Before you begin
What the eight-year clock depends on
Use the year you first bought, not the year you opened the account. The clock starts when units are acquired.
If you have a real transaction history and a charge coming, enter the purchases rather than describing the pattern. The rule runs from each acquisition, so a list of eleven purchases produces eleven clocks and the actual years, where a monthly approximation produces an average of them.
If you contribute monthly, the year above is the year the first contribution went in. Every year since then carries its own clock.
Enter what you originally paid for the units you still hold, even where a charge has already been made against them. The deemed disposal leaves that figure alone; what it produces is a tax credit, and that goes in its own field.
If an eight-year anniversary has already gone by, answer the question about past charges honestly. A date that has passed is not a charge that has been settled, and the result treats the two differently.
If you bought once and an anniversary has gone by, the value of the holding on that day is worth digging out. It is the only figure standing between an open question and a finished answer, and it often shows that nothing was due.
The answer to the last question is not obvious and it moves the date by up to seven years. If your fund is US or European domiciled and you were told years ago that it was taxed like shares, it is probably yes.
Reading the answer
Reading your dates and charges
The year is the useful part. Tax on a deemed disposal is payable by 31 October in the following year where you self-assess, so a charge falling this year is a bill next October, not now.
The amount shown is the charge if the holding is worth today what it is worth now. The gain on the actual anniversary decides the real figure, so treat it as a marker rather than a bill.
Contributing monthly does not avoid the rule, it spreads it. Instead of one charge every eight years you meet a smaller one most years, which is easier to fund and no cheaper overall.
Selling before an anniversary does not dodge anything either. You pay the same 38% on the same gain, just as an actual disposal rather than a deemed one, and the clock stops.
The charge is a prepayment. It is credited against the tax due when you finally sell and any excess is repaid, so the real cost is the growth you give up on money handed over early rather than the rate.
Your base cost does not move when a charge is made. Revenue's worked example carries the same units and the same base cost forward and hands over a tax credit instead, so a later gain is still measured from what you originally paid. Anyone who treats the charge as a step-up understates the gain and forgets to claim the credit.
A repeat anniversary showing nothing is not an error. Hold the value still and the credit from the charge before it covers the same gain exactly, so what a later anniversary really falls on is the growth between one charge and the next.
Boundaries
Assumptions and limitations
Working assumptions
- Today's value is shared across your purchases using the one annual return that gets from what you paid to what it is worth. Nobody keeps a valuation history per contribution, and assuming one flat return is more honest than asking for numbers that do not exist.
- Regular contributions are treated as running from the year you started to this year, with each year counted as a single purchase. Twelve monthly buys really start twelve clocks within the year, which moves individual charges by months and not the year they fall in. The year in progress is counted only to the current month, so you are never recorded as having paid in money the calendar has not reached. Entering the purchases individually avoids the approximation entirely.
- An entered history is taken as given. Purchases made in the same year are merged, because both reach the same eight-year anniversary and separating them would print the same year twice.
- Every charge shown is worked out on the gain as it stands today. No growth is projected forward, because a projected charge is a guess dressed as a date.
- Tax you have already paid is treated as one pool of credit against the charges ahead, spent in year order. Strictly the credit belongs to the units it was paid on, but a single fund is valued on an average cost across the holding, and drawing it down in order is the shape that produces.
- Where an anniversary has passed and you have recorded no charge against it, the tool does not guess whether one arose. It names the years, the deadlines and what would settle the question, because the value on the day is on your provider's statement and not in any calculator.
- Where you supply the value on a passed anniversary, the charge worked out from it is treated as credit against the events after it. That assumes the charge gets dealt with, which is the only sensible basis for a forward figure. If it arose and was never met it is an outstanding liability as well as a credit, and the result says so.
Where to be careful
- This covers funds and ETFs inside the gross roll-up regime. Shares held directly have no deemed disposal, and funds outside the regime are taxed under different rules again.
- It is not tax advice and does not tell you whether to sell.
- Where a fund operates the tax for you, usually an Irish-domiciled one, the charge is deducted rather than filed. The payment date shown is the self-assessment deadline that applies when the fund cannot operate it, which is the common case for an ETF held through a clearing system.
- Whether your fund was covered by the pre-2022 guidance, and whether it is equivalent to an Irish fund, are questions only the product documentation can settle. The tool takes your answer and does not check it.
- It prices a passed anniversary only where you supply the value on that day, and only for a single purchase. A regular contributor meets a different year's units at each anniversary, and one value for the whole holding cannot price any of them, so the tool refuses rather than measuring a charge against the wrong cost.
- It models one fund. Where units were switched between sub-funds, or bought and sold repeatedly, Revenue tracks the original cost through those movements on a first-in first-out basis and the arithmetic here will not follow it.
- It takes years rather than dates. The charge falls in a year and the Pay and File date follows from that year, so the day and month change nothing the tool reports, and asking for them would collect more than the answer needs. Nothing entered is stored, logged or returned to the browser either way.
- The Investment Account announced for 2027 is not modelled. Deemed disposal will not apply inside it, but its tax-free threshold, flat rate and contribution cap are set in Budget 2027 and until then any figure would be invented.
Worked example
The same question, answered end to end
€20,000 went into a US-domiciled ETF in 2015, it is worth €38,000 now, and it was taxed as a share investment before 2022.
What was entered
- One purchase of €20,000 in 2015
- Worth €38,000 today, a gain of €18,000
- The fund was covered by Revenue's pre-2022 confirmation and is now equivalent to an Irish fund
How it is worked out
Counting eight years from the 2015 purchase would put the first charge in 2023, which has already passed.
Revenue's ETF manual instead counts the eight years from 2022 for a fund the old guidance covered, leaving the acquisition cost unchanged.
So the first charge falls in 2030 and the tax is payable by 31 October 2031.
On today's gain of €18,000 the charge is 38%, or €6,840.
Selling the whole holding today would cost the same €6,840, because it is the same gain at the same rate, and it would stop the clock.
What the tool returns
- Next deemed disposal
- 2030
- Tax payable by
- 31 October 2031
- Charge at today's value
- €6,840
- Exit tax if you sold today
- €6,840
Common questions
Questions about this tool
Nobody deducted anything. Do I have to do something about it?
Almost certainly, if you hold an ETF. Revenue's Investment Undertakings manual says that units held in a recognised clearing system, which is how an ETF trades, do not require the fund to deduct exit tax — and that an Irish resident unit holder is still subject to tax on the income and gains and must self-assess and include the details in a timely filing. Section 739G(2)(b) then treats the payment as one from an offshore fund, so it goes on Form 11 at Panel E under “Offshore Funds (Part 27 Ch 4)”, by 31 October in the year after the charge. A fund you bought directly from an Irish provider is the opposite case: it deducts the tax and there is nothing for you to file.
Do I owe tax even though I have not sold anything?
Yes. Every eight years the rule treats your units as though you had sold and rebought them, and charges 38% on the gain. It exists to stop tax being deferred indefinitely inside a fund. The money is usually taken by cashing some of your units, so the holding shrinks rather than a bill arriving.
Why is my date 2030 when I bought years before that?
Revenue used to confirm that funds domiciled in the USA, the EEA or an OECD treaty state were taxed like shares. It withdrew that with effect from 1 January 2022. Its ETF manual says that where such a fund is instead equivalent to an Irish one, the eight years are counted from 2022 while the acquisition cost stays unchanged, so the earliest possible charge is 2030.
Can I avoid it by selling first?
Selling stops the clock but not the tax. The same 38% falls on the same gain, as an actual disposal instead of a deemed one. What selling changes is timing and what you do next, not the rate.
I contribute monthly. Is that better or worse?
Neither, really. Because the rule runs from each purchase, regular contributions produce a charge in most years once the first eight are up rather than one large one. That is easier to fund and no cheaper overall.
Am I taxed twice on the same gain?
No. The charge is a prepayment of the tax that would fall due when you sell. It is credited against that liability and any excess is repaid. What it costs you is the growth given up on money handed over years early.
Does a deemed disposal reset what I paid for the units?
No, and this is the detail that trips people up most. Revenue's worked example in Appendix I(b) of Part 27-01A-02 says that because there has been no actual disposal, the number of units and the base cost carried forward stay the same. Its offshore funds manual puts it the other way round: the original cost of acquisition is what the taxable gain is measured from when the real disposal finally happens. So the gain does not restart from the value on the anniversary. What carries forward instead is a credit for the tax you paid, and it comes off the next charge. Where the fund cashes units to settle the bill, the units and the base cost fall together in proportion to what was cashed, which is the only thing that moves the figure.
An anniversary went by years ago and I never did anything. What now?
Find out what the holding was worth in that year, because that is what decides whether a charge arose at all. Then check whether anyone operated it for you: an Irish-domiciled fund usually deducts the tax and reports it, while an ETF held through a recognised clearing system cannot, which leaves the whole liability with the investor. Where a charge did arise and nothing was operated, the tax was due by 31 October in the following year and that date has passed, so the return for that year is the thing to put right rather than the one ahead. This tool will name the years and the deadlines, but the value on the day is on your provider's statement.
Does the new Investment Account get rid of this?
Inside the account, yes. The Department of Finance's retail investment Roadmap is explicit that the existing regime, deemed disposal included, will not apply to it, and accounts are expected during 2027. Outside the account nothing changes yet: reviewing the eight-year rule for ordinary holdings is listed for Budget 2028 and beyond, and described as an area for consideration rather than a commitment.