Property
Living City Initiative: tax relief for restoring older city buildings
Last updated 16 October 2026
Refurbish an older building in a Special Regeneration Area of six cities and deduct the cost from your income. Now runs to 2030, for homes built before 1975.
The Living City Initiative (LCI) gives tax relief for money spent refurbishing or converting buildings. It covers Special Regeneration Areas of Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford. The areas are mapped by each city or county council. Finance Act 2025 extended and widened the scheme from 1 January 2026.
What changed for 2026 onwards
- the scheme runs to 31 December 2030 for all its elements, instead of ending in 2027
- homes built before 1975 qualify for the owner-occupier and rented residential reliefs, instead of only those built before 1915
- a new 'living over the shop' element supports converting commercial buildings to homes, with no building age limit
- rented residential, commercial and living over the shop spending from 2026 is written off at 50% a year over two years
Budget 2026 also announced that the scheme will be extended to Athlone, Drogheda, Dundalk, Letterkenny and Sligo. Check with Revenue whether those areas have been designated before relying on it.
Owner-occupier relief
If you refurbish or convert a qualifying building and make it your main home, you deduct the cost from your total income: 15% a year for six years and 10% in the seventh, for work first used as your home from 2023. Relief you can't use for lack of income carries forward within ten years. You must spend at least €5,000, have a letter of certification from the local authority, and be the first occupier after the work. Extensions generally don't qualify.
For someone earning €90,000 who spends €80,000 restoring a qualifying home and moves in during 2026:
| Deduction each year for six years: 15% | €12,000.00 |
| Income tax without the relief | €23,200.00 |
| Income tax with the relief | €18,400.00 |
| Saving each year | €4,800.00 |
The deduction reduces income tax at your top rate, but not USC or PRSI. Selling or moving out stops further relief but doesn't claw back what you had.
Landlords and businesses
Rented residential relief (homes let to tenants) and commercial relief (shops and services) are given as capital allowances (the cost written off over several years). They count as EU de minimis State aid (small amounts of State support). So they are limited by the EU cap of €300,000 of such aid per business over any rolling three years. Property developers and people connected to them can't claim these elements.
Before you start
- check the building is inside a Special Regeneration Area on the council's map
- get the local authority's letter of certification for residential work
- only work carried out within the scheme period counts, and new builds never qualify
Work it out
Sources
- Revenue: Tax rates, bands and reliefs (checked 25/10/2026)
General information, not tax advice. HeyPenny is not a tax agent.