The payroll side is UK-wide and behaves exactly as it does in England. Employment law is not. Northern Ireland is a separate jurisdiction with its own statutes, its own tribunals and its own agency, and most of the Employment Rights Act 2025 does not reach it. Some of it does, which is the part that trips people up.
Everything on the money side is reserved and identical. PAYE and real-time information, employer Class 1 National Insurance at 15% above £5,000, the £10,500 Employment Allowance, auto-enrolment under The Pensions Regulator, the national minimum and living wage rates from 1 April 2026, and CIS where you pay subcontractors. Our payroll and CIS page applies here without amendment, and so does the guide to taking on a first employee as far as the payroll mechanics go.
Employment law is devolved. Northern Ireland runs on the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 rather than the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Equality Act 2010 does not apply here, disputes go to the Industrial Tribunals and the Fair Employment Tribunal rather than to Employment Tribunals, and the conciliation body is the Labour Relations Agency rather than Acas. A handbook, a contract or a disciplinary policy bought off the shelf for England and Wales is not a Northern Irish document.
Great Britain abolished the statutory three-step dismissal and disciplinary procedure in 2009. Northern Ireland did not. It survives in Schedule 1 to the Employment (Northern Ireland) Order 2003, and it is three steps: a written statement of what the employee is alleged to have done and what you are considering, a meeting to discuss it and a decision, and the offer of an appeal.
⚠️ Skipping it makes the dismissal automatically unfair, whatever the underlying merits were. This is the single most common way a small firm that has moved here, or taken GB advice, gets caught.
This one has no equivalent anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Under the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998, an employer with 11 or more employees working 16 hours or more a week must register with the Equality Commission, monitor the composition of the workforce by community background and sex, and file an annual monitoring return. There is also a periodic review of the workforce and employment practices under Article 55.
Failing to submit a monitoring return is a criminal offence, not a civil penalty. For a growing trade business this is worth watching as a headcount trigger in the same way VAT registration is worth watching as a turnover trigger — the eleventh hire changes your legal obligations, and nobody sends you a warning as you approach it.
Count carefully. The test is employees working 16 hours or more a week, so part-time staff count and a genuinely self-employed subcontractor does not. Given how much trade work runs through subcontractors, whether somebody is an employee or a subcontractor is already the question that decides your CIS and your PAYE exposure — here it decides this as well. Our employment status guide covers the test itself.
Most of the Employment Rights Act 2025 does not extend to Northern Ireland. The statutory sick pay reforms do, because sick pay is devolved and the Department for Communities chose to match Great Britain. So from April 2026, here as well as there:
Our day-one sick pay page covers what it does to a trade business's costs. It applies here. What does not carry across is the rest of the 2025 Act, so do not assume a briefing on it describes your obligations as a Northern Irish employer.
We are accountants rather than employment lawyers, and Northern Irish employment law is a specialism inside a specialism. We will run the payroll, keep you on the right side of the PAYE, CIS and pension duties, and tell you plainly when something needs an NI employment specialist — a solicitor qualified in England and Wales cannot represent you at an Industrial Tribunal here.
We have an office at Unit 13:62 Fenaghy Road, Ballymena, Co. Antrim, BT42 1FL, and Northern Ireland is our largest base. You can come in and sit down with somebody by appointment, or do the whole thing by phone, video and WhatsApp like most people do. 07476 989568.
PAYE, CIS, auto-enrolment and the year end, run monthly so nothing is a scramble. Payroll is priced separately from the monthly accounts fee.
No. PAYE, real-time information, employer National Insurance at 15% above £5,000, the £10,500 Employment Allowance, auto-enrolment and the national minimum and living wage are all reserved and identical across the United Kingdom. The Construction Industry Scheme is UK-wide too. What differs is the employment law wrapped around the payroll — the statutes, the tribunals, the dismissal procedure and the monitoring duties are all Northern Irish and not the ones you would read about in a Great Britain guide.
Mostly not. Employment law is devolved and most of the 2025 Act does not extend here. The important exception is statutory sick pay, which is devolved but where the Department for Communities has confirmed Northern Ireland follows the same reforms: from April 2026 sick pay is payable from the first full day, the lower earnings limit test goes, and the payment is the lower of the weekly rate or 80% of usual weekly earnings. So the day-one sick pay change does reach you, while the rest of the Act largely does not.
Yes. It was abolished in Great Britain in 2009 but it remains in force in Northern Ireland under Schedule 1 to the Employment (Northern Ireland) Order 2003. The three steps are a written statement of the allegation and what you are considering, a meeting and a decision, and the offer of an appeal. Failing to follow it makes the dismissal automatically unfair regardless of the underlying reason, so it is not a formality to be caught up on afterwards. The Labour Relations Agency publish guidance on disciplinary procedures.
When you have 11 or more employees working 16 hours or more a week. At that point the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 requires you to register, to monitor the composition of your workforce by community background and sex, and to file an annual monitoring return. Failing to file the return is a criminal offence. There is no equivalent duty anywhere else in the United Kingdom, so it is easy to grow into without realising, and it is worth treating the eleventh hire as a trigger the way you would treat the VAT threshold.
Not at tribunal. Northern Ireland is a separate legal jurisdiction and a solicitor qualified in England and Wales cannot practise Northern Irish law or represent you at an Industrial Tribunal or the Fair Employment Tribunal. Contracts and handbooks drawn for England and Wales are not Northern Irish documents either, because they cite the wrong statutes. If you have brought paperwork with you from a business in Great Britain, it is worth having it looked at by somebody qualified here before you rely on it.