Ennis, Ireland Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Ennis, County Clare, and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that nobody has banned short-term letting here, and Clare County Council was still granting change-of-use permissions for it as recently as April 2026. The harder news is that the law underneath you got rewritten on 1 March 2026, and it moved in a direction that makes most of what you'll find written about Ennis online out of date.

What changed is the trigger, because letting a house or part of a house on a short-term basis used to count as a material change of use only inside a rent pressure zone, and Ennis was one of those, designated back in August 2023. Rent pressure zones don't exist any more, so section 30 of the Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2026 rewrote the rule and dropped the geography out of it. Short-term letting is a material change of use everywhere in the State now, the threshold moved from 14 days up to 21 consecutive nights, and the draft national policy would presume against granting permission at all in any settlement over 20,000 people. Ennis counted 27,923 at the last census.

So let's walk through what it takes to do this properly in Ennis: what the council will and won't consent to, what an application costs, the exemption route that may or may not still work, the tax Revenue expects, how enforcement runs, and who to ring when something doesn't add up. Everything below comes from the Irish Statute Book, Clare County Council's own pages and meeting minutes, Revenue and Fáilte Ireland, checked in July 2026, and where a rule is still moving I've said so. Assuming you're weighing Ennis against somewhere a whole unit can be let without a fight, run both through BNBCalc before you commit to anything.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Ennis

Since the trigger is the thing that changed, start there, because it decides which of three very different businesses you're actually in.

Section 3A of the Planning and Development Act 2000 carries the operative words, and the 2026 substitution kept them short. In full, they read, "The use of a house, part of a house or unit for short term letting purposes is a material change in the use of the house, part thereof or unit, as the case may be." A material change of use is development, and development needs permission unless something exempts it. The same section defines a short term letting as a letting "on a professional or non-professional basis" for "a period not exceeding 21 consecutive nights" in return for payment, and it catches a licence as well as a tenancy. That licence wording matters more than it looks, since a guest booking through Airbnb holds a licence rather than a tenancy, which is exactly why the drafters put it in.

Which leaves you with three shapes, and they carry wildly different amounts of paperwork:

• Renting a room or two while you live there. Home-sharing in your principal private residence, with you in the house. This is the cheapest route by a distance and the one most Ennis hosts will survive on.
• Letting your own home while you're away. Still your principal private residence, still capped, still a notification rather than an application.
• Letting a second property, or any unit you don't live in. This is the investor case, and in Ennis it's the one that now needs a grant of planning permission before a single booking is taken.

That third case is where the 20,000 figure bites. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment's June 2026 announcement of the draft National Planning Statement puts it plainly. "For operators in locations with a population of over 20,000, there will be a presumption not to grant planning." Smaller settlements get the opposite treatment, a two-year window to become compliant and a presumption in favour, so long as the development doesn't create serious flooding, pollution or a traffic hazard. Ennis is on the wrong side of that line and not marginally, since the CSO's Census 2022 release puts the town at 27,923, the sixth largest in the State and the largest in Munster. That's well past the threshold.

Do keep in mind that the statement is still a draft. The Department of Housing published it on 17 June 2026 as proposed planning policy, and it has to clear a Strategic Environmental Assessment and an EU Services Directive notification before a final version goes back to Government, which the Department expects "in the Autumn". So a presumption against permission isn't law in Ennis today, though it is the direction of travel, published by the department that sets planning policy, and it's the thing to ask about before money moves.

The county's own development plan pulls the other way, which is worth knowing if you end up arguing your corner. Objective CDP5.14 in the Clare County Development Plan 2023-2029 restricts new residential development to permanent occupancy only in thirteen settlements where holiday homes have overwhelmed the housing stock, among them Kilkee, Lahinch, Doolin and Spanish Point, though Ennis isn't on that list. Objective CDP9.5 in the same volume commits the council to facilitating new visitor accommodation "at appropriate locations throughout the County, particularly in areas with existing services", and Ennis is the county's main service town. None of that overrides national policy, yet it does mean the local plan isn't hostile to tourist accommodation in principle, so the tension you'd be standing in the middle of is between a 2023 county plan that wants beds and a 2026 national statement that wants houses. Two plans, one property.

If the numbers stop working here, the nearest comparison worth running is the city an hour down the road, and the Limerick short-term rental guide covers a market with the same national rules and a very different housing argument.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Ennis

There's no licence, which surprises people who've hosted in the United States or the UK. Clare County Council doesn't issue a short-term rental permit, doesn't run a local register and charges no annual fee for hosting, so what it issues instead is planning permission, and that's the only local consent that exists.

For the investor case, the application is a change of use from residential to short-term letting or tourist accommodation, and Clare County Council warns on its what to include page that it's invalid if anything is missing or if you used an out-of-date version of the form. That form comes with a fee, and the council's planning fees schedule puts the commercial-buildings rate at €80 or €3.60 per square metre of floor space, whichever is greater. You apply for retention permission instead when the letting has already been happening, and that one runs to €240 or €10.80 per square metre, capped at €125,000. Retention is three times the rate for the same building, so getting there first is worth actual money. Apply before you let.

Charge	Amount	Paid to
Change of use, planning permission	€80 or €3.60 per m², whichever is greater	Clare County Council
Retention permission, same use	€240 or €10.80 per m², whichever is greater	Clare County Council
Section 5 declaration	€80	Clare County Council
Exemption notification, Forms 15, 16 and 17	no charge	Clare County Council
Fáilte Ireland registration	not yet announced	Fáilte Ireland

Timing runs about eight weeks for a straightforward application, according to Citizens Information's short-term lets page, and longer once the council asks for further information. One quirk is worth diarising if you're applying in December, since Clare County Council's decision process page disregards 24 December to 1 January inclusive, which extends every statutory time limit by nine days. A refusal goes on appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála.

Before you spend a four-figure sum finding out, there's a cheaper question you can ask. A Section 5 declaration is a formal ruling on whether what you're proposing needs permission at all, it costs €80 on form P07 with a site location map, and Clare says a decision issues within four weeks where no further information is needed. That gets you a written answer with your own address on it, which is a far better thing to hand a solicitor or a lender than an opinion. Eighty euro buys certainty.

One requirement catches Ennis townhouses in particular, so do check it early. Table A3 in Appendix 1 of the county development plan sets the parking standard for a hotel, guesthouse or B&B at one space per room plus one per three staff on duty, and applying that to a three-bedroom terrace off the town centre with one off-street space writes the objection for you. It isn't fatal, since town-centre sites get assessed on their own merits, but be aware that it's a live objection and not a formality.

Then there's the exemption, and I have to be straight with you about the state of it. S.I. No. 235 of 2019 inserted article 6(5) into the planning regulations and exempted two things: home-sharing up to four bedrooms in your principal private residence with no more than four people per bedroom, and letting that whole residence while you're away for no more than 90 days a year. Both need written notice to the planning authority at least two weeks before you start, plus Forms 15, 16 and 17 with statutory declarations. The catch is that the regulation exempts short-term letting "in a rent pressure zone" and takes the meaning of that phrase from the very subsection replaced on 1 March 2026, and no replacement regulation has been made. Citizens Information, edited on 23 June 2026, still presents the exemption as live and still gives the old "less than 14 days" definition, while Clare County Council publishes no short-term letting page and no downloadable forms, where Cork, Mayo, Wexford and several Dublin authorities do. So make sure you ring the planning office and get the council's position in writing before relying on it. Nobody else can answer it.

Sitting above all of that is the national register, which isn't open yet. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment confirmed on a page last updated 6 August 2026 that it comes into effect on 1 December 2026, with a legal obligation on every operator to register by 31 December 2026. Fáilte Ireland's register page adds that each unit gets its own number, which has to appear on every listing, and that renewal is annual. Fees "will be announced shortly", so don't let anyone quote you a figure. Note what Fáilte Ireland says about planning too, because it's the sentence that sends you straight back to Ennis: "Fáilte Ireland does not have a role in planning and cannot advise on planning regulations."

Required Documents for Ennis Short-Term Rentals

Since the register and the planning consent are handled by two bodies that don't talk to each other about your address, you end up assembling two separate stacks of paper, and then a third if you go the exemption route.

For a change-of-use application, the stack is the ordinary planning one: the current official form, a site location map and layout plans, floor plans of the accommodation as proposed, a newspaper notice in an approved paper, a copy of the site notice erected on the property, and the fee, which the council won't waive. Clare publishes a form P02 applicant checklist and runs a counter validation service, and since an invalid application means starting again with a fresh newspaper notice, using both is time well spent.

For the exemption route, the forms are prescribed in the schedule to the 2019 regulations, so their contents aren't negotiable. Form 15 is the start-of-year notification and asks for the address and Eircode, the planning authority's name, documentation confirming the property is your principal private residence, the owner's written consent where you aren't the owner, whether you're home-sharing or letting the whole house while away, and the dates and total days you intend to let. Form 16 goes in within two weeks of your ninetieth day, and Form 17 is the end-of-year return, due between 1 and 28 January. Each travels with a statutory declaration that the house was your principal private residence during the lettings, which means a trip to a solicitor or a commissioner for oaths, so don't forget to build that into your January.

For Fáilte Ireland, registration is self-declared and lighter on documents but heavier on consequence. An individual host supplies name, address, email, phone, date of birth and PPSN, a company supplies its registered name, CRO number, registered address and legal representative, and everyone supplies the property address and Eircode, the type and size of the unit and its capacity. Then comes the legal declaration that the unit complies with planning, building and fire safety requirements. Nothing gets uploaded at the point of registration, and that sounds relaxed until you notice you're personally declaring the planning position of a property whose planning position, in Ennis in 2026, is the whole question.

Ennis Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through the consent side and are able to start hosting, there's still tax, though this is the one part of the exercise where Ireland is simpler than most places you'll have read about.

There's no bed tax, no occupancy tax and no tourist levy in Ennis, and none anywhere in the State, so Clare County Council collects nothing per night and no platform collects anything per night on its behalf. Councils have been lobbying for a visitor levy for years, yet none is in force. What you do owe is income tax, possibly VAT, and nothing else specific to lodging. That's the whole list.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Income tax on letting profit	your marginal rate, plus USC and PRSI	Revenue, self-assessed
VAT on the accommodation	13.5%, once you cross the threshold	Revenue, remitted by you
VAT on Airbnb's service fee	23%	Airbnb, charged to you
Local tourist or bed tax	none	not applicable

The income tax point trips up almost every new host, because short-term letting income isn't rental income in Revenue's eyes. A guest holds a licence to occupy rather than a tenancy, so Revenue's tax and duty manual on the taxation of rents puts the income under Case I as trading income where you're running it as a business, or Case IV as miscellaneous income where it's occasional, and never under Case V. That means a Form 11 through ROS if you're self-assessed, or a Form 12 through myAccount if you're a PAYE taxpayer with a side income, and the distinction isn't cosmetic, since the two cases treat losses and expenses differently.

Rent-a-room relief doesn't rescue you either, and it's the single most common thing hosts get wrong. That €14,000 exemption needs a letting of at least 28 consecutive days, and Revenue's manual on the relief puts it "beyond doubt that the relief does not apply to short term tourist accommodation based on home sharing, including where it is provided through online booking sites". So sharing a room in your Ennis house through Airbnb is taxable from the first euro.

VAT only becomes your problem above a threshold most single-property hosts never reach. Guest and holiday accommodation, expressly including the web-based kind, sits at the reduced rate of 13.5% under Revenue's VAT manual whatever the length of stay, and registration bites once turnover from services passes €42,500. One Ennis property is unlikely to get you there and three might. Watch out for the meals point if you serve breakfast, since catering moved to 9% from 1 July 2026 while accommodation stayed at 13.5%, so a room-and-breakfast rate has to be apportioned.

Airbnb's own position is narrower than hosts assume, because Airbnb applies 23% Irish VAT to its service fees and to nothing else. It isn't collecting accommodation VAT for you and it isn't remitting your income tax, so whatever your listing earns arrives gross of everything except Airbnb's own charges. One open question I couldn't settle, and I'd rather flag it than guess: once a dwelling gets change of use to tourist accommodation it stops being purely residential on paper, and I found no primary source on how Clare County Council and Tailte Éireann then treat it for commercial rates. Ask the council before assuming the answer is nothing.

Possible Deductions and Write-Offs

Because the income is trading or miscellaneous income rather than rental income, the deductions follow the ordinary rules for whichever case it falls under, and the split between personal and letting use does most of the work. Costs incurred wholly and exclusively for the letting are the straightforward ones, so platform commission, cleaning, laundry, guest consumables, listing photography, an insurance uplift for short-term letting and repairs to the let part of the property all qualify.

Shared costs are where the care goes. Heat, light, broadband, waste charges, insurance and mortgage interest on a house you also live in have to be apportioned between your own occupation and the letting. A defensible apportionment runs on rooms and on days let rather than a round number you picked, so keep the booking calendar as evidence for the days part. Capital allowances on furniture and equipment are claimed over time rather than expensed in one go, and Local Property Tax isn't deductible at all. Where the letting sits under Case IV, be aware that loss relief is more restricted than under Case I, which is one reason hosts with a real business often prefer to be taxed as one.

Ireland Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Getting the deductions right is the part you can control. The framework above them changed twice inside eighteen months, so it's worth seeing the whole sequence rather than the snapshot.

The foundation is section 3A of the Planning and Development Act 2000, which arrived in 2019 and applied only inside rent pressure zones. Ennis came under it when Ennis Local Electoral Area was designated one on 31 August 2023. Then the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2025 extended rent pressure zones countrywide from 20 June 2025, which swept every Irish address into the same planning rule as a side effect nobody had intended. And on 1 March 2026 the machinery went into reverse, because rent pressure zones were repealed outright and, as the Residential Tenancies Board puts it, "From 1 March 2026, Rent Pressure Zones are replaced by a national system of rent control."

Rather than let the planning rule collapse along with its trigger, the Oireachtas rewrote it. The Irish Statute Book's commencement record for the 2026 Act shows section 30 starting on 1 March 2026 under article 4 of S.I. No. 67 of 2026, the same day the rent pressure zones went. That's the substitution quoted at the top of this guide, and it's why a short-term letting in Ennis is a material change of use today for reasons that have nothing to do with rent control any more. Section 31 of the same Act hasn't been switched on yet, since it mirrors the change into the Planning and Development Act 2024 and starts when that Act's own sections do.

Two further pieces are still in motion. The Short Term Letting and Tourism Bill creates the register and its offences, and it was approved as a General Scheme in April 2025 and went through pre-legislative scrutiny in February 2026, yet as of July 2026 the Bill itself still hasn't been published. The draft National Planning Statement is the other, and it adds a presumption in favour of permission for operators who've run continuously for more than seven years without enforcement. Neither is law, and both are being finalised against a hard EU deadline, since Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 applies from 20 May 2026 and Ireland has to complete implementation by 31 December 2026, which is what fixes the register's dates.

Planning fees, the 21-night definition and the exemption regulations are all national, so they read the same in every county. What differs is how a council applies them, and that part is genuinely local. Our Bray guide covers a commuter town in the Dublin orbit, the Athlone guide covers a midlands town on the other side of the 20,000 line, and the Clonakilty guide covers a small West Cork tourist town where the draft policy would work in a host's favour rather than against them.

Does Ennis, Ireland Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Ennis is where Clare County Council's planning department physically sits, which is a slightly awkward answer to that question and also the true one.

Enforcement here is complaint-led rather than proactive. Under Part VIII of the Planning and Development Act 2000 the council must issue a warning letter within six weeks of a complaint, and the council's own enforcement process page then gives you four weeks to rectify the matter or make a submission before it decides whether to serve an Enforcement Notice. Ignoring one is a criminal offence that goes to the District Court, where summary conviction carries a fine of up to €5,000 or up to six months' imprisonment or both, and conviction on indictment reaches €12,697,380.78 or up to two years, with a section 160 injunction available in the Circuit or High Court on top. Now, nobody is going to jail over a spare room in Ennis. The point of those numbers is that this is criminal planning law rather than a parking ticket, and it doesn't lapse when you sell.

What the council has actually said is more useful than what it could theoretically do, and the minutes of its January 2026 monthly meeting record it. So when Councillor Bill Slattery asked for a briefing on what the rules meant for the 2026 tourist season, Senior Planner Helen Quinn replied that owners intending to let should engage with the planning authority ahead of the season. Her closing line was blunter: "failure to have appropriate planning consent in place ahead of letting will result in unauthorised development taking place and potential enforcement action". Do read that as the council putting hosts on notice, because that's what it is. Note the date, though, since a reply written in January 2026 still uses the pre-March wording about rent pressure zones, which was correct when it was given.

The elected members pushed back in the same meeting, and their objection tells you something about appetite. They said much of Clare depends on tourism, that short-term lets fill a gap left by limited hotel stock, that the legislation "is not suitable for Clare in its current form", and that it should be deferred two years, while Slattery has separately questioned whether the planning office is staffed for the caseload coming. So you have a planning authority stating the law clearly and a chamber asking for a pause, which is a familiar shape in a tourism county and not a reason to assume nothing will happen.

Permissions do get granted, and you can watch them being granted, since Clare publishes its weekly planning lists in full. In the list of applications granted between 20 and 26 April 2026, reference 26/60102 changed a dwelling house at Doonaha, Kilkee from a permanent residential unit to short-term letting and tourist accommodation, while 26/60108 at Querrin turned a private shed into short-term letting accommodation. Both are rural West Clare rather than Ennis town, which is roughly the pattern you'd expect. Remember that those lists cut both ways, because a neighbour can read the register for your address as easily as you can read it for theirs. It's a public register.

The real change arrives in December, and it's a change of mechanism rather than of severity. Once the register is live, platforms may only list units carrying a valid number, with penalties of up to 2% of turnover for one that gets it wrong, so enforcement stops depending on a complaint from somebody in Ennis and starts depending on whether a booking can be processed at all. That's a much harder thing to route around.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Ennis, Ireland

Given how much of that is still moving, sequence matters more than usual here, because two of the early steps can tell you to stop before you've spent anything meaningful.

1. Work out which of the three shapes you're in. A room in the home you live in, your whole home while you're away, or a property you don't live in. Everything downstream depends on that, and only the third puts you in the presumption-against category.
2. Ring the planning office before you buy or renovate. Ask how Clare County Council is operating the article 6(5) exemption now that rent pressure zones are gone, and whether it'll accept Forms 15, 16 and 17 for your address. Get the answer by email so you have it in writing.
3. Spend the €80 on a Section 5 declaration if the answer is at all ambiguous. A formal written ruling on your own address beats a year of assuming, and it's the document a lender or a buyer will want to see.
4. Apply for change of use if you need permission, using the current form, with the newspaper notice, the site notice, plans and the fee. Budget about eight weeks, and build the parking case into your drawings rather than leaving it to be raised against you later.
5. Never start letting first and apply later. Retention costs three times as much for the same building, and it starts from a position where the council already knows the use was unauthorised.
6. Diarise the exemption paperwork if you go that route. Form 15 within four weeks of the start of the year and at least two weeks before your first letting, Form 16 within two weeks of your ninetieth day, and Form 17 between 1 and 28 January.
7. Sort tax before your first guest. Register for self-assessment, work out whether you're Case I or Case IV, forget rent-a-room relief, and keep the booking calendar for the apportionment.
8. Register with Fáilte Ireland between 1 and 31 December 2026 and put the number on every listing. The declaration you sign is about planning compliance, so don't sign it until step 2 or step 4 is genuinely resolved.
9. Re-check the National Planning Statement in the autumn, because the final version decides whether a new whole-property permission in Ennis is realistic.

Who to Contact in Ennis about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Step two on that list is the one people put off, so here's exactly who picks up the phone.

Planning consent, exemptions, zoning and enforcement all belong to the Planning, Placemaking and Economic Development Department at Clare County Council, which is based in Ennis itself.

• Address: Clare County Council, New Road, Ennis, Co. Clare, V95 DXP2
• Planning Department: (065) 6846232, with (065) 6846304 and (065) 6846212 as additional planning lines
• Email: [email protected]
• Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

For anything that isn't strictly planning, Customer Services is the front door on (065) 6821616 or [email protected], with phone lines open Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The planning counter closes at 4:00 p.m., so an afternoon visit needs planning of its own. Complaints about unauthorised development, including letting without consent, go to the same department through the council's unauthorised developments online form, which is worth knowing in both directions.

Registration questions belong to Fáilte Ireland, which publishes updates on its short-term letting register page, though don't ask them about planning, since they say plainly they have no role in it. Tax questions go to Revenue, through myAccount for a Form 12 or ROS for a Form 11, and the guidance on how this income gets classified sits in tax and duty manual 04-01-20. Appeals against a refusal go to An Coimisiún Pleanála rather than back to the council, and the four-week clock starts from the date of the decision.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Ennis on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Since the council's line and the councillors' line pull in opposite directions, it's fair to ask what hosts themselves are saying, and I want to be upfront about the limits of my answer. Reddit blocks automated access and its terms don't permit the use this would need, so I haven't read Ennis threads and I'm not going to characterise them, and BiggerPockets is an American forum with essentially nothing on County Clare. What I did read is local: Clare FM's interviews with hosts, and the council's own published minutes. Treat what follows as my read of those rather than any kind of survey.

The dominant note is uncertainty rather than anger. Lorna Cahill, described by Clare FM as the voluntary Airbnb lead for Clare, Limerick and Tipperary, has said hosts still don't know what the compliance issues are with the registration window closing on 31 December, and that many providers will need fresh planning permission. That gap between a hard deadline and unpublished detail is what hosts keep naming.

The 20,000 threshold generates the sharpest local complaint, and it's specific to this town. A Clarecastle operator, Liam Daly, told Clare FM in May 2026 that the new rules could put him out of business because his village's population is counted into Ennis's settlement total, which pushes him over a threshold he'd otherwise sit well under. Whether or not the final statement draws the boundary that way, the grievance is real and it'll be argued at the edges of Ennis rather than in the middle of it. Clare County Council's own response to that piece was that it was "awaiting the publication of a National Planning Statement on Short-Term Letting" and that commenting further would be premature.

The chamber has taken the hosts' side more openly than the executive has, since members told the January 2026 meeting that limited hotel stock makes short-term lets structurally important in parts of Clare, asked for a two-year deferral, and questioned how any of this applies to somebody renting a room inside their own home. That last question still hasn't been answered cleanly, which is why the exemption uncertainty earlier in this guide matters as much to ordinary Ennis hosts as it does to investors.

What nobody is arguing is that the rules don't exist, since that debate ended when the council put its position in the minutes. If you want to see how the numbers behind the argument look across the country before deciding anything, the Ireland market data is the place to start, and the Bundoran guide shows the same national framework in a seaside town small enough to fall on the friendly side of the draft policy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Ennis, Ireland in 2026?

Yes, but a whole-property listing needs planning permission first. Since 1 March 2026, section 3A of the Planning and Development Act 2000 treats any letting of 21 consecutive nights or fewer as a material change of use anywhere in Ireland, so a second property let short-term in Ennis needs a grant of change of use from Clare County Council. Sharing a room in the home you actually live in is the lighter route, subject to a notification rather than an application.

Do you need planning permission for a short-term let in Ennis?

For a property you don't live in, yes. Change of use from residential to short-term letting costs €80 or €3.60 per square metre, whichever is greater, and takes roughly eight weeks. Retention permission after the fact costs €240 or €10.80 per square metre. A Section 5 declaration for €80 gets you a formal written ruling from Clare County Council on whether your specific proposal needs permission at all, usually within four weeks.

What is the Fáilte Ireland short-term letting register and when does it open?

It's the national register of short-term lets, and it opens on 1 December 2026 with a legal obligation on every operator to register by 31 December 2026. It covers anyone offering paid accommodation for up to and including 21 nights, per unit. Each unit gets a number that must appear on every listing and advertisement, platforms may only list units carrying a valid number, and renewal is annual. Fees haven't been announced.

Is there a tourist tax or bed tax on short-term rentals in Ennis?

No. Ireland has no national tourist tax, no occupancy tax and no bed tax, and Clare County Council charges no local levy on overnight stays. What you owe is income tax on the profit, self-assessed through Revenue as trading income or miscellaneous income rather than rental income, plus VAT at 13.5% on the accommodation once turnover from services passes €42,500. Airbnb charges 23% Irish VAT on its own service fee.

Does the 90-day home-sharing exemption still apply in Ennis?

Unclear as of July 2026, so it's worth a phone call rather than an assumption. S.I. No. 235 of 2019 exempts home-sharing and 90 days of letting your own home while away, but it frames both as letting "in a rent pressure zone", and those were abolished on 1 March 2026 with no replacement regulation made. Ask the planning office directly.

Whatever the final planning statement says this autumn, the lesson holds anywhere the rules are mid-rewrite. Written consent on your own address costs less to get than to argue about later, and it beats any number of confident opinions about what the law will say.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.