Paying Property Tax Weekly Could Cost You 58% More

Payment of Property Tax by installments  at Post Offices sounds like a good idea for some people. There are many home-owners on pensions or  low incomes that like to pay bills in smaller installments  . Many elderly people  use a Post Office every week to pick up their pension – and the Post Office is handy for paying many bills such as Electricity , Gas , Telephone, Bins etc.  Some people  might assume that because there is no charge for paying all the other bills – that it will be the same for the Property Tax.

But there will be a fee of €1 applied by An Post to every Local Property Tax payment.

In the case of someone in a band 1 property where the annual tax is €90 – they would pay €1.73 property tax a week . The addition of a €1 processing fee will add an extra  58% to the total amount. Over a full year the extra €52 in fees will increase the tax from €90 to €142.

For someone in a Band 2 property – the weekly Property Tax will be €4.33 – so a €1 processing fee from An Post will mean an extra 23% for them.
It would be cheaper (if your income is low enough) to defer the payment  even with the added 4%  annual interest !

The An Post press office  told us that the €1 transaction fee “covers the costs to An Post and its branch and contractor post offices of providing the payment service on behalf of Revenue across the retail network, six days a week. “

There are other cheaper options available for people who want to pay weekly.

Payzone outlets will accept Property Tax payments too – and they are slightly cheaper than An Post – they will charge 75c per Property Tax transaction if the amount paid is €50 or less   This still  works out at a 43% bigger total payment  for someone in the lowest band. It would work out at €39 over a full year paying every week.
There are about 8000 payzone outlets across the country in many shops and garages.  Find one here

Omnivend kiosks will be the cheapest option  for weekly installments – but there aren’t that many of them at the moment (about 250 nationwide) . You can find one near you here . They will charge just 4% of the payment amount  – so they will be the cheapest option for most people  wanting to pay weekly (as long as they live in a house worth less than €700k ).  A fee of just 7 cent will be applied by Omnivend  to a Property Tax payment of €1.73  a week – or €3.50 over a full year.

There are plenty more payment options available for the Property Tax – see here for details of Payment Methods .

Unless you are near a shop with an  Omnivend payment kiosk you might need to think again if you were planning on paying weekly installments.

Salary deductions will be free from cost as will deductions from state payments (where possible)  A one off payment from your bank  or debit card is only going to cost a maximum of 30c (bank fees) .
Paying by credit card in one lump sum is possible online – but a fee of 1.49% is charged for that. (A Property Tax  payment of €1395 would incur transaction fees of €20.78).

You could choose to pay it all in cash in one lump sum – this would cost a €1 at Post  Offices and maximum €2 at Payzone outlets and 4% of the payment amount at Omnivend. (€4 for every €100) .