Couriers and delivery drivers: employee or self-employed for tax?

Revenue says most couriers working mainly for one firm, in its branding and under its control, are employees. How status is decided and how each is taxed.

Couriers have traditionally been treated as self-employed, paid per drop and responsible for their own tax. Revenue's guidelines on employment status, updated in 2026, take a different view of how most couriers now work.

What Revenue says

Take a courier who earns most or all of their income from one firm. They have its logo on the vehicle, wear its branded clothing and use a company phone. They have performance reviews and make deliveries when, where and in the order the firm directs. Revenue generally considers them to be an employee. Removing one or two of those features, such as the phone or the uniform, wouldn't usually change the answer. Revenue expects courier firms to have reclassified such workers as employees, while accepting that some genuinely self-employed couriers still work ad hoc for several businesses.

The five questions

1. Is work exchanged for pay?
2. Must you do it personally, or can you send a substitute?
3. Does the business control how, when and where you work?
4. Do the wider circumstances, such as who bears the risk and supplies the equipment, point one way or the other?
5. Does any specific legislation change the answer?

What the contract calls you doesn't decide it; how the work is actually done does.

If you are an employee

The firm runs PAYE on your pay, with your credits, USC and Class A PRSI. It can pay mileage for business journeys in your own vehicle tax-free at up to the civil service rates: see mileage allowance.

If you are genuinely self-employed

You register for income tax, keep records, and file Form 11 each year. You deduct business costs such as fuel, insurance, repairs and phone. The van's cost is written off over eight years as capital allowances (a yearly deduction for equipment). For a courier with €48,000 of takings and €14,000 of costs in 2026:

Self-employed couriers also need to watch the VAT registration threshold, and usually start paying preliminary tax in their second year. See self-assessment and capital allowances.

Work it out

• Sole trader tax return →
• Self-employed expenses and what they save →
• Contractor or PAYE job: which pays more? →
• Mileage and subsistence: what's tax-free →

Sources

• Revenue: Earned Income Credit (checked 25/10/2026)
• Department of Social Protection: PRSI Class S Rates (checked 16/10/2026)
• Revenue: Who should register for Income Tax self-assessment? (€5,000 net or €30,000 gross non-PAYE income) (checked 24/10/2026)

General information, not tax advice. HeyPenny is not a tax agent.