If you send employees to work on a site 32 km or more from your base, Revenue lets you pay a flat amount towards their travel and subsistence without tax. Here are the rates, who qualifies, the three cases where it can't be paid, how it differs from the construction SEO and from civil service subsistence, and how to report it.
Checked on 12 October 2026 against Revenue's site-based employees page (published 9 June 2026), Tax and Duty Manual Parts 05-01-06 and 38-03-33 (both reviewed September 2026), and the text of the construction Sectoral Employment Orders.
Country money is the most Revenue accepts you can pay a site-based employee for travel and subsistence without tax, where the site is 32 km (20 miles) or more from your base: €36.34 a day for four days or less, €181.68 a week for more than four.[1][2] It is a tax ceiling, not a pay entitlement, and not a term of the construction SEO.[6][7] You can't pay it tax-free if you provide the transport or board and lodgings, or hired the worker for that one site only.[1] Report each payment under ERR, on or before you pay it.[3]
€181.68 a worker for the week, not €36.34 times the days.
€36.34 for each day on site, up to €145.36.
Or from the GPO if the employee is Dublin based.
Your transport, your board and lodgings, or one-site recruitment.
The construction SEO sets pay, pension and sick pay. Country money is a tax rule.
As a site-based employee payment, on or before payment.
Set the distance from base, the days on site, whether you provide transport or board, how the worker was engaged, and what you plan to pay. You see whether country money applies, the rate, the ceiling for the whole job, and what happens to any excess.
Revenue's country money limit for one worker, one week, and what happens to anything above it.
Dublin employers who work from the GPO can measure from there, if they do it consistently.[2]
Per worker, for the days entered above. Leave it empty or 0 if you pay nothing.
5 days is more than four: the weekly rate applies, not €36.34 × 5.[1]
The most that can be paid tax-free across the job at this many days a week.
The checker tests one typical week and repeats it for the job. It cannot tell whether a worker is genuinely site-based or whether your records would stand up; for that, see who qualifies and what to keep.
A site-based employee, working at a site far enough from your base, where none of the three exclusions applies.
No fixed base, and duties at different locations, generally for periods longer than a day. Revenue's example is employees in the building industry.
32 km, which Revenue gives as 20 miles. The employee must be employed and working at that site.
Revenue's page says 32 km from the GPO if the employee is Dublin based. The manual says GPO distances can be used in the construction and electrical contracting industries in Dublin, if used consistently.
Your transport, your board and lodgings, or recruitment for one site only. See the next section.
Revenue describes a site-based employee as one who has no fixed base and performs substantive duties for the employer at different locations, generally for periods longer than a day.[2] That is the test, not the job title. The rule is called country money in the construction industry, but the manual is written for site-based employees in general.[1][2]
Employees of intermediary companies are unlikely to be treated as site-based, so check the arrangement before paying country money to someone supplied through one.[2] And the measuring point is your base, not a normal place of work: a site-based employee has no fixed one. If the worker does have a fixed base, the normal place of work rules apply instead.
Two rates, set by how many days the worker is on site that week. The weekly figure is a cap, not a daily rate multiplied up.
Revenue's approved rates are €36.34 a day for four days or less, or €181.68 a week for more than four days.[1] Revenue's manual, in chapter 4.7.2, gives the weekly figure as the most that can be paid tax-free to a site-based employee; the daily figure is on Revenue's site-based employees page.[1][2]
The two rates don't meet in the middle. Four days comes to €145.36; a fifth day moves the week to €181.68, which is €36.32 more, not €36.34 more. Revenue doesn't define a day or a week for this purpose, so count the days each worker is on site in your payroll week and apply the same rule to everyone.
These are the most you can pay tax-free, not an amount you must pay.[1] Revenue's page was published on 9 June 2026, and the manual and its ERR guidance (both reviewed September 2026) give the same weekly figure.[2][3]
Meeting the distance test isn't enough. These three cases, and one more rule for workers who also travel, are where firms slip up.
If the employee doesn't incur the cost of travelling to and from the site, for example because you provide the transport, country money can't be paid tax-free.[1][2]
The one-site exclusion has an exit. If a worker first recruited for one site stays in the same employment and takes up duty at other sites, you can pay country money, up to €181.68, for the second and later sites, as long as all the other criteria are met.[2] As an illustration, a bricklayer hired for one scheme is excluded there. If you then move him to a second site 40 km from your base, the exclusion no longer applies to that site.
If you provide accommodation and meals at the site instead, Revenue is prepared to accept that no taxable benefit arises, if the accommodation isn't the employee's principal private residence, any rent you pay is a reasonable cost for the location, and any meals reimbursement is no more than a reasonable reimbursement of the actual cost.[2] That is a different route with its own records. It can't be combined with country money for the same period.
A separate allowance of up to €5.00 a day. It has four conditions, and it can't be paid alongside other tax-free subsistence.
You provide no facilities for making tea, coffee or other refreshments on the site.
The employee receives no other form of tax-free subsistence payment.
The employee works on site for at least 1.5 hours before and 1.5 hours after the normal lunch break.
The most that can be paid tax-free for the day.
Revenue says the allowance is paid to site-based employees in some sectors of the economy, and all four conditions must be met before it can be paid tax-free.[1][2] It is its own thing: it isn't part of country money and it isn't a civil service rate.
Because of condition 2, you can't pay it on top of country money for the same day. For any day covered by country money, there is no eating on site allowance. It is for site-based employees who aren't being paid country money, for example because the site is under 32 km from base. It is reported under its own ERR subcategory, "eating on site".[3]
No. They are different things from different sources, and one is easily mistaken for the other.
The Order's schedules cover minimum hourly rates of pay, minimum pension contributions and sick pay. We read the text of both the 2023 Order and its 2024 amendment and found no allowance for travel or subsistence, and the WRC's guide to the Order lists the same headings.[6][7][8] The Construction Industry Federation's 2024 submission to the Labour Court describes country money as something many contractors pay, tax-free, "in accordance with Revenue Commissioner Guidelines", and argues that no legally binding travel allowance exists in the sector. That is an employer body's position, but it fits what the Orders say.[9]
So there are two separate questions. Is the worker owed it? That comes from their contract and any agreement that applies to them. Can you pay it without tax? That is Revenue's rule, and this guide. Paying the SEO minimum doesn't create a country money entitlement, and paying country money doesn't satisfy any SEO obligation.
Different test, different measuring point, different rates. Use one basis for a worker and a period.
Revenue's manual doesn't say, for country money, whether civil service subsistence can also be paid for the same days. What it does say points against stacking. The €181.68 is a limit on expenses of travel and subsistence for a site-based employee. The eating on site allowance is barred if any other tax-free subsistence is paid. And site-based work and travelling appointments are separate arrangements, with country money not payable during a travelling appointment.[2]
So choose one basis for each worker and each period, and keep to it. If you think a site needs more tax-free than the limit allows, the manual says to seek guidance from the Revenue office that deals with your business, and a different schedule of rates needs Revenue's approval.[2]
One where the weekly rate applies across a whole job, and one where a flat payment goes over the limit.
A contractor based in Dublin sends a crew of 6 to a site 55 km from its base, for 20 weeks. Nobody is hired for that one site, and the contractor provides no transport or board. Each worker is on site 5 days a week, which is more than four, so the weekly rate applies.[1]
A firm pays every site worker a flat €200.00 a week, whatever the week looks like. One worker is on site for 3 days, so the daily rate applies: 3 × €36.34. The part above that figure isn't country money.[1][2]
Each tax-free payment is reported to Revenue through ROS, in its own subcategory, on or before you pay it.
Before you pay, work out whether the conditions for paying without tax are met. Revenue expects that decision in advance.
Site-based employees (including country money). Eating on site is a separate subcategory.
The amount paid and the date it is paid to the employee.
Report it by the payment date. Revenue's own example has a €181.68 weekly payment made monthly.
Records of country money payments, for six years.
Revenue's ERR guidance lists the travel and subsistence subcategories, and "site-based employees (including country money)" is one of them. You report the amount paid and the date paid.[3] The report is due on, or before, the payment date.[3][4] In Revenue's example, Joe's employer pays him €181.68 a week on top of his salary, once a month for each week he worked in the previous month. It must give Joe the details on or before it pays him, and report the payment in an ERR submission as a site-based employee payment, with the subcategory, amount and date.[3]
From 1 January 2027, Budget 2027 gives employers the option to report by the 14th of the following month instead. Until then, and if you keep your current process, the rule is on or before payment. See ERR reporting deadlines.
Revenue says to keep records of country money payments for six years, and doesn't list the fields.[1] We'd keep the site address, the distance from base and how you measured it, the days each worker was on site, how the worker was engaged, a note that the three exclusions were checked, and the rate paid.
Revenue's pages and manuals, the Statute Book, and one employer body's submission, marked as its own view.
Checked against these sources on 12 October 2026. Rates and rules can change with new circulars and Revenue guidance. This is general information, not tax advice; take advice on your own situation.
Expense.ie tags site allowances such as country money so they land in the right ERR category, keeps each payment's records for six years, and keeps them apart from mileage and civil service subsistence.
Team plan from €29/month. Card required, nothing charged until day 7.