Ireland: how to start or move your gaming business there in 2021

The material was prepared by Radislav Repin, a lawyer at Versus.legal.

Radislav Repin
Also below you will find a link to our comprehensive guide to foreign incorporation and a webinar entry about six popular jurisdictions.

Beautiful views, famous pubs, a wide IT community – Ireland seems to be a wonderful jurisdiction where there is everything to start your IT/GameDev business. Or, for example, to transport what has already been created. In Ireland, you can find the headquarters of the largest industrial companies. In particular, the country has become the home of Playrix, a giant that develops mobile games. The founders of Playrix, as you know, are our compatriots Dmitry and Igor Bukhman. In addition, the main European offices of Google, Microsoft and Apple are located in Ireland.

Why Ireland is a good place to relocate a business:

• a fairly low income tax rate is 12.5%;
• in Ireland, there is a special regime (Knowledge Development Box), which involves a reduction in income tax to 6.25%;
• a developed electronic system of public services (evaluate, for example, the websites of the registrar of companies www.cro.ie and the tax department www.revenue.ie );
• flexible legal system. Ireland is one of the many legal systems included in the family of common law (common law, Anglo–Saxon system). It so happened that the developed legal systems of the common law system are known all over the world for their flexibility, and judges (due to special historical reasons) for their special independence and impartiality;
• Ireland is not included in the black lists of offshore companies.

It is important to consider:

• registration of the company is carried out only in electronic form;
• the law (the Companies Act) contains an important and specific rule: The registration authority must be sure that the company will operate in Ireland. Otherwise, he will refuse to register;
• information about the beneficial owners of the company must be disclosed. Such information will be public (rbo.gov.ie );
• the law requires a real office. Unfortunately, a mailbox or a virtual office is not enough;
• according to our estimates obtained from consultants who actually work with the Irish business, the full-fledged maintenance of the company is quite expensive.

Creating a company

The most common form of doing business is Private Company Limited by Shares, an analogue of our LLC.

As mentioned above, registration is carried out in electronic form. Paper statements are not used.

Before registering, we recommend checking the name of the future company – this can be done here: core.cro.ie .

In practice, registration takes 5-15 working days.

The state fee is €50. Also, for €25, you can reserve the name of the future company for 28 days.

In addition, registration of the company as a tax payer will be required, which, according to local consultants, takes from 1 to 2 months in practice.

There are no special requirements for the authorized capital. Therefore, you can issue only 1 share for €1.

The register of shareholders is open. In addition, information about beneficial owners is subject to public disclosure (the register of such owners is posted here: rbo.gov.ie ).

Management

The governance structure is standard for common law jurisdictions:

1. Shareholders’ Meeting (sole shareholder). The meeting can also be held remotely.
2. Director. They can be an adult individual, citizenship does not matter. However, it should be taken into account that if none of the directors (and there may be several of them) lives in the EEA, then when registering a company, it is necessary to provide a security (bond) in the amount of € 25 thousand – this amount will serve as security in case of fines.
3. Secretary. The secretary can be either an individual or a legal entity. At the same time, if there is only one director in the company, then the functions of the secretary must necessarily be assigned to an individual.

Financial statements

Must comply with IFRS standards.

For small companies and micro–companies, concessions have been made – submission of condensed reports and exemption from the report of external auditors.

A small company is a company that must meet at least two criteria at once:

• the balance is not more than €6 million;
• turnover no more than €12 million;
• the number of employees is not more than 50.

The same approach remains applied to micro-companies, but different quantitative indicators are used.:

• the balance is not more than €350 thousand;
• turnover no more than €700 thousand;
• the number of employees is not more than 10.

Opening a bank account

In practice, opening an account requires a personal presence in the bank’s office and a conversation with the manager (KYC procedure).

In addition, sometimes you can find information about the presentation of requirements by banks to disclose the sources of funds credited to the account. As a rule, this applies to large amounts from individuals.

Taxation

Income tax in Ireland is 12.5%. However, if the company receives income from the development of computer games, programs or patents created as a result of R&D, then it is possible to activate the IP Box (KD Box) and reduce the profit rate to 6.25%.

VAT is 23%.

The personal income tax rate ranges from 20% to 40%. So, if the income exceeds a certain threshold (€35,300 – €44,300, depending on the state of marriage and the presence of children), then a tax of 40% falls on the excess part.

It is noteworthy that a resident must pay tax on income from any source, no matter where in the world he is.

Migration

There are several types of visas that are valid for 90 days:

• transit – €25;
• one–time – €60;
• multiple – €100.

It is possible to obtain a residence permit under the immigrant investor program. To do this, you need to invest € 1 million in an Irish enterprise, invest €2 million in a real estate investment fund (REIT) or make €500 thousand as a donation to a socially useful project.

Naturalization (obtaining citizenship) is also possible in Ireland. In general, in order to get it, you need to be a respectable person who, out of the last 9 years, 5 legally resided in Ireland.

Here is some general information about Ireland.

You can find more detailed information on the pages of our guide to foreign incorporation for IT/GameDev projects. A recording of the webinar on the company’s operations in the most popular jurisdictions, which was conducted by VERSUS.legal specialists and invited experts, can be found on the event’s Facebook page.

And pay attention to our previous materials about opening a company in Cyprus and Delaware, protecting your game from cloning, the legal features of developing children’s games and the nuances of launching games in China.