Revenue Commissioners
Employment Investment Incentive (EII)
aka EII, EII Scheme
Income tax relief for investors who put new equity into a qualifying SME, letting founders raise capital from private investors at preferential after-tax cost.
Companies can raise up to EUR5,000,000 lifetime under EII rules
Last reviewed May 2026
What this scheme funds
EII gives an Irish individual investor income tax relief at their marginal rate on a cash investment of up to EUR500,000 per year (or EUR1m per year for investments held for 10+ years) into a qualifying SME issuing fresh shares. The relief is split into two tranches under current rules: the first portion in the year of investment, the balance after a qualifying holding period (typically four years). For the company raising the cash, EII is the most common Irish-domestic angel-investment vehicle - investors get back roughly 40% of their ticket through their tax return, making the after-tax cost of capital materially cheaper than vanilla equity. The scheme was simplified by Finance Act 2024 to align EII / SCI / Start-Up Capital Incentive into a single set of rules; always check the live Revenue guidance because eligibility and percentages have shifted multiple times in recent years.
Application window
Rolling - investors claim in their personal income tax return
Who can apply
- •Trading or pre-trading Irish SME conducting a qualifying activity
- •Less than 250 employees, turnover under EUR50 million
- •Issues fully paid-up ordinary shares to qualifying investors
- •Uses the funds within the prescribed period for a qualifying purpose
How it typically funds software
- •Software start-ups commonly raise their first EUR250k-EUR500k seed round on EII to keep dilution low
- •Funds typically pay engineering salaries, initial SaaS stack and customer-acquisition spend
Worth knowing
Always take legal and tax advice before structuring an EII round. Mis-structured shares (e.g. preference shares with non-standard rights) can disqualify the investor's relief retrospectively.
Software categories this can fund
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