Affiliate marketing in Ireland got a lot more interesting on 18 March 2025, the day Amazon.ie opened with prices in euro and an Associates programme to go with it. Before that, an Irish blogger or business sending readers to Amazon was earning sterling commission from a UK site with customs forms attached. Now there’s a home programme, and the networks behind Littlewoods, Boots, Currys, Sky, Aer Lingus and Irish Ferries were already here.
This guide covers how affiliate marketing works, what Amazon.ie actually pays, which Irish programmes and networks exist, the labelling rules you have to follow, and the part every other guide skips: what Revenue expects when the commission arrives.
How does affiliate marketing work?
You put a special link to a product or service on your website, your newsletter or your social media. Someone clicks it and buys. The seller pays you a percentage of the sale, or a fixed fee, because your link brought them the customer. That’s the whole model.
Three parties are involved. The advertiser is the brand paying the commission. The publisher is you. Between you sits either the brand’s own programme (Amazon runs its own) or an affiliate network, such as Awin or Impact, which tracks the clicks, holds the money and pays out.
The tracking depends on a cookie set when someone clicks your link, and the cookie has a life. On Amazon.ie it’s short: a session that ends when “24 hours elapse from that click”. On other programmes it’s 30 days or more. That window is the first thing to check before you join anything.
Amazon.ie Associates, what it pays
Amazon announced its Irish store in May 2024 and opened it on 18 March 2025 with “over 200 million products with low prices in Euro”. The Associates programme for it lives at affiliate-program.amazon.ie, and its standard commission rates by category are published:
| Category on Amazon.ie | Standard commission |
|---|---|
| Clothing, shoes, jewellery, watches, luggage, Amazon Fashion | 14% |
| Home, kitchen, books, Kindle books, music, musical instruments, toys, home improvement, DVDs, software, food and drink, sports and outdoor, health and personal care, beauty, baby, grocery, pet, car and motorbike, lawn and garden, stationery, handmade, business and industrial | 10% |
| Home entertainment, smartphones, computers, electronics, video games, cameras, digital software | 6% |
| Video game consoles | 1% |
| Gift cards | 0% |
| Everything else | 6% |
So a €120 pair of runners earns €16.80, a €300 phone earns €18, and a €30 book earns €3. Fashion and home are where the money is; electronics pay a third of the rate for a much bigger basket.
The rules that matter, from Amazon’s operating agreement and policies for Ireland:
- The cookie is one session, ending at the latest “24 hours” after the click.
- A sale only counts once “the Product is shipped to, streamed or downloaded by, and paid for by the customer”, and that has to happen “within 180 days of the purchase”.
- The minimum payment by bank deposit for Ireland is €25.
- The one disclosure Amazon authorises, word for word: “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”
Amazon’s programme rules also require new Associates to make qualifying sales in their first months or the account is closed; read the current agreement for the number before you rely on it.
Affiliate programmes in Ireland, and the networks behind them
Most Irish brands don’t run their own programme. They use a network, and you join the network once to apply to many of them.
| Network | Cost to join as a publisher | Brands that sell to Ireland on it |
|---|---|---|
| Awin | A small refundable deposit (its Irish page says “1 GBP/USD/EUR”) | Littlewoods Ireland, Boots.ie, Currys.ie, Sky Ireland, among “30,000+ brands” |
| Impact | Free | Revolut |
| Partnerize | Free | Aer Lingus |
| Tradedoubler | Free to apply | Irish Ferries |
| Rakuten Advertising | “There is no cost to join any advertiser program” | International retailers shipping to Ireland |
| Skimlinks | Free; Skimlinks “keeps 25% and pays the publisher 75%” | Turns ordinary retailer links into affiliate links automatically |
Some terms are public. Irish Ferries says its scheme “operates on the TradeDoubler affiliate network” with “competitive commissions of up to 5%”, and it excludes “rail & sail or inclusive holiday packages”. Littlewoods Ireland pays “on the basket value of the order once VAT, discounts and delivery have been removed”. Most other rates are only visible once the network approves you.
Two you’ll go looking for and not find: Harvey Norman’s “partner program” is a trade-purchasing account, not an affiliate scheme, and we found no Ryanair affiliate programme at all. Several Irish hosting companies advertise affiliate commission on old pages that contradict newer ones; ask them directly before you build anything on it.
How to start affiliate marketing in Ireland
- Have somewhere to send people. A website with real readers, a newsletter, or a social account with an audience that trusts you. Affiliate links on an empty site earn nothing.
- Pick products you’d recommend without the commission. Readers can tell, and so can the ASAI (more below).
- Join Amazon.ie Associates and one network. Awin covers the most Irish retailers. Apply to the brands you’ll actually feature.
- Write the page people search for. “Best air fryer under €100 in Ireland” beats a paragraph in a general post. Comparison tables, your own photos, the euro price.
- Label every link. #Ad at the top of the post, and the Amazon sentence where you use Amazon links.
- Track it. Every network shows clicks and conversions; put the page and the link in a spreadsheet and check it monthly. Kill what doesn’t earn.
The disclosure rules, and they are rules
The Advertising Standards Authority and the CCPC published joint guidance in October 2023 that names affiliate marketing specifically: “If you use affiliate marketing in your social media content and/or other online content such as your website or blog, this should be clearly labelled as ‘#Ad’.” And in case anyone thought the link did the job: “It is not enough to only include a link to the product or service.”
Where the label goes: “the first word in any text block”, not at the end, not only in a bio. If you link to another page that contains the affiliate advertising, the guidance says “you should use the ‘#Ad’ label on your external sites as well as on your original post”. The legal basis is the Consumer Protection Act 2007, and since February 2026 the CCPC has been issuing compliance notices to well-known Irish names for undisclosed commercial content. Our guide to the ASAI rules has the full labelling table.
For Amazon there’s a second layer: the operating agreement requires the “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases” line on any site using its links.
Is affiliate income taxed in Ireland?
Yes, from the first euro. Revenue treats it as trading income, the same as any self-employment. Its guidance for people starting out says “you must register as a self-employed person with Revenue if your net income is above €5,000”, and that “you will have to pay Income Tax, Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) and Universal Social Charge (USC) on your net business profits”. Registration is online through Revenue’s eRegistration or with a paper Form TR1.
If you have a PAYE job and the affiliate income is on the side, the return you file depends on the size of it. Revenue’s Form 12 notes say a PAYE taxpayer with “net assessable non-PAYE income” of €5,000 or more, or gross non-PAYE income of €30,000 or more, is a “chargeable person” who “must file a Form 11”. Below that, a Form 12 covers it. Revenue’s July 2025 manual on social media income adds that income from promotional activity “is chargeable to tax even in circumstances where the activity is conducted on a casual basis only”, and that gifted products retained and promoted are taxable at their fair value.
Keep the costs. Hosting, the domain, software, a share of your phone and broadband, and the products you bought to review are deductible against the commission.
Do I need to register for VAT?
Only once your turnover from services passes “€42,500, in the case of persons supplying services only”. Affiliate commission is a service. Below that line you don’t charge VAT and don’t register, unless you choose to.
Above it, there’s a wrinkle that catches Irish affiliates. The networks and Amazon’s EU entities are businesses in other EU countries, so the commission is a business-to-business service supplied abroad. Revenue’s rule for that is the reverse charge: you “obtain the business customer’s Value-Added Tax (VAT) number and confirm its validity”, “issue an invoice indicating reverse charge will apply”, “insert the customer’s VAT number on the invoice” and “include the supply on the VIES return”. No Irish VAT on the invoice, but a VIES return to file. An accountant who has seen affiliate income before will set this up in an hour.
What affiliate marketing is worth in Ireland
Nobody publishes an Irish affiliate spend figure; IAB Ireland’s 2025 report put total digital advertising at €1.146 billion, up 8%, with no affiliate line in it. What we do know is how many people buy online: the CSO found “85% of internet users purchasing goods and/or services online in 2025”. The audience is there. What’s scarce is Irish content that helps them choose, which is the gap an Irish affiliate site fills.
Affiliate marketing for a business, not a blogger
Most of this page is written for the publisher, the person earning the commission. If you’re the brand, the same networks work the other way round: you set a commission, publishers send you customers, and you pay only on sales. For an Irish online shop it’s the one form of advertising with no upfront cost, and it sits well beside paid social and ecommerce SEO. Awin and Impact both take Irish advertisers; the work is in the tracking set-up and the publisher terms, which is something we can build.
Questions people ask about affiliate marketing in Ireland
Does Amazon have an affiliate programme in Ireland?
Yes. Amazon.ie Associates opened with the Irish store in 2025. Commission is 14% on fashion, 10% on home, books, beauty and most everyday categories, 6% on electronics and 1% on consoles, with a 24-hour cookie and a €25 minimum payout by bank deposit.
How much do Irish affiliates make?
There’s no published Irish figure, and anyone quoting one is guessing. Earnings follow traffic: a page that ranks for a “best X in Ireland” search and converts a few percent of readers earns from the first month; a site without readers earns nothing.
Do I have to say a link is an affiliate link?
Yes. The ASA and CCPC guidance requires “#Ad” as the first word of the post or text block, on your own site as well as on social media. Amazon adds its own required sentence.
Is affiliate income taxable if it’s only a few hundred euro?
Yes. It’s trading income. Under €5,000 net you may not have to register as self-employed, but it still goes on your return.
Which affiliate network is best in Ireland?
For Irish retailers, Awin, because Littlewoods, Boots, Currys and Sky are on it. For travel, Partnerize (Aer Lingus) and Tradedoubler (Irish Ferries). For products, Amazon.ie. Join the ones whose brands you’ll feature rather than all of them.
Sources
Amazon: the Amazon.ie launch announcement, 18 March 2025, the Amazon.ie Associates commission rates, programme policies and operating agreement. Networks: Awin for publishers, Irish Ferries affiliate programme. Rules: the CCPC’s influencer advertising guidance and the ASA guidance. Revenue: starting a business, registering as a sole trader, VAT thresholds, services to business customers abroad and the manual on income from social media and promotional activities. Figures: CSO, Household Digital Consumer Behaviour 2025; IAB Ireland’s 2025 spend report. Read in September 2026. This is a guide, not tax advice.
