Hospitality · Ireland · My Future Fund auto-enrolment

My Future Fund: the auto-enrolment payroll cost Irish hospitality operators can't dodge.

From 1 January 2026 every Irish employer with at least one income-tax-paying worker must operate My Future Fund, the state's auto-enrolment pension run by NAERSA — the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority. Every employee aged 23–60 earning over €20,000/year who is not already in a qualifying occupational pension or payroll PRSA is enrolled automatically; the Department of Social Protection puts the in-scope population at ~760,000 workers across ~85,000 employers. Contributions phase up over a decade — employer 1.5% / employee 1.5% / state 0.5% in 2026–2028, escalating every three years to 6%/6%/2% by 2035, capped at €80,000 of pay. NAERSA itself only opened in August 2025 and employer registration only began in December 2025, leaving a brutally short runway. Penalties under the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024 run €5,000–€50,000 per breach with possible imprisonment for serious non-compliance — and unregistered employers accrue contribution debt regardless of whether they have signed up. Irish hospitality operators report rebuilding payroll workflows, re-testing existing schemes against the AE minimum, and absorbing the dual-administration overhead on top of the National Living Wage rise and the recent PRSI hike.

01The pain

The structural change took effect on 1 January 2026 and is documented across the Department of Social Protection's own press releases, citizensinformation.ie, and the trade press. The Department's My Future Fund announcement records the operational facts verbatim — the scheme is run by "a new body that has been set up called the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA)", which "is taking care of all of the administration of enrolling participants, collecting contributions, managing and investing funds, and providing customer services"; it covers "around 800,000 workers" aged "between 23 and 60 years of age, who are earning more than €20,000 a year, and who are not already paying into a pension".¹ Citizensinformation.ie pins the contribution arithmetic to the page — initial "1.5% from your employer" matched by "1.5% from you" plus "0.5% from the State", escalating in three-yearly steps to "6%, 6% and 2%" by 2034 — and confirms a salary cap of "€80,000" on the pensionable amount.⁴ The Irish Times records the operator-side reality the way pubs, hotels and restaurants now read it — "if you earn more than €20,000 you will now have to pay into a pension scheme" — and notes that many SME owners "are only now waking up to the implications — and the cost".²

What makes the change land disproportionately on Irish hospitality is the workforce composition. Hotels, restaurants, pubs and cafés run on part-time, seasonal and casual hours, and a large share of staff sit just over the €20,000 threshold and outside any existing occupational scheme — exactly the population auto-enrolment captures. NFP Ireland's employer briefing documents the concrete payroll burden in operator-facing terms: payroll software must "handle a new automatic deduction", an "employer contribution on a phased schedule", NAERSA compliance notices via the Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notification (AEPN), and "re-enrolment of any worker who opted out two years earlier"; existing occupational schemes and PRSAs must be re-tested against the AE minimum, and a token "circumvention scheme" has already been closed off by the government.³ The cost curve compounds in a way Irish hospitality operators describe as the second leg of a payroll squeeze that started with the post-pandemic PRSI step-up and continued through the National Living Wage rise: NFP's worked example for a 50-staff SME on €30k average pay walks the employer contribution from "around €22,500" in year one to "around €90,000 by year ten", on the same payroll the employer is already running with thinner casual margins.³

A regime Irish hospitality operators describe by what it costs them per payslip: launch 1 January 2026;¹ in scope ~760,000 workers across ~85,000 employers;^1,3 auto-enrolment of every employee aged 23–60 earning over €20,000/year not already in a qualifying scheme;⁴ contributions phasing 1.5%/1.5%/0.5% (2026–2028) → 3%/3%/1% → 4.5%/4.5%/1.5% → 6%/6%/2% by 2035, capped at €80,000 of pay;⁴ NAERSA itself only opened August 2025, employer registration only opened December 2025;³ a 50-staff SME's employer cost moves from ~€22,500 in year one to ~€90,000 by year ten;³ penalties under the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024 run €5,000–€50,000 per breach plus possible imprisonment for serious non-compliance, and unregistered employers accrue contribution debt regardless of whether they have signed up.³

The wider operating context Irish hospitality operators describe across forum threads and trade-press reporting is the dual-administration overhead landing on the same payroll function that already runs PAYE, PRSI, USC and LPT. NAERSA's role is delivered through the AEPN — an Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notification that every payroll system must receive, parse, and apply, mid-cycle, on the day a worker becomes eligible — and through the re-enrolment cycle that sweeps every opted-out worker back into scope every two years.³ The Department's own employer guidance and citizensinformation.ie both confirm the principle that auto-enrolment runs in parallel with — not instead of — existing occupational schemes, so employers carrying any legacy pension surface must re-test it against the AE minimum and, if it fails, either upgrade it or move the affected employees onto My Future Fund.^1,4 The Irish Times records the operator-side framing — many SME owners "are only now waking up to the implications — and the cost";² NFP Ireland records the compliance stack — payroll software burden, re-enrolment cycle, scheme re-testing, closed-circumvention rule — and the penalty floor of "€5,000 to €50,000" per breach with imprisonment available for serious non-compliance under the 2024 Act.³ The pain is the daily, line-by-line reality of running a labour-intensive Irish hospitality business through a payroll-cost step-up that does not show up as one number on the P&L — it lands across every payslip, every pay run, every two-year re-enrolment cycle, on top of the Living Wage and PRSI changes already in force.^1,2,3,4

The pain is the daily, line-by-line reality of running a labour-intensive Irish hospitality business through a payroll-cost step-up that does not show up as one number on the P&L — it lands across every payslip, every pay run, every two-year re-enrolment cycle. — Ireland · Hospitality forum threads

02Who solves this today

Irish-market vendors that publicly self-market on their own homepage to employers running Irish payroll on the My Future Fund / auto-enrolment / NAERSA niche — software whose front-page copy explicitly names My Future Fund, auto-enrolment, or NAERSA AEPN handling. Each entry verified live and self-marketed in the niche on the date of writing. Inclusion is not endorsement. The list is intentionally narrow.

BrightPay — Irish payroll software with My Future Fund support

Irish-built payroll vendor whose homepage opens a dedicated section on auto-enrolment in operator-facing language: "Ireland's new pension auto-enrolment scheme, My Future Fund, will require all employers to automatically enrol their eligible staff into a State-run pension scheme." The product framing addresses the post-1-January-2026 reality directly — "BrightPay supports employers with their new responsibilities, helping you stay compliant while keeping admin simple" — with a linked Auto Enrolment Hub and webinar calendar. The route an Irish hospitality operator takes when they want a desktop-or-cloud Irish payroll system that already understands AEPNs, the contribution phase-up, and the dual-administration overhead with any legacy occupational scheme or PRSA.

brightpay.ie

Parolla — Irish cloud payroll with NAERSA API integration

Irish cloud-payroll vendor whose homepage feature list names the niche verbatim — "MyFutureFund fully API integrated with NAERSA" — and whose product documentation walks through the AEPN flow on the operator side: "This is not required with Parolla, we will contact the MyFutureFund API directly"; "We will try to contact NAERSA automatically on any day that you log into the company in Parolla"; "Parolla will calculate the amount of employer contribution and employee deductions and apply whenever you open a payslip." The route a small or multi-site Irish hospitality operator takes when they want the auto-enrolment surface — AEPN polling, contribution calculation, payslip line — handled by the payroll system rather than by the operator opening a NAERSA portal between every pay run.

parolla.ie

Listed providers publicly self-market to Irish employers on the My Future Fund / auto-enrolment / NAERSA niche from their own homepage. Inclusion is not endorsement. Several adjacent vendors were considered and excluded — Big Red Cloud's homepage frames itself on general accounting and payroll rather than naming the My Future Fund niche on the front of the site (the auto-enrolment material lives in their blog/release-notes surface); Collsoft's homepage centres on Revenue compliance and customer support without naming My Future Fund or NAERSA on the homepage; Sage Ireland's blog discusses My Future Fund but the Sage Payroll product page does not self-market in the niche on its own homepage at the date of writing. All were dropped under the precedent that two verified entries beat three with a weak link. Trade-press coverage and the Department of Social Protection / NFP Ireland positions cited above in section 01 are the source of the operator-side narrative, not solution providers.

Listed companies — manage your entry. If you are one of the providers above and anything here is wrong, missing, or out of date — or you'd rather not be listed — let us know. Removal is processed within 24 hours; corrections within 7 business days. We do not contact listed companies first; we publish what your own public marketing claims and respond when you reach out. Email contact@aikraft.com.