Occupational Injury Benefit Ireland 2026: Injury Benefit and Disablement Benefit rates, with a calculator

Last updated 26 September 2026 · By Mustafa Bilgic · Rates from the Social Welfare and Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System (Amendment) Act 2025 on irishstatutebook.ie and gov.ie

This page sets out every 2026 rate in the scheme, how the Department of Social Protection assesses and rounds a degree of disablement, when a lump sum is paid instead of a pension, and how the benefits are taxed. The calculator works out Injury Benefit for your household, or Disablement Benefit from your assessment, with Incapacity Supplement and Constant Attendance Allowance where they apply.

Occupational Injuries Benefit rates for 2026

Injury Benefit is paid at the same rate as full-rate Illness Benefit, and Incapacity Supplement uses the same personal and qualified adult rates, with extra for people aged 66 or over. Constant Attendance Allowance is one flat rate, whatever the level of care needed.

Who is covered

Disablement Benefit is for people who worked and paid PRSI at Class A, B, D, J or M when the accident happened or the disease was contracted. Injury Benefit is for Classes A, D, J and M, and at Class M only employees under 16 are covered. People insured at Class B, such as permanent and pensionable civil servants, cannot get Injury Benefit, and they receive half-rate Disablement Benefit after the first 26 weeks, with the other half paid by their department. The self-employed and members of the armed forces are not insured for occupational injuries. The scheme began on 1 May 1967, commuting accidents have been covered since 27 March 1986 and Gardaí since 6 April 1989.

Three kinds of event count: an accident at work, an accident on a direct journey between home and work, and a prescribed occupational disease contracted because of the kind of work you did. S.I. No. 102 of 2007 lists the prescribed diseases and the jobs linked to each one, such as vibration white finger from chainsaw work in forestry.

Injury Benefit: the first 26 weeks

You qualify if you are unfit for work for more than three days, not counting Sundays or paid holiday leave. Payment is normally made from the fourth day of incapacity and lasts for up to 26 weeks, which the Department calls the Injury Benefit period. Apply within 6 weeks on form IB1, which you get from your doctor, together with a certificate of incapacity for work. Even if you are off for three days or less, you can register the accident, which protects your rights if a disablement develops later. If you are still unfit after 26 weeks, you may move to Illness Benefit, Disablement Benefit or both.

Disablement Benefit: pension or lump sum

A medical assessor compares your physical and mental condition with a healthy person of the same age and sex. Loss of earnings and extra costs are not part of the assessment, and fixed degrees apply to some losses, mainly of sight and hearing and amputations. The assessment is a percentage for a period, either for life or provisional for a set time.

Section 75 of the 2005 Act turns the percentage into a payment. From 20% to 100%, a figure that is not a multiple of 10 is rounded: a figure ending in 5 goes up to the next 10, and any other figure goes to the nearest 10. The Department's guidelines give 23% paid as 20% and 26% paid as 30%. From 2 January 2026 the pension runs from €57.00 at 20% to €285.00 at 100%:

Below 20% the benefit is a lump sum called a gratuity. A provisional assessment of 15% to 19% is always paid as a gratuity, and a life assessment of 15% to 19% gives you the choice of a gratuity or a weekly pension. The maximum gratuity is €19,940, and the scale in S.I. No. 102 of 2007 pays 80% of it at 15%, rising by 5 points for each degree to 100% at 19%. For a provisional assessment shorter than 7 years, article 9 pays the same share of the life amount as the period bears to 7 years, rounding any fraction of 5 cent up.

Disablement Benefit can be paid on top of your wages and on top of other social welfare payments, apart from Injury Benefit for the same accident or disease. Claim before your Injury Benefit ends, or within 3 months of the accident if you kept working: the gov.ie page warns that a late claim can lose benefit, and the guidelines allow backdating of up to 6 months only where there was good cause for the delay. If you have two or more accidents, the degrees can be combined, up to 100%.

Incapacity Supplement and Constant Attendance Allowance

Incapacity Supplement is an addition to a Disablement Pension for a person permanently unable to work because of the accident or disease. It is not means-tested, but you can only get it if you do not qualify for Illness Benefit, Invalidity Pension or Disability Allowance. From January 2026 it is €254.00 a week under 66 and €273.30 at 66 or over, with €168.60 or €181.40 for a qualified adult and the usual child increases.

Constant Attendance Allowance of €271.00 a week is added where the Department's medical adviser recommends it because you need someone to help you daily at home with personal needs for at least 6 months. The operational guidelines say the Disablement Pension must be at 50% or over, while the gov.ie service page says over 50%, so check your own case with the Disablement Benefit Section. It is not paid during a stay in hospital or another institution.

Death Benefit

Section 80 of the 2005 Act pays Death Benefit where an insured person dies as a result of an occupational accident, or where, just before death, they were entitled to a Disablement Pension assessed at 50% or more. From January 2026 the pension for a bereaved partner is €284.50 a week, an orphan's pension is €240.80, and the rate table sets a funeral grant of €850.

Tax on occupational injury payments

Revenue says Occupational Injury Benefit is liable to Income Tax but not to the Universal Social Charge or PRSI, and that increases for child dependants are exempt. The Department tells Revenue the taxable amount, so you do not need to declare it. Revenue's list of tax-exempt payments includes the disablement gratuity, Constant Attendance Allowance and the Death Benefit funeral grant and orphan payments.

Occupational injury benefits and a personal injury claim

If you also claim compensation from an employer or another party, the Recovery of Certain Benefits and Assistance scheme, in place since 1 August 2014, lets the Department recover the value of certain illness-related payments from the compensator, not from you. Our page on the Personal Injuries Guidelines shows the general damages brackets for the injury itself.

Worked examples

Injury Benefit. A warehouse worker with a spouse on a low income and two children, aged 8 and 13, breaks a wrist at work in March 2026. Injury Benefit is €254.00 + €168.60 + €58.00 + €78.00 = €558.60 a week, from the fourth day for up to 26 weeks.

Disablement Pension. The wrist leaves a lasting loss assessed at 35% for life. Section 75 rounds 35% up to 40%, so the pension is €114.00 a week from 2 January 2026.

Gratuity. A provisional assessment of 16% for 12 months gives 12/84 of €16,949, which is €2,421.30 after rounding up to the next 5 cent. These examples are our own calculations from the published rates and rules.

Sources and methodology

The rates were read from Schedule 1 to Act No. 19 of 2025 on irishstatutebook.ie and checked against the gov.ie pages for Injury Benefit, Disablement Benefit, Incapacity Supplement and Constant Attendance Allowance. The calculator applies section 75(7) of the 2005 Act and article 9 and Schedule 3 of S.I. No. 102 of 2007, and was tested on the Department's rounding and gratuity examples.

• Social Welfare and Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System (Amendment) Act 2025 (No. 19 of 2025), section 12 and Schedule 1, on irishstatutebook.ie.
• Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, sections 75 and 80 as enacted, and S.I. No. 102 of 2007, article 9 and Schedule 3, on irishstatutebook.ie.
• Disablement Benefit, Injury Benefit, Incapacity Supplement and Constant Attendance Allowance, with the operational guidelines, Department of Social Protection, on gov.ie.
• Taxation of illness, occupational injury and partial capacity benefits and tax-exempt DSP benefits, on revenue.ie.

Frequently asked questions

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