Written answers
Tuesday, 8 July 2025
Department of Finance
Tax Reliefs
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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324. To ask the Minister for Finance to provide the cost to the exchequer of the help to buy scheme in each of the years since its creation in 2016 in tabular form, and; an estimation of the cost for each year from the last year for which final numbers are available until 2030. [37191/25]
Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Help to Buy (HTB) incentive, is a scheme to assist first-time purchasers with the deposit they need to buy or build a new house or apartment. An increase in the supply of new housing remains a central and priority aim of Government policy. For this reason, HTB is specifically designed to encourage an increase in demand for new build homes in order to support the construction of an additional supply of such properties.
The incentive gives a refund of Income Tax and Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT) paid in Ireland over the previous four years, subject to limits outlined in the legislation.
Based on the latest available data (30 May 2025), the HTB scheme has supported more than 56,000 individuals or couples to buy their own home.
Claims in respect of 2016 were dealt with in 2017 following the enactment of Finance Act 2016.
I am advised by Revenue that data in respect HTB claims for the years 2017 to 2024 can be found in the Help to Buy (HTB) incentive annual statistics reports, which are available on the Revenue website at:
www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/tax-expenditures/htb/yearly.aspx
The table below sets out the Exchequer cost of HTB for each of the years 2017 to 2024 inclusive.
Year | Number of approved claims | Claim amount (€m) |
---|---|---|
2017 | 4,823 | 69.0 |
2018 | 4,971 | 73.3 |
2019 | 6,593 | 101.1 |
2020 | 6,106 | 120.3 |
2021 | 7,605 | 190.2 |
2022 | 6,890 | 180.8 |
2023 | 6,997 | 185.2 |
2024 | 8,541 | 225.5 |
Total | 52,526 | 1,145.2* |
The total value of approved HTB claims as of 31 May 2025 is €1,244.0 million.
In relation to the estimated full year future costs of the scheme, HTB is a demand-led scheme which is subject to a broad range of variables, including housing completion rates and prices, it is not possible to provide a reliable estimate of the cost for each year up to 2030.
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