Users should note that these Institutional Sector Accounts incorporate revisions made to the Annual National Accounts (ANA) 2025 and Quarterly National Accounts (QNA) which were published on 02 July 2026. These revisions have increased the level of household saving from 2020. Further details of these changes and their effects on household saving are provided in the Background Notes of the Q1 2026 release.
Total Disposable Income (B.6g+D.8) of households and non-profits grew by 3.9% (€7.2bn) to €192.9bn in 2025 from €185.6bn in 2024. However, price increases mean that part of this extra income was required to pay for the same volume of consumer goods and services in 2025.
Here we look at the changes in composition of disposable income at current prices. Figure 1.1 shows the components (columns) and the change in Disposable Income itself (line). The graph illustrates the difference compared to the previous year, rather than the absolute amount of each item. In most years, the biggest contributor to the change is wages and salaries paid to employees and in 2025 this accounted for €6.8bn of the €7.2bn increase. There was a €2bn increase in the taxes paid on this income (D.5) which reduces the Gross Disposable Income. There was also a €1bn decrease in net social benefits. Though flat in 2025, net investment income and other transfers (D.4, D.7) have contributed more to household incomes in recent years, through higher interest rates and household deposits built up during and after the COVID-19 restrictions.
Figure 1.2 shows the Compensation of Employees (CoE) in more detail. The Figure illustrates the proportion of total labour costs borne by each sector in each year. As well as wages, CoE encompasses benefit-in-kind and other labour costs.
The biggest share of CoE comes from Domestic Non-Financial Corporations (NFCs, S11b), who paid 37% of the total, a small decrease from 2015 (39%). The past decade has seen growth in the proportion paid by foreign-owned NFCs. This has gone from 23% in 2015 to 30% in 2025. As we saw in Figure 1.1, CoE overall has been increasing, so while the share of the total paid by some sectors has declined, its total paid in euro may have increased.
If we add in foreign-controlled Financial Corporations (S.12a) to the foreign-controlled NFCs, in the latest year 34% of pay to workers came from branches and subsidiaries of overseas corporations. Clearly household income, as well as tax receipts by government, are very significantly affected by foreign multi-nationals' activities in Ireland.
Both income (3.9%) and expenditure (4.3%) rose in 2025. The difference between the two is gross saving (B.8g) which, due to the bigger increase in income, rose to €38.5bn. The household saving rate is the saving divided by the income. The unadjusted saving rate was 19.9% in 2025.
Figure 1.3 below shows a time-series of the Irish saving rate alongside the saving rate for the Euro-area. Ireland's saving rate was similar to that of the wider Euro-area until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then in 2020 and 2021, while the saving rate increased both in Ireland and the Euro-area, Ireland's rate was above the overall Euro-area average. Since 2022 both the Irish and Euro-area rates have fallen back from the pandemic, but both remain above the pre-COVID-19 level, with the Irish rate exceeding the Euro-area average.
Figure 1.4 charts the movement in income and debt for the period 2001 to 2025. The debt-to-income ratio is a key indicator of the sustainability of household debt. A lower debt-to-income ratio means that if interest rates increase, households are more likely to be able to manage the additional burden: the loan liabilities are less and so the interest is lower, or the disposable income is higher and so there is more money available to make mortgage payments.
The balance sheet position in relation to household and NPISH debt (Liabilities - (AF.4) Loans) showed an increase in 2025 to €153bn. At the same time Total Disposable Income increased from €186bn to €193bn. This caused an increase in the debt-to-income ratio from 71% to 79%.
Figure 1.4 also shows the debt-to-income ratio for the Euro-area as a whole. We can see that the ratio for Ireland was higher than that of the Euro-area until 2021 and was around double the Euro-area rate in the period 2005-2013. In 2025 it is lower than the 81% average ratio across the Euro-area.
Gross household and NPISH saving (B.8g) was €38.5bn in 2025, as illustrated in the line in Figure 1.5 below. The columns in Figure 1.5 illustrate how that saving was used. Saving adds to wealth in the form of real assets, such as houses, and financial assets such as deposits. Saving is also used to reduce liabilities, such as loans. Figure 1.5 shows the transactions in loans, i.e. increases (+) or decreases (-) in each year (excluding price changes). It is important to make the distinction between balance sheet measures and transactions: Figure 1.4 above illustrated the balance sheet position of the outstanding stock of loans to households.
For much of the time-series, loan liabilities have been reduced (lime-green bars are above the axis), but in three of the last five years, households have been borrowing more than they have been paying back (lime-green bars are below the axis). In 2025, loans to households increased by €2.5bn. At the same time, deposits also increased by €5.6bn, so while some households were taking on extra debt, others were putting money aside. Deposits were already increasing between 2015 and 2019, and the arrival of COVID-19 restrictions accelerated that trend in 2020. Since then they have slowed and are accumulating at a similar rate as before the pandemic. Pension saving and insurance products (including life insurance) also accounted for around €9.3bn in saving in the year.
The biggest single use of saving in 2025 was capital formation, which for households is mainly in the form of homes. In 2025, this accounted for €19.6bn, an increase on the €15.1bn in 2024. The €34.7bn invested in these assets in 2024 and 2025 exceeds the €34.5bn total for all seven years 2012-2018 (not adjusting for inflation).
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