The four year process of the UK agreeing separation terms and trading arrangements with the EU finally came to an end on 31 December 2020. By that stage, after prolonged periods of uncertainty about the detail of the trading relationship, many UK businesses took matters into their own hands to avoid trade barriers with their EU customers.

Within six months of the referendum British MPs learned that over 100,000 UK firms had registered companies in Ireland to protect against a worst-case scenario. There is speculation that since then nearly one in three British business planned to move at least some of their operations into the EU.

In London’s iconic financial services centre, Dublin has proven to be the most popular destination over Amsterdam, Paris or Frankfurt for financial services companies moving businesses out of London. It is estimated that 34 of these prestigious financial services firms have moved operations to Dublin.

The attraction to establish European operations in Ireland is not the only benefit of registering a company in Ireland. Other key advantages include:

• A favourable tax system for companies with a low corporate tax rate of 12.5%
• Reduced rate of corporate tax for Research & Development
• Local Euro currency with no exchange fees when dealing across the majority of EU countries
• Excellent Holding Company Regime
• No Withholding Tax (‘WHT’) on dividends from Irish Holding Company to EU/tax treaty countries
• Access to a highly educated local and European workforce without visa/immigration complexities
• Ireland becoming the only English-speaking country in the EU
• One of the easiest and most efficient countries in the World to do business

Our Ireland-Relocations team have been delighted to play a key part in supporting some of these organisational moves over the last 4 years. We have helped UK company employees with visa/immigrations, to register with the tax authorities, find homes and select schools for their children so that they can settle here. If your company is still in the process of finalising your move to Ireland, contact our team to discuss our well-proven and trusted employee mobility programmes.