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Permit Pulse, monthly

Permit Pulse: January 2026

Ireland issued 3,225 employment permits in January 2026, up 32% on December and down 15% on January 2025.

Who took themPrint or save as PDF

The month in numbers

January 2026 at a glance

This month

3,225

Up 32% on the month before

Same month last year

3,798

Down 15% on it

Year to date

3,225

Down 15% on 2025

Employers with a permit this month

1,633

338 for the first time

Twelve months to January

Jan 26
3,225
Dec
2,440
Nov
2,889
Oct
3,092
Sep
2,627
Aug
2,661
Jul
2,180
Jun
1,684
May
1,820
Apr
1,668
Mar
3,191
Feb 25
2,994

Permits issued per month, all employers, all permit types.

What the numbers say

Ireland issued 3,225 employment permits in January 2026, up 32% on December and down 15% on January 2025.

That brings the year to 3,225 permits, down 15% on the same point in 2025.

1,633 employers received at least one permit in the month, 338 of them for the first time.

Circet Networks (Ireland) Limited took the most, with 64.

Busiest counties: Dublin (1,136), Cork (265), Meath (123).

Who took them

The 15 employers issued the most permits in January

Open an employer for its month-by-month pattern, its address and how to approach it.

#EmployerCountyJanMonth beforeJan 20252026 to date
1Circet Networks (Ireland) LimitedDublin64421864
2Applus Inspection Services Ireland LimitedDublin400540
3Google Ireland LimitedDublin37263737
4Cork University HospitalCork324532
5Resilience Healthcare LimitedClare288328
6Costern Unlimited CompanyDublin2783227
7Kel-Tech Engineering (Waterford) LimitedWaterford2721127
8Redwood Extended Care Facility Unlimited CompanyMeath2734027
9Farm Solutions Ltd260126
10Ernst & Young2511825
11NT R&D Logistics Systems LimitedWexford200020
12Accenture LimitedDublin19112919
13InisCare LimitedDublin182818
14Intel Ireland LimitedKildare172417
15WuXi Biologics Ireland LimitedLouth1612516

New to permits

338 employers took their first ever permit in January

A first permit usually means a company has just found out it can hire this way. These are the ones with the most.

EmployerCountyPermits
J.S. McCarthy LtdDublin15
Padraig Brady Construction LimitedCavan6
Brindley Healthcare Services Limited (Manor)5
C Sullivan Stone LimitedMeath5
Anode Electrical LtdDublin4
AtkinsRéalis Ireland Limited4
Beaumont Hospital Board4
Linehan Civil Engineering LimitedCork4
PricewaterhouseCoopers ServicesDublin4
Sparrow Productions DACDublin4

Where

Permits by county in January

Counted from the employers' registered addresses, so a head office in Dublin carries the permits for sites elsewhere.

Dublin (465 employers)
1,136
Cork (122 employers)
265
Meath (40 employers)
123
Kildare (39 employers)
88
Limerick (38 employers)
81
Galway (38 employers)
65
Waterford (17 employers)
63
Clare (21 employers)
62
Kerry (18 employers)
49
Wexford (16 employers)
48

Earlier months

Every Permit Pulse

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Source: Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Employment Permit Statistics. Contains Irish Public Sector Data licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. A permit issued to a company is a record of a past application. It is not a vacancy and not a promise of sponsorship.

Is this your organisation? To update what is shown here, or for more information, email us. The figures come from the published register; we cannot change the register itself, only how it is presented here.

Permit Pulse is compiled by Sama Talent Group from the Department's published permits-by-company figures. Figures for a month can be revised in later publications.