More and more people are choosing to leave employment and return to education. If you leave a job to upskill, you may also be entitled to claim tax back.
For example if you pay fees to attend college, university or a training course, you may be able to claim relief. The limit on tuition fees you can claim is €7,000 per course and you’ll receive relief at the standard rate of tax which is 20%.
If you’re studying more than one third level course at the same time, the amount of qualifying fees is restricted to €7,000 per course and a single disregard amount (further detail below) is applied to the claim.
Note: No relief is available for examination fees, registration fees or administration fees.
Every claim is subject to a single disregard amount each tax year. This amount is taken away from your qualifying fees so you can’t get relief on that portion of the fees.
If you’ve paid fees for more than one course or student, you only subtract the disregard amount once. There are different disregard amounts for each year and for full-time or part-time courses.
The disregard fees are €3,000 for a full-time course and €1,500 for a part-time course.
Restrictions
You can’t claim relief for fees funded by grants, scholarships or your employer. If you get partial funding, you must declare it to Revenue when you claim tax relief.
If you’ve already claimed tax relief for tuition fees and the fees are later refunded by the college, you must tell Revenue within 21 days of receiving the refund.
Undergraduate courses
To qualify for relief, an undergraduate course must:
- Be carried out in an approved college
- Last at least 2 academic years in duration
Postgraduate courses
To qualify for relief, a postgraduate course must:
- Be carried out in an approved college
- Last at least 1 academic year but no longer than 4 academic years
- Lead to a postgraduate award based on either a thesis or an examination
To claim relief on a postgraduate course, you must already have an undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification.
Postgraduate courses in publicly funded or duly accredited universities and institutions of higher education in non-European Union (EU) Member States also qualify for relief.
Payment of tuition fees
If you pay tuition fees in instalments, you can claim relief on your tuition fee instalments either:
- In the tax year the academic year commenced
- or In the tax year in which you paid the instalment
If you claim relief for the tax year when the instalment was paid, you must subtract and disregard the amount that applies to that year. It’s often more beneficial to claim relief in the tax year that the academic year commenced.
Alternatively, if you pay college fees in advance, relief can be allowed as follows:
- If details of actual amounts due for each year are available, then that amount is allowed each year for the duration of the course. This is subject to the ceiling of €7,000 per year along with the disregard amount that applies.
- If no breakdown of fees is available, the relief can be divided evenly over the duration of the course.
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