VAT on clothing · 2026

VAT on clothes and shoes in Ireland

Adult clothing is at 23%. Children's clothing and footwear for under-11s is at 0%. That one rule explains most price tags, and the edge cases are about sizes, not ages. The calculator is preset to remove 23% from a shop price; the rules from Revenue follow.

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Amount including VAT

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VAT rate

Standard rate. Most goods and services: furniture, motor vehicles, tyres, batteries, adult clothing, alcohol, soft drinks, solicitor and consultancy fees.

VATCalculator.ie

Irish VAT breakdown · 2026

Net: €81.30
VAT @ 23%: €18.70
Gross: €100.00

Standard rate

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The rule

Revenue’s clothing page is short: “Generally, clothing is subject to the standard rate of Value-Added Tax (VAT). However, the zero rate of VAT applies to the supply and importation of certain clothing for children under 11 years of age.” The footwear page says the same for shoes: standard rate, except children’s personal footwear at the zero rate.

Item	Rate	Revenue source
Adult clothing	23%	Clothing page; standard rate
Adult footwear	23%	Footwear page; database entry “Footwear (adults)”
Children’s clothing (under 11)	0%	Zero rate page
Children’s footwear and sports footwear (under 11)	0%	Database entries for children’s shoes and sports shoes
Socks	23%, or 0% up to size 5.5 for under-11s	Database entry for socks
Altering used clothing	13.5%	Database entry for adult clothing, cut make and trim

What “under 11” means in practice

The zero rate is tied to the size of the garment and how it is labelled and marketed, not to the age of the child at the till. Revenue’s socks entry spells out the test for that one item: socks “described, labelled, marked or marketed for children under 11 years old or up to and including ages 9 to 11 or 10 to 11, and to fit up to shoe size 5.5 (inclusive) only” are zero-rated. Other children’s items work the same way, and Revenue’s further guidance on clothing and footwear has the detail. A tall ten-year-old in adult sizes pays 23%. A small twelve-year-old in age-10 sizes pays 0%.

Footwear for VAT purposes means shoes, boots, slippers, fur footwear and sports footwear. Revenue says it does not include socks or stockings, roller blades or roller skates, which have their own entries.

Worked examples at 23%

Shop price (gross)	Net	VAT at 23%
€19.99 t-shirt	€16.25	€3.74
€60.00 jeans	€48.78	€11.22
€120.00 trainers	€97.56	€22.44
€350.00 coat	€284.55	€65.45

The VAT is 23/123 of the price, about 18.7%, not 23%. The reverse VAT calculator explains why. For a child’s version of any of these in under-11 sizes the VAT column is zero and the net equals the shop price.

Why children’s clothes are zero-rated, not exempt

Zero-rated means the shop charges 0% VAT on the sale but still reclaims the VAT on its rent, fit-out and stock. Exempt would mean no VAT charged and nothing reclaimed. For a children’s shoe shop the difference is its whole margin. Exempt would mean no VAT charged and nothing reclaimed. The VAT rates page has more on zero-rated versus exempt.

For clothing retailers

A shop selling both adult and children’s ranges sells at two rates and must record them separately for the VAT3 return. The product file on the till decides: children’s sizes for under-11s at 0%, everything else at 23%. An age-12 item coded at 0% is an underpayment. The registration guide covers the thresholds and the intra-EU tier for shops buying stock abroad.

Every Irish rate in one place: the VAT rates page. For the standard rate on anything else, the VAT calculator.

Clothing VAT questions

Adult clothing and footwear are at the 23% standard rate. Revenue’s clothing page says clothing is generally subject to the standard rate, with the zero rate applying to certain clothing for children under 11. A €60 pair of adult jeans therefore contains €11.22 of VAT.

Yes, for children under 11. Revenue’s zero rate page lists clothing and footwear appropriate to children under 11 years of age. The test is the size and how the item is labelled and marketed, not who buys it. Once a child is in larger sizes, the clothes are at 23% even if the child is 10.

They follow the same rule: zero-rated in sizes for children under 11, standard-rated above that. Revenue’s footwear page says footwear is at the standard rate except children’s personal footwear, and its socks entry gives the cut-off as shoe size 5.5 and under, marketed for under-11s.

Revenue’s entry for adult clothing made from a customer’s own material says the rate follows the goods, so 23% for adult items and 0% for children’s, and that modifying used clothing is at the 13.5% reduced rate. For second-hand clothes the rate depends on the item in the same way, provided the seller is VAT-registered at all.

Sources and method

Every rate on this site was checked against the pages below on 3 September 2026, and an automated check compares our rates with the Revenue tables every week. We compute VAT the way Revenue does: adding VAT multiplies the net by (1 + rate), removing VAT divides the gross by (1 + rate), and every figure is rounded half-up to the cent.

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