Immigration information is a huge sticking point with people moving to Ireland, and with almost 30 years of experience in Irish immigration, Tom Ryan knows the ins and outs of the Irish Immigration System better than anyone.

Tom shares detailed information on how the Irish immigration process works, what criteria the Department of Justice is looking for, and crucial tips to make your application as smooth as possible. Tom also breaks down the financial requirements needed for retirees, explains "Stamp 0" and the other stamp types for migrants, and shares his advice on how to maximize the chances of your application being approved.

If you're thinking about immigrating to Ireland for any reason, my interview with Tom Ryan is a great starting point to set your expectations and inform you about the immigration process.

There's even a special offer of a free 30-minute consultation with Ireland Relocations! So if you're in the planning stages, send an email to grainne.convery@croningroup.ie and mention "Taxbytes For Expats" to take advantage of this offer.

Main Topics discussed in this Episode:

1. Know Your Visa Path: Irish and EU nationals don’t need to go through immigration procedures to retire in Ireland, but non-EU nationals do. It's important to plan ahead and understand the application process, which can take up to four months.
2. Income and Financial Requirements: Retirees need to prove sufficient income—€50,000 annually per individual, or €100,000 for a couple—as well as access to a lump sum of €320,000 to meet immigration requirements.
3. Stamp Zero Explained: If you're retiring in Ireland as a non-EU national, you'll need to secure a Stamp Zero, which does not allow for economic activity, meaning you'll need to be self-sufficient with no reliance on public resources.
4. Family Migration: Irish nationals can bring non-EU spouses or elderly parents to Ireland under family reunification policies. However, income thresholds apply, and the process involves several layers of documentation and proof of resources.
5. Application Timing is Key: Start your renewal process six months before your permit’s expiration to avoid falling out of status. Missing deadlines can delay applications and affect your immigration status, but the Department of Justice may offer some flexibility depending on circumstances.

Website: https://ireland-relocations.com/

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Taxbytes for Expats is brought to you by ExpatTaxes.ie. If you're considering moving to or from Ireland and would like support with your taxes, book a consultation today: https://expattaxes.ie/services-and-pricing/.

Mentioned in this episode:

Check out ExpatTaxes.ie to get your Tax sorted!

Welcome to tax bytes for expats. The top tax tips

you want to know as an expat, the podcast is here to help

answer the common queries and concerns expats have when moving to

or from Ireland. Complex taxes explained

simply, we'll focus on the irish and international

tax issues to be aware of to ensure you save time,

money and stress. Hi

everyone, I hope you're well. Welcome to today's episode. We're

thrilled today to have an immigration expert from Ireland

relocations, Tom Ryan, joining us. Tom brings nearly

30 years of experience in immigration law, having worked with a major

scottish law firm and a national ngo before returning to Ireland in

2004 to address the growing need he saw for expert immigration

services and Ireland relocations. They now offer unparalleled

expertise in navigating's Ireland immigration system. So we're going

to dive into two key areas today, the first being retirement to

Ireland and the second being family migration. These are areas we think are

relevant for our listeners, so we'll cover how the irish immigration system works,

the assessment criteria for applications, and tips for our listeners

to enhance their chances of success if they are applying

to relocate to Ireland. I'll introduce Tom in a second, but

I'd like to kick off by saying that Ireland relocations have very kindly made

a special offer for our listeners. Anybody listening to this episode can enjoy a

complimentary 30 minutes consultation if they mention this podcast

and they can visit Ireland relocations.com. more

info in the show notes but without further ado. Tom very welcome

to tax bytes for expats. Thank you very much for coming on to talk to

us. Thank you indeed for the invitation. It's great to have

you on. So maybe I gave you a little bit of an introduction there. Tell

us a little bit about how you got into this space.

Oh yeah, it's a long time ago now, I guess. Formerly I was an

academic, I was working in Edinburgh and I ended up working with a lot

of non European Union nationals. I suppose people would be coming

in from the Gulf states, Iraq, Iran to study. I

spent a lot of time with them at the time as a teacher. Increasingly I

was also doing visa work because education in the

UK was a big business in the nineties and I had to

make a decision at some point in my career as to whether to remain teaching

or move into more administrative spaces.

So in the end, to cut a long story short,

I ended up working with an NGO in asylum and human rights

law for a number of years and then a law firm in the same

capacity before coming to Ireland in 2004,

or coming back to Ireland, since I'm from here. Originally, Ireland was a

very empty space, I suppose from the point of view of immigration providers in the

early nineties, it was a highly developed industry within the UK.

I mean, in Scotland, where I was, we're looking at maybe 100 and 5200

suppliers. And in Ireland, for a population of four and a half million,

that's not a lot of folk doing the business. Not a lot. So, I mean,

obviously, since Brexit, most particularly, we've seen a lot

of people coming into the market space. Many uk law firms

have rebadged as irish law firms in order to retain access to the

European Union markets. And they brought with them expertise in relation to immigration

service provision, which I recognize as

partly my own background and training, because it's where I was formed

originally, in Edinburgh, I suppose. One question I have for

anybody listening, what would you describe as an immigration system

and how it works, particularly in an irish context? Immigration

systems are systems of rules that a state would set up either

on its own or in concert with neighboring countries. And it's

used effectively regulate border territory, aiming to protect

its citizens, but also to protect those who wish to enter Ireland. It's a two

way process in that regard. In irish terms, the immigration

system works on a tripartite system, if you like. There is an

employment permit system that's regulated by the Department of Enterprise. Then following

that, if you require a visa that's worked up through the Department of

Justice, and following arrival in Ireland, you need to register

your residence with the immigration authorities, either

in Dublin or in the divisional headquarters of the gardee in the

area where you're living in the state. That whole process, since I've arrived back

20 years ago, has become far more systemized, concentrated and brought

onto digital platforms where beforehand it was very much a paper

driven exercise. The irish system in that respect is very,

very broad because it's addressing evolving needs of the state to address

neighbour shortages, but also to address emerging family needs as

populations move around. So it's become a complex business,

immigration. Very difficult. To summarize, as being asked to prepare for this

podcast, I had to think, okay, how and where do I apply the razor

on this one? You know, because there is just so many ifs and whats that

need to be considered when you're. When you're looking at trying to describe what the

process is. So we thought, okay, we're just going to have to take a hatchet

and just cut out stuff like work permits and such like just now, because I

can be here till 09:00 tonight. You know, we just don't got to get

away. So here we are. I totally concentrate on

these two areas because they possibly match what your listeners

profiles might be. You know, sort of more private individuals who

are thinking about personal migration rather than corporate driven migration,

which is handled in a different way. I

think you're spot on. I think a lot of our listeners

are planning a move often independent of their work

situation. You know, they might be retired. Maybe if we

start with that cohort, maybe we start with the kind of

people planning to retire in Ireland. What options? Broadly. And I

completely appreciate what you said about it being a massive area. Succinctly or as

best as possible. How would you summarize that? I'll do my best.

Okay. Well, I suppose what we do is we split the cohort into two.

For starters, if you're irish or European Union or the

EEA national, if you're a UK national, swiss national,

there is no immigration criteria associated with retirement. You can retire

here without necessarily considering the Department of Justice in your planning.

I'm going to abbreviate those nationalities because I can't constantly repeat

those people all the time. So I'm going to say Irish EU whenever

I say anybody who's a non European Union national, and I'm either going to say

Irish EU or non irish EU in this regard, just so that

we. We don't have to sort of constantly,

constantly define ourselves. Yeah, it is.

It's a long one to have to repeat. So that's the abbreviation

as we work forward in this. So there are two cohorts. There's

effectively the irish EU and the non irish EU. Those

who are in the first don't have to consider an immigration dimension to their

decision. Those in the second obviously do. And the Department of Justice has set up

a distinct application route to cover this particular

cohort of individuals in recent years. Prior to that, it was

a paper driven exercise. I remember going into the department with

candidates for an application to do a retirement

visa for Ireland, and we literally had to go in and stand in front of

an immigration officer. And I had them previously bring everything, all their

financial documentation, and we stood and we leafed through it in front of the

immigration officer and effectively got the stamps that we needed to get.

Was a conversation done in a kind of informal manner, you know, but

there's a distinct application form now that you would use to deal with it. So

dealing with irish EU applications, you go through a system of pre

clearance within the Department of Justice, which is a process

whereby you prepare an application on a standard form and

it gets submitted to the department before you travel to Ireland.

So you need to have this done as part of your planning, really. And

immigration people ought to give this process time

in terms of planning a move to Ireland. In immigration terms, the process

currently takes four months to process through the Department of Justice.

So give it time, plan it in with that. If you're a non

visa required national, once you have been issued that

letter, you would require to apply for a visa through the

embassy where you're living. So, for instance, if you're living in India,

for instance, you then require to apply to through the irish visa office in New

Delhi to get the visa in order to actually travel to Ireland.

If you are non visa required, let's say, for instance, you are a us

citizen. Once you've been issued the letter through that pre clearance

process, you would be able to travel to Ireland and present the

letter to an immigration officer at the desk at Dublin airport. They would stamp you

in for 90 days with the instruction that you get yourself registered in

the country. And. Sorry, Tom, what's that stamp called, the one that you

referenced? Well, effectively, it's a 90 day stamp. You get. Now, what

you're aiming to get from the Department of Justice is known as a stamp

zero. There are a range of stamps in Ireland covering

various categories of activity. The most popular ones

or the most frequently referenced ones in our work would be stamps

01234. Those four out of possibly six

stamps, and they define particular forms of

activity that you're allowed to engage with in the country. Stamp zero,

perhaps a clues in the name does not allow you any form of economic activity

whatsoever. So you are bringing your resources with you if you're retiring

to Ireland. Now, what you do on arriving in Ireland is you

send your passport to the Department of Justice. They

will stamp in your passport and then instruct you to register your

residence with, in effect, the Guardian National Immigration

Bureau, be it in Dublin and Berkeley, at the Department of Justice,

will be in one of the divisional headquarters at the garde throughout the

state. So depending on where you're living, is where you'd actually do your registrations, how.

Long would your passport be gone for? I'm just thinking practically, if someone has to

send their passport away, they're usually thinking, oh, how long is this going to be?

I think it would be reasonably fast. Okay. I would anticipate if they're asking for

the passport, for instance, you're looking at perhaps

a week or two, to be honest with you. If there was any significant

delay associated with the processing of a passport that they

hold, you can ask for it temporarily back so that you could deal with

whatever you need to deal with. Or, you know, they simply come in and have

you in the office and deal with you over the counter almost in order to

facilitate the return of your passport. I've seen that done in countless types of situations

where somebody needs to withdraw the passport. Increasingly what they're doing is

streamlining the process whereby they'll ask you to send certified copies of

your passport to the Department of Justice, and they don't

ask you to surrender your passport until they absolutely need to stop it sort of

thing, or they don't need to stop it at all, because increasingly they're moving a

lot of this onto digital platforms anyway. But in terms of the

registration, once you have been through the process of

applying for pre clearance, getting your visa if necessary, traveling

into Ireland, getting your passport stamped by the Department of Justice,

with this retirement conditions, you can then get yourself registered

and get what's known as an irish residence permit, an IRP card to

the credit card sized card which is shipping it, and your

photograph on it and your registration number, and that's you good to go for

twelve months. However, what we would encourage people to do is to

keep this relationship with the Department of Justice as a live consideration

in your mind, because you're going to have to renew that on the twelve month

anniversary. And again, you're looking at a four month processing thing. So,

you know, six months in, you start thinking about getting your paperwork organized

again in relation to the renewal of a yemenite stamp. Zero.

And just to kind of my lack of understanding,

so does that person, can they rely on the irish healthcare system in that year?

Do they have entitlement to any benefits or do they need to come with

foreign health insurance? They need to come pretty much with everything. I'll let you know

what the criteria are associated with this. You do

need to have a reasonably hefty amount of resources behind you in order to

retire to Ireland. You are going to need health insurance up to

VHI level d. You're going to need to prepare health

declarations, because the department, in context of

anybody over a certain age coming to Ireland, they are deeply conscious of the

potential raw that there may be on public resources for somebody who may have health

difficulties in the longer run. So they do look at these

questions empathetically to an extent, but also they have

to make the decisions in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, really.

So they will be looking at the level of resource requirement that might be associated

with somebody present in Ireland, I they'll need to have an annual income.

An individual will need to have an income of €50,000 net of annual

expenses per year for a couple that doubles. So, you know, they will need

to be thinking about those kind of figures in terms of retiring here. They

also need to have access to a lump sum of

320,000, approximately. They

benchmark that roughly on the price of a house in Ireland, and

that's what it's currently being assessed. And I've had a look through various

industries, suppliers to see what, what kind of figures people are coming up with. But

you'd want to have a robust average figure of that amount

in your account to demonstrate that you have sufficient financial resources on

an ongoing basis to cope with any unforeseen major expenses or

circumstances that might lie. You need. In the process of

applying and renewing, you need to verify your finances by way of a

financial report that's certified by an accountancy firm in Ireland

that will need to demonstrate your projected outgoings and expense patterns on a

monthly basis. So it's not straightforward in the sense that you do

need to be on top of the detail when you're doing this type of application.

I'm just thinking about some of our clients and the fact pattern they might have.

Is it rigid that you have €50,000 worth of income? If you

were cash rich to the point that you didn't have an income but you had

lots of money, does that rule

you out? No, to be honest. I mean, we're in the business

of looking at how people can do this. So, for instance, if

somebody has a series of investments that can actually guarantee certain

types of income on a monthly basis, and they've got investments that provide

particular returns that can be averaged out, it can be

put together. I mean, you're looking at combinations of pensions, of private income sources,

maybe rental incomes. These all need to be consolidated to see

how the income pattern looks. And an accountant needs to say, yeah, this

is a financially robust proposal. You're not going to be reliant on the

salary, so you're looking at what private income sources you have. So

I would be inclined to be flexible in terms of what's counted in, but it

needs to be fairly solid, if you know what I mean, at least for the

twelve months that you're here. And it'll need to be sustained for any subsequent

periods to hear. So, you know, like I said, it's a live

issue, keep the line open with your accountancy firm and keep these

things pretty much on your in tray whilst you're here. So,

in a sense, I suppose, given the level of attention that you're giving to your

finances, you're perhaps more semi retired than retired. But there you go.

That's the way it works in Ireland at the moment. The other question I was

going to ask, because it comes up quite frequently, would

be the scenario you've mentioned

alludes to. Let's say it's a couple,

both require visas. Does what you've said? I would expect

what you've said look slightly different if you have a returning irish

person who's married, for example, a us person. So maybe if you

can tell us how that process looks. I think the process you've explained is

where, for example, a married couple, neither of them have the right to live and

work in Ireland. Yes. I mean, you're getting involved in more family migration

territory. When you're looking at that, an irish person obviously has an entitlement

to reside in Ireland if they're bringing a

spouse. If they're retired, the likelihood is they're bringing the

spouse alone. I think it's a question then, of looking where the income pattern would

be that will be more associated with visa applications

for this type of application. The

government policy that was published in 2016 and has

been updated on an ad hoc basis since, talks about

if you're bringing in elderly parents, you're bringing in, and you're potentially

bringing in an income of about 60,000 a year. I'm

mapping that onto this particular scenario, because what we would want to do

is to benchmark an application in a robust fashion, looking at how

they treat other similar situations, if you like. So bringing in an elderly person

who's a parent of an applicant or a spouse, that's the sort of figure you'd

be benchmarking for a sort of a dependent

person who may be post retirement age. I would

be looking at that kind of income level. They would go through potentially

either a visa application if they were visa required. So if you're bringing

somebody, let's say for the sake of argument, for China or India, that's a spouse

which retired, you go through the visa process, and that would be kind of the

income territory we're looking at there. If you are non visa

required and married, you would probably be going through

just coming in, presenting to Ireland, and then going to

register with the Department of Justice in Dublin.

And do you go onto a different stamp then? Yeah, you would go on

to. Notionally, if you're a spouse of an irish citizen, you go on to

stamp four, right, which is a

stamp that allows you to work. I mean, you're not coming in as a retiree,

you're coming in as the trailing spouse of an irish national or a

European Union national for that. So there you're

looking at, they're going to be coming in and accruing the rights largely speak that

are associated with the citizen. It becomes slightly more complicated in

european terms because you're using potentially European

Union regulations are quite liberal in many respects, which don't

actually specify income levels for a particular family. But

again, you want to be on top of that detail, really when you're preparing an

application because visa officer wants to have any

questions answered in the application rather than having to ask them themselves.

You know, I always try to do that. We try and stress test applications before

they go anywhere near a decision maker. So we will be asking about

income and establish that it can be

is security fix on the viable level when they're coming to Ireland.

So how or what would you recommend maximizes

the success for an application in any of these situations? I suppose,

generally speaking, what we would. Do is suggest

that you speak to an expert. To be honest, don't try and do it yourself.

I would honestly suggest that because it's a

question of cross referring the regulations to see how the regulations talk to each other.

So, for instance, if you refer simply to the value reunification

policy that's eight years old, figures in it aren't up to date. So you need

to be cross referring with what other activities going on within the immigration

system to see where benchmarks truly sit at this stage. So speak to

an expert, delegate the running of a case to an expert such

as ourselves or whoever you might want to use. You

need to identify the correct road or route that you're going through and

that you do meet the requirements associated with that route and

particularly in the area of finance, and that the right documentation is

in place and to the required standard as well. So, for instance,

marriage certificates, do they require outpost deals or not? Do they

require certified translation or not? If you're bringing

dependent family in, for instance, who might be adopted children under

a certain age, you certainly need to be talking about adoption papers,

again, certified, possibly burying an apple steel, and indeed court

documents for situations of divorce where there might be a blended

family situation coming to Ireland, there you're going to be looking at, you know,

just covering all the angles with the necessary papers, thinking about it in

the round. Why is an immigration officer going to ask what sort of comfort can

you give them in terms of information and documentation? So anybody

who's done this type of application will kind of try and keep ahead of

the wave like a surfer on this, and just have the right questions

to ask while we're stress testing and setting the application up. I always talk

about giving an application anxious scrutiny in the first sort of hour or so

of receiving instructions and see how it works. And if it's a

goer, fine. You're confident because you don't want to be visiting situations

maybe a week in and realizing that, you know, maybe we ought to have asked

a few other questions about this one. It's. It gets stressful when you're having to

ask those questions at the tail end of a process, definitely. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And perhaps this is not necessarily an area you guys focus on,

but I suppose generically, generally speaking, in the cases we've

spoken about, is there a progression, a

defined progression, to apply for an irish passport, or is that

contingent on the type of stamp and visa that an individual might have? It would

be, yeah. A stamp zero is inherently

a temporary stamp. I mean, the application process

has temporary in its title. So that stamp, the stamp

zero doesn't allow progression. You'll be on that one for as long as you remain

in Ireland. The progressions are associated largely with

either workers who come to Ireland on stamp ones,

or students who migrate into the workforce

can start accumulating. Reckonable residents for citizenship

applications once they migrate onto either what's known as a one g

stamp or move themselves onto a one stamp, which is associated with

a work permit and also family related migration.

There's progression associated with those types in the sense that, let's say

a spouse who might formally have been on what's known as a stamp, three, which

is a spousal dependent stamp, really, which didn't allow for very much else

in terms of activity other than being a trailing spouse. But they could progress

to what's known as a stamp for ultimately, which is what

most workers are looking for, which allows you to work and reside in Ireland

without the need for a work permit. Once you've accumulated 60

months unqualifying residence in Ireland, you would be

able to apply for an irish citizenship certificate and thereafter a

passport. There are a few catches associated with the process in that it's

highly detailed because you're expected to produce your bills and your receipts

for six or for five years for any of the qualifying period

that you've been here. And also you need to buy in any

breaks in your residence in Ireland, in terms of losing

status by virtue of changing from one stamp to another, you might drop out of

status for even a few weeks. That residence doesn't get counted.

So it's very, very important to keep yourself, what I refer to

as street legal, whereby you keep the stamp current and you renew it in

time so that you don't drop out of status even for a short period of

time. So I just want to think about if

somebody hasn't done that and something expires.

Is that a problem, I assume? Yes.

Well, yeah, it is. I mean, I like a lot of

situations. The irish immigration system is carrying

a lot of load, if you know what I mean. I counted up the number

of visa applications and went through the irish visa office in

Delhi there last week just out of curiosity to see what the numbers were.

But we do a lot of work with that area and

47,000 applications went through the visa office in Delhi between

January and last week, of which I think maybe

7.5% were refused. So the rest of them have valid

visas so they can travel. I would suspect the vast, vast

majority of these are indian students going into master's

programs or indian engineers going into the high tech industries here.

So I tend to view it as a positive

for the irish economy because the skills these guys have are

incredible. They are amazing. They are quite literally rocket scientists, a lot of these

guys. So your immigration system is fairly busy,

if that's one jurisdiction's levels of business as

things currently stand. And what that tends to do is it

tends to overload offices with work. So processing

times spin out in four months. In my

mind, it's a long period of time. If you're applying

for a European Union residence card, for instance, as the spouse of an

irish or an Eudehe citizen coming back to Ireland from another european

country, you're looking at a process ultimately to last

twelve months before the application process completes in

its entirety. So the Department of sets put a lot of interim measures

to cope with this situation. If a person comes into the

country and their card expires, they will

have to have applied for a replacement card before

the expiry date on the cardinal. Now, if the card doesn't issue

until after that expiry date, Department of the justice

gives a discretionary allowance whereby you can remain

on your conditions surrounding the grant of the first

card until your second card issues. So they actually don't

interfere with your situation because they realize that you've fallen out of status,

no fault of your own, and they will allow that and that's a product of

the COVID experience. They will allow that to run on for eight weeks from the

expiry date of your card. So it gives them two months to issue you the

card so you're secure in an immigration

sense. In Ireland, if you do not renew your card

until after your expiry date, and that may

happen, you will fall out of status. But the department,

it implies in its remarks that it'll straighten you out when

you apply for a new card, if you have the necessary supporting

documentation to allow you to continue your registration. In

most cases, that is when a work permit issues. But if there's a delay

to a work permit issuing, technically, you can't apply for your new card until

you've got your new work permit, so you can fall out of status. But

again, the Department of Enterprise and the Department of Justice take a slightly flexible

attitude in relation to this, in the sense that they

will allow you a discretionary period for the

process to work through so that you can get your documentation. If there's evidence

that you've made every effort to secure documentation in time,

and you won't necessarily be penalized by an

overly long processing period as a result of that. That is

something that we have seen quite a lot in, I suppose, post Covid,

really, where processing times were disrupted

by lack of manpower such likes. I think that was

a common theme across many, many government

departments. There's so much to what you said, and I think much of it

is of massive interest to a lot of the people who are listening.

They either are planning a move, you know, independent of any

family member being irish or have, you know, a

spouse or family member coming with them. You know, just going back to

what you said about, you know, the early nineties or the early two thousands were

a very different time in Ireland. And I know even, you know, our

generation has, has taken advantage of immigration into other

countries. It's really interesting to hear how it works here. And I think

as well as EU nationals, we don't think of Ireland as a place

that has immigration obligations. But of course it does. It's just that

us irish people, we don't come across it. So thank you so

much for that explanation. And I think as well,

anybody listening is going to be very keen to look at the website

Ireland relocations.com. the link will be in the show

notes and just for a bit more information. Ireland Relocations

offers a full range of relocation services, including home

searches, school searches and settling in services. I know

you work with both business corporate clients and private clients. Tom,

so that'll be of interest to anybody listening. Anybody listening can

refer to the website or reach out directly to

Graniaconraryronia

Conraryongroup ieinhouse. Again, we'll drop that

into the show notes. Tom, thank you so much for your time and

for your detailed explanations. I feel much more enlightened about

how it all works. It's definitely a complicated process. Thank you. Look,

Ronaldo, it's all pleasure.

Thanks for listening to tax bytes for expats. Please do leave a

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