Paperwork for Irish venues, function rooms and caterers after the 2026 VAT changes

VAT basics for venues and caterers

Irish VAT has three rates that matter to venues: 23% standard, 13.5% reduced and 9% second reduced. From 1 July 2026 restaurant and catering services moved from 13.5% to 9%, but alcohol, soft drinks and bottled water stay at 23% even when served with a meal. From 1 January 2026 the hire of a room is standard-rated at 23% in every venue, including hotels that previously charged 13.5%. A wedding bill therefore carries at least two VAT rates, and often three.

Three VAT rates on one function bill

A typical hotel wedding in Kildare or Galway now carries three rates. The meal and the evening food are catering at 9%. The drinks reception, the wine and the bar are standard-rated at 23%, because Revenue keeps alcohol, soft drinks and bottled water at the standard rate even when they are served with food. The ceremony room or marquee hire is 23% as the hire of a room. Your quotation, invoice and receipts need to split the price along those lines.

Packages priced per head make this harder. If you sell a single figure covering food, drinks and room, you still have to apportion it between the rates on your VAT invoice. Agree the method with your accountant once and use it consistently.

VAT on venue and room hire in Ireland (2026)

Revenue's Tax and Duty Manual on the hire of a room, reviewed in December 2025, sets out the position. Following CJEU case law, hiring out a room is not treated as a letting of immovable goods, so it is not VAT-exempt. Until the end of 2025, room hire in a hotel or guesthouse counted as the letting of a hotel room and took the reduced 13.5% rate. Room hire anywhere else, such as a conference centre, was already at 23%.

Finance Act 2025 removed that hotel provision from 1 January 2026. Revenue's own examples are plain: a hotel ballroom hired to a concert organiser, a hotel meeting room hired to a customer and a convention centre room hired for a business conference are all standard-rated in 2026. Services from a conference organiser, whether that is the hotel or a professional organiser, are standard-rated too.

Watch the deposits. Where an advance payment is received for room hire, VAT follows the rate in force when the invoice for that payment is issued or ought to have been issued, whichever is earlier. A hotel that took a function room deposit in 2025 under the old rate should check how each payment was invoiced before billing the balance.

The documents on this site for Irish venues

A quotation template (/ie/quotation-template) that splits catering, drinks and room hire by rate. An invoice template (/ie/invoice-template) with every item Revenue lists for a VAT invoice. A receipt template (/ie/receipt-template) for deposits, which are taxable when received. Each comes with a worked example in euro.

Each template assumes you are VAT registered. If you are below the threshold and not registered, do not show VAT at all, because charging VAT you cannot account for creates a liability.

Service charges and the Tips Act

Since 1 December 2022 the Payment of Wages (Amendment) (Tips and Gratuities) Act 2022 has required businesses to display their policy on how tips, gratuities and service charges are distributed. The Workplace Relations Commission says any charge called a service charge, or that would lead a customer to believe it is a charge for service, must be distributed to staff as if it were an electronic tip. On the VAT side, a service charge on a catering bill is part of the consideration for the meal and takes the catering rate, while a tip the customer leaves off the bill is outside VAT.

Allergens are part of the paperwork

Irish law requires businesses selling non-prepacked food to provide information on the 14 allergens, under S.I. No. 489 of 2014 as updated by S.I. No. 656 of 2024. Caterers at off-site functions can provide the allergen declarations in writing at the location. Put the allergen information on the menu you attach to the quotation, and keep the signed final menu with the event file.

Invoices, deadlines and six-year records

A VAT invoice must issue within 15 days of the end of the month in which the service is supplied, and for advance payments by the 15th day of the month after the payment arrives. Invoices of €100 or less can be simplified. Keep all records relevant to the business for six years. Put every quotation, contract, allergen menu, invoice and receipt for a function in the same file, so that an inspection or a disputed bill can be answered from one place.

Where Kaliquid fits for Irish venues

Kaliquid is booking and operations software for hotels with function rooms, event venues and caterers. Irish venues subscribe and pay in euro, and you set VAT per line, so catering at 9%, drinks at 23% and room hire at 23% sit correctly on one quotation or invoice. It covers the booking calendar with double-booking checks, quotations, invoices, receipts, deposits, the enquiry pipeline and kitchen event sheets. Pricing for Irish venues is quoted individually, so ask us for a price.

Questions from Ireland