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On any job worth more than €10,000 that you do under a main contractor, the Construction Contracts Act 2013 gives you four things: a statutory payment cycle, and a 21-day deadline for the main contractor to say what it will pay and why. It also gives you a right to down tools on seven days’ notice, and an adjudicator’s decision inside 28 days. None of them starts until you send one document: a payment claim notice, delivered no later than five days after the payment claim date. An invoice that is not a payment claim notice starts nothing.
Whether you are an electrician, a plasterer or a groundworks crew, the Act’s own words answer each step in turn: whether it applies to this job at all, when your payment claim dates fall, what the notice must say, and where you stand on day 22, once the main contractor’s time to contest your claim has run out.
Which jobs the Act covers
The Act applies to construction contracts entered into since 25 July 2016, written or not, for almost any construction operation. That means building, alteration, repair, maintenance and demolition, and the installation of heating, lighting, plumbing, ventilation, power, drainage, fire and security systems. Section 2 then takes three kinds of contract back out, so the first check on any new subcontract is whether it falls into one of them.
- Value not more than €10,000. The small job is outside the Act. A €9,500 rewire has no statutory payment claim date; a €12,000 one does.
- A dwelling of not more than 200 square metres, where the other party occupies or intends to occupy it. Direct work for a homeowner on an ordinary house is outside the Act. The same work on the same house for a main contractor, or on a house the client will let rather than live in, is inside it.
- Contracts of employment and public private partnership arrangements.
A contract cannot write its way out, either. Section 2(5) says the Act applies whether or not the parties “purport to limit or exclude its application”, so a clause saying the Act does not apply is ineffective. So is a pay-when-paid clause. Section 3(5) makes a term that conditions your payment on someone else paying the main contractor ineffective, except where that someone else has gone into insolvency.
The payment claim date, and what the Schedule gives you
Before the job starts, find the payment clause in the subcontract you were sent, because this part of the Act decides whether that clause or the statute sets your dates. Section 3 requires every construction contract to set the amount and timing of interim and final payments, or a mechanism for them. It must also fix a payment claim date for each amount. Where a subcontract does not, or does so on terms worse than the statute, the Act’s Schedule applies instead. For a subcontract, section 3(4) says the Schedule applies “except to the extent that it makes provision which is more favourable to the executing party”. In other words, the contract can only improve on it.
| Where the subcontract is silent | What the Schedule provides |
|---|---|
| First payment claim date | 30 days after the commencement date of the contract |
| Later interim payment claim dates | Every 30 days after that, up to substantial completion |
| Final payment claim date | 30 days after final completion |
| Short jobs, expected to run under 45 consecutive days | One payment claim date, 14 days after completion of the work |
| Date payment is due | No later than 30 days after the payment claim date |
| Amount of an interim payment | Gross value of work done to the payment claim date, less contract deductions, less what has already been paid |
Two things follow. If you have never read the payment clause in the subcontract, the Schedule is your payment clause, and it runs on 30-day cycles from the day you started. And if the subcontract sets a 60-day cycle or 45 days to pay, those terms are less favourable than the Schedule, so the Schedule prevails.
The notice: five days, four things
Section 4 applies “where, not later than 5 days after the payment claim date”, you deliver a payment claim notice to the other party. The notice has to specify four things:
- the amount claimed, even if it is zero;
- the period, stage of work or activity the claim relates to;
- the subject matter of the claim; and
- the basis of the calculation.
That is the whole test. An invoice that states all four and reaches the main contractor within five days of the payment claim date can be a payment claim notice. An invoice that says “Progress claim 3, €18,400” and nothing else is not, and neither is one sent on day nine. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment publishes template forms for every notice under the Act. Form No 1 has a box for each of the four, so either use it or make sure your own invoice template carries the same four headings. The parties may agree how to deliver notices. Where the contract says nothing, post or “any other effective means” will do. Whichever you use, keep proof that it arrived; a notice you cannot show you delivered is hard to rely on if the claim is disputed.
The five days run from the payment claim date, not from when you get round to it. Put the payment claim dates in the diary at the start of the job, from the contract or from the Schedule, and the notice becomes a Friday routine rather than a scramble.
The other side’s 21 days
Once you deliver a valid notice, section 4(3) puts the main contractor on a clock. If it contests that the amount is due, it must deliver a response not later than 21 days after the payment claim date. The response has to state the amount it proposes to pay, the reasons for the difference, and how it calculated its figure. If the difference comes from a claim against you, for defects or delay, section 4(4) makes it particularise that claim. It must say when the loss arose, what it consists of, and how much of the difference each item accounts for. And if the matter is still open on the due date, it must pay the amount it proposed, on that date, whatever remains in dispute. When a response does arrive, read it against that list.
Section 4 does not say that silence turns your claim into a debt, and that is where the Irish Act differs from the regimes across the water and in New Zealand. For you, a missing response does not on its own get you paid. When the response never comes, or the money does not, the Act gives you the two remedies below, and neither of them exists without the notice.
When the money does not come: suspend, or adjudicate
These are your two levers. Suspension has to wait until the due date has passed; adjudication is available at any time. Serving an adjudication notice closes off suspending for that amount, so decide the order deliberately.
Suspension. Under section 5, if the other party does not pay an amount due in full by the due date, you may suspend work by written notice stating the grounds. You can deliver that notice no earlier than the day after the due date, and it must give at least seven days before the suspension begins. You cannot suspend once the amount has arrived, or once either side has served an adjudication notice about it. While a justified suspension runs, the Act disregards those days for your contractual time limits, so the time you spend waiting for payment is not held against you on the programme.
Adjudication. Under section 6, either party may refer a payment dispute to adjudication at any time by serving a notice of intention. The parties have five days to agree an adjudicator. Failing that, the chair of the Minister’s panel appoints one, and you then have seven days from the appointment to refer the dispute. The adjudicator must decide within 28 days of the referral, extendable by 14 days with the referring party’s consent. That decision binds both sides until agreement, arbitration or a court finally settles the dispute. With the leave of the High Court it is enforceable as if it were a judgment. If the losing side does not pay within seven days of the decision, section 7 gives you a second right to suspend.
Twenty-eight days is short by design, which makes the paperwork you already hold important. A well-documented payment claim notice gives you much of what an adjudication referral needs.
One cycle, with the dates in
Here is one cycle as an illustration, not a real job: a subcontract silent on payment terms starts on Monday 5 October 2026.
- Wednesday 4 November — first payment claim date, 30 days after commencement.
- By Monday 9 November — payment claim notice delivered: amount, period, subject matter, basis.
- By Wednesday 25 November — the main contractor’s response is due if it contests the amount: its figure, its reasons, its calculation.
- Friday 4 December — payment due, 30 days after the payment claim date. The main contractor must pay at least the amount it proposed, if any.
- From Saturday 5 December — if nothing has arrived, you may deliver a suspension notice giving seven clear days, so work could stop from 12 December. A notice of intention to refer to adjudication may go the same day.
If the notice goes out on 12 November instead, the chain breaks. No valid notice means no section 4 response duty and no suspension right founded on it. That is why the five days after each payment claim date are the ones to protect.
What sits beside the notice
Two other things sit close to the payment claim notice. Where a principal contractor pays you, Relevant Contracts Tax decides how much of the claimed amount actually reaches your account, so the notice should state the gross figure with the deduction shown separately. And the subcontract that sets your payment claim dates also sets the certificates the site wants from you. The insurance the contract requires is as much a condition of getting paid as the notice is.
None of this needs a solicitor on day one. It needs the payment claim dates in the diary, a notice that carries the four things, and a copy of everything you delivered, with the date. The Act gives subcontractors real leverage over their cash flow, but only from the moment a valid notice is delivered.
ON THE NOTICE WRITTEN AT THE KITCHEN TABLE
Five days is a short window when the paperwork lives in three places.
The notice is easy to write and easy to miss. The payment claim date is in a contract, the work done is in a diary, and the invoice is on a laptop. SendWork keeps the job, the dates and the invoices together on one record, so the Friday the clock starts is a date you can see coming.
See how Irish subcontractors keep payment dates on the job →
Questions subcontractors ask
Does the Act cover an extension I am building directly for a homeowner?
Usually not. Section 2 excludes a contract that relates only to a dwelling of not more than 200 square metres. The exclusion applies where the other party occupies or intends to occupy it. The Act covers the same extension done for a main contractor, and a house the client intends to let.
The subcontract says I get paid when the main contractor gets paid. Is that allowed?
No. Section 3(5) makes a pay-when-paid term ineffective, except where the third party has gone into insolvency. Your payment claim dates and due dates run regardless.
I sent an invoice but no separate notice. Have I lost the cycle?
Not necessarily. If the invoice stated the amount, the period or stage, the subject matter and the basis of calculation, it can serve as the payment claim notice. It also has to have reached them within five days of the payment claim date. If it missed any of the four, or the five days, the next payment claim date gives you a fresh start.
