Can my parents help with a house deposit without tax?
Usually, yes. Money from a parent is a Group A gift. No tax is due until everything you have had from your parents since 5 December 1991 goes above €420,000.
The €420,000, €44,000 and €22,000 thresholds are in section 66 of Finance (No. 2) Bill 2026, for benefits taken on or after 7 October 2026. Revenue already publishes them. The Bill had not been signed into law when we last checked on 2 November 2026, so the figures could still change.
The gift is not tax free in the sense of disappearing. It uses up part of your Group A threshold, leaving less for later gifts and for what you inherit from your parents. See how much a parent can give or leave a child.
The yearly exemption
The first €3,000 from each person, each calendar year, does not count at all. So two parents can give you €6,000 a year between them without touching your threshold. A gift made in December and another in January fall in different years.
An illustration
This example is ours, not Revenue's. Your parents each give you €30,000 in the same calendar year towards a deposit, and you have had nothing from them before.
| Gifts from your parents | €60,000 |
|---|---|
| Less two small gift exemptions | €6,000 |
| Counts against your Group A threshold | €54,000 |
| Group A threshold left | €366,000 |
| Tax | €0 |
No return is needed while your Group A total stays at or below 80% of the threshold, which is €336,000 on the current figures.
If you are buying with a partner
Each of your parents can give €3,000 a year to your partner too, under their own small gift exemption. Above that, money your partner receives from your parents is not in Group A. A son-in-law or daughter-in-law is in Group C, with a threshold of €22,000, and so is a partner you are not married to. So a gift into joint names can use up your partner's much smaller threshold quickly.
A loan instead of a gift
If your parents lend you the money interest free, or at less than a market rate, Revenue treats the interest you are not paying as a gift each year. It is valued at the best deposit return the money could have earned, less any interest you pay, and taken on 31 December each year until the loan is repaid. The small gift exemption can cover it. Living rent free in a parent's property is treated the same way. Revenue has separate filing rules for some family loans, which can apply even when no tax is due. See Revenue's page on free use of property and interest-free loans.
If a parent dies within two years
A gift is treated as an inheritance if the person who gave it dies within two years of giving it. It still counts in Group A, and the small gift exemption still applies to it as if it were a gift, under section 69(3) of the Capital Acquisitions Tax Consolidation Act 2003.
Work out a Group A figure