT, and an invoice without it puts the other side in the position of guessing. The general rule sits in the same place: "in the case of the supply of goods or services for which VAT is accounted for under the reverse charge mechanism, the VAT payable is not displayed on the invoice issued." Why the charge moves at all, and what the principal then does with it, is in VAT reverse charge in construction: the invoice with no VAT on it.

A sample invoice for an Irish subcontract job

First fix in ground work and drainage for a principal contractor on an apartment development in Dublin.

Brennan Heating & Plumbing Ltd · 14 Clanbrassil Street, Dublin D08 XY72 · VAT registration IE1234567FA

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Invoice R-00118 · Date of issue 14/08/2026 · Date of supply 31/07/2026

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To: Liffey Property Management Ltd, 27 Sandford Road, Dublin D06 V9K3 · VAT registration IE7654321AB

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Contract: Sandford Road apartments, stage 2 — first fix plumbing

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| Item | Qty | Unit | Description | Unit price | Total | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | 1.1 | 84.00 | hr | Installation hour, plumbing | EUR 70.00 | EUR 5,880.00 | | 1.2 | 1.00 | job | First fix, risers and branches, units 1–6 | EUR 2,940.00 | EUR 2,940.00 | | 1.3 | 1.00 | job | Pressure test and certification | EUR 1,180.00 | EUR 1,180.00 |

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Total: EUR 10,000.00

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VAT on this supply to be accounted for by the principal contractor.

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Payment terms: net 30 days from date of invoice, subject to deduction authorisation under RCT.

Six things in that document are doing work. The date of supply is separate from the date of issue and decides which VAT period the principal self-accounts in. Both VAT registration numbers are there — yours because the manual asks for it, theirs because the reverse-charge notation is tied to the customer's number. The unit prices and quantities are there because "the extent and nature of the services rendered" is a requirement, not a courtesy. There is no VAT line and no rate. The statement is on the face of the invoice. And the payment terms say out loud that the amount paid will be net of a deduction, which is the honest version of a clause most subcontractors leave off and then argue about.

Why the invoice cannot tell you what you will be paid

This is the part that distinguishes an Irish construction invoice from every other kind, and it is a sequencing problem rather than a paperwork one.

RCT is not a deduction the principal works out. The principal notifies the contract to Revenue, notifies the payment before making it, and receives a deduction authorisation back. Only at that point does a rate attach to that payment. Your invoice is written before any of that happens, so the net figure genuinely does not exist when you issue it. What you receive afterwards is documentation from the principal showing "the gross payment they will make to you", "the net payment they will make to you", "the RCT deduction rate" and "the amount of RCT they will deduct".

The practical consequence is a mismatch your books have to survive: the invoice says €10,000, the bank says €8,000, and nothing is wrong. What makes that manageable is recording the deduction against the invoice rather than treating the short payment as a shortfall — the order of the steps, and what happens when a principal pays before Revenue has answered, is in Relevant Contracts Tax: pay nothing before Revenue has been told.

Fifteen days, counted from the end of the month

"A VAT invoice must issue within 15 days of the end of the month in which goods or services are supplied." The clock runs from the month end, which means work finished on 2 July and work finished on 30 July share one deadline: 15 August.

The same fifteen days apply to money received before the work is done — where a payment comes in ahead of the supply, you must "issue a VAT invoice not later than the 15th day of the month following that during which each such payment was received". That is the rule which quietly converts a deposit into an invoicing obligation, and it is the reason a pro forma stops being a neutral document the moment somebody pays it.

The other invoice: the same work for a householder

A subcontractor's invoice and a domestic invoice for identical work look nothing alike, and the difference is not stylistic.

For a private homeowner there is no RCT, so there is no reverse charge, so you charge VAT in the ordinary way — construction services generally sit at the reduced rate of 13.5 per cent, against a standard rate of 23 per cent, a second reduced rate of 9 per cent and a 4.8 per cent livestock rate. Which of those applies to a job is not settled by the label on the work: where the materials cost more than two thirds of the price, the rate of the goods takes over the whole supply. That test, and where it is switched off, is in 13.5 or 23 per cent? The two-thirds rule decides Irish jobs.

One more difference is worth knowing because it saves paperwork rather than costing it: Revenue's list of who must be given a VAT invoice covers "another accountable person", a Department of State, a local authority, a body established by statute, a person carrying on an exempt activity and certain persons in other Member States. A private individual is not on that list. You will still give a homeowner a document — they will ask for one — but it is not a VAT invoice in the statutory sense and it does not have to carry the full apparatus.

The same €10,000, at three rates

The deduction rate belongs to the subcontractor, not to the contract. Revenue sets it on your compliance record: 0 per cent for "an up-to-date tax compliance record", 20 per cent for "a substantially up-to-date tax compliance record", 35 per cent for "a poor tax compliance record or for those who have not registered with Revenue".

Take the invoice above — €10,000, no VAT, because RCT applies and so the reverse charge does too.

At 0 per cent. Revenue authorises a nil deduction. €10,000 invoiced, €10,000 paid, no credit to track.

At 20 per cent. €2,000 deducted, €8,000 paid. The €2,000 is not gone: it is tax paid in advance in your name, credited against what you owe. On a business turning over €250,000 a year through relevant contracts, that is €50,000 sitting with Revenue across the year rather than in the account that pays wages.

At 35 per cent. €3,500 deducted, €6,500 paid. On a €10,000 invoice whose wages and materials came to €7,800, the payment does not cover the job — and it does not cover it in a month where the work is already done and the suppliers are already owed.

The difference between the first line and the third is not €3,500 of tax. The tax is identical in all three cases; only the timing moves. What changes is how much of your own working capital Revenue is holding, and the only lever on it is a filing record you build months before the invoice goes out.

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Position as at 24 September 2026, checked against Revenue's Tax and Duty Manual on the VAT treatment of construction services (last reviewed August 2026) and Revenue's published invoicing and RCT guidance. This describes the rules and is not tax or legal advice. The manual is guidance rather than legislation and is revised on its own cycle — the review date is printed on its first page, so compare that date against the one above before relying on the wording of the endorsement, which is the part most likely to be restated.

What Zirko does here: it issues the document number from the server in an unbroken series, keeps the date of supply separate from the date of issue, prints quantity, unit, description and unit price per line, and freezes the issued document so the copy you sent and the copy you keep are the same file. What Zirko does not do, and it matters on exactly this invoice: there is no Irish reverse-charge rate in the tax table today, so the zero-VAT treatment and the sentence 'VAT on this supply to be accounted for by the principal contractor' are things you set on the document yourself rather than pick from a list. Nor does Zirko know your RCT rate or the net payment — both come from Revenue's deduction authorisation, which is issued after the invoice exists.