Starting a private practice in Ireland: a practical checklist

CORU registration, IACP and IAHIP accreditation, insurance, registering with Revenue and GDPR: what to sort out before opening a private practice in Ireland.

MyWellOps teamPublished 28 September 2026 · 7 min read

Opening a private practice in Ireland means dealing with a few different bodies: CORU if your profession is regulated by law, a professional association if it isn’t (yet), Revenue for tax, and the Data Protection Commission for how you handle client information. Each has its own rules and none of them hands you the full list.

This guide pulls it together for therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists and health and social care professionals setting up as sole traders in Ireland. Where the answer depends on your profession or circumstances, it tells you who to check with.

1. Work out whether CORU registration applies to you

CORU is Ireland’s regulator for health and social care professionals. It currently regulates these professions, which have open registers:

dietitians
dispensing opticians
medical scientists
occupational therapists
optometrists
physical therapists
physiotherapists
podiatrists
radiographers and radiation therapists
social care workers
social workers
speech and language therapists

If you’re in one of these professions, you must be registered with CORU to use the protected title. CORU is clear that it’s a criminal offence for someone who isn’t registered to use a protected title, and on conviction they may be liable to a Class A fine and/or six months’ imprisonment.

Counsellors and psychotherapists: regulation is coming, but not open yet

CORU lists psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists among the professions that will be regulated. The Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board exists, but CORU says the registers for counsellors and psychotherapists are not yet open, so you can’t apply at this time.

What CORU has set out about how it will work:

Education providers have four years to align their programmes with the regulatory standards.
Once the registers open, there will be a two-year “grandparenting” period. Practitioners with at least two years of practice in the five years before the register opens can apply as existing practitioners.
After that, only people with approved qualifications will be able to register.
Once regulation takes effect, “counsellor” and “psychotherapist” will be protected titles.

CORU says it will communicate directly with stakeholders when it’s ready to open the registers. In the meantime, keep careful records of your practice hours and supervision, because you’ll need to show your experience when the time comes.

2. Join a professional association and work towards accreditation

Until the CORU registers open, accreditation with a professional association is how clients, referrers and insurers judge a counsellor’s or psychotherapist’s standing. The two main bodies are the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (IACP) and the Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy (IAHIP).

IACP first-time accreditation requires, among other things:

450 hours of client contact work with an accredited supervisor (IACP, BACP or IAHIP), after the trainee hours required on your course
at least 12 months with the same supervisor before you apply
being qualified for at least one year but no more than five from an accredited course
professional indemnity insurance
current IACP Garda vetting
at least 10 hours of CPD in the 12 months before you apply

IAHIP accreditation has several routes. Depending on the route, the requirements range from 300 to 500 clinical hours, 75 to 150 hours of supervision, and 180 to 250 hours of personal therapy as a client. At least 75% of hours must be face to face or in person.

Both bodies publish the full criteria, and they change from time to time, so check the current version before you plan your hours.

If you’re a psychologist, or in a profession outside these, join the relevant professional body and follow its code of ethics.

3. Get insurance in place

Get professional indemnity insurance in place before you see a client. IACP requires it for accreditation, and it’s also the thing that protects you if a complaint or claim arises.

Consider public liability cover too, especially if clients come to a room you rent or own. If you’ll work online, or with clients living outside Ireland, tell your insurer. Your cover needs to match how and where you actually practise.

4. Register with Revenue

As a sole trader, you register for Income Tax self-assessment with Revenue.

You need a PPSN. Your tax reference number will be the same as your PPSN.
If you’re currently a PAYE employee, you can register through myAccount: under “Manage My Record”, select “Tax registrations”, then “Income Tax”, and give your business start date, expected turnover and NACE code.
If you’re already registered for a business tax, you can register for Income Tax through ROS.
Once you’re registered as a sole trader, you use ROS to file returns and make payments.

If you’re keeping a PAYE job and building a practice on the side, Revenue says you must register for self-assessment if your taxable non-PAYE income is over €5,000 or your gross non-PAYE income is over €30,000.

On VAT: Revenue says certain medical services qualify for exemption from VAT when they’re provided by a recognised medical professional. Whether that covers your work depends on your profession and registration status, so check Revenue’s guidance on VAT and medical services, or ask an accountant, before you set your prices.

Keep records of every fee and expense from day one. Revenue sets deadlines for returns and payments, and an accountant who works with health practitioners can save you more than they cost in your first year.

5. Get your data protection in order

You’ll hold health information about every client, which GDPR treats as special category data. In Ireland the regulator is the Data Protection Commission (DPC). The DPC says processing medical data is only permitted in certain cases, as provided for in Article 9(2) of the GDPR and sections 45 to 54 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Before you open, have these in place:

A privacy notice saying what you collect, why, your lawful basis, who you share it with and how long you keep it.
A retention policy. IACP recommends that, unless something else requires otherwise, counsellors and therapists keep records for 7 years after the last date of service, with longer periods for children and young people.
A way to handle requests. Clients can ask for a copy of their data, and you generally have one month to respond.
A plan for breaches, such as a lost laptop or an email sent to the wrong person.

There’s more detail in our guide to GDPR for therapists in Ireland.

6. Set your prices and policies

Price for the whole job: notes, supervision, CPD, insurance, room hire, association fees and software, as well as the session itself.
Write a clear cancellation policy and include it in the contract clients agree before the first session. IACP suggests putting your records retention period in the client contract too.
Decide on packages before anyone asks. Blocks of sessions or a monthly arrangement suit some clients, but agree up front what happens if they stop early.

7. Bookings, reminders and payment

Clients who can book themselves don’t have to wait for you to reply. At a minimum, have a page that says who you work with, where and what it costs, and a way to see and book available times.

A few MyWellOps specifics that matter in Ireland:

You get a booking page and a widget you can embed on your own site.
Paid bookings are invoiced at booking and paid by card through Stripe, and you can sell bundles and subscriptions.
Clients can get email reminders 24 hours and 2 hours before a session if they switch on Session Reminders in their notification settings. It’s off by default, so ask clients to turn it on.
SMS reminders only go to UK mobile numbers, not Irish ones. For Irish clients, rely on email reminders.
Client data is hosted in Frankfurt, Germany.
The 227 document templates include intake and consent forms, which clients sign in the client portal.

A launch checklist

CORU registration if your profession is regulated. If you’re a counsellor or psychotherapist, keep watching for the registers to open.
Professional association membership, and a plan for accreditation
Professional indemnity (and public liability) insurance
Registered with Revenue for Income Tax, and records started
Privacy notice, retention policy, and a process for access requests and breaches
Client contract covering confidentiality, cancellations and records
Booking, reminders and payment tested end to end

If anything here doesn’t fit your situation, check with CORU, your professional body, Revenue or the DPC. They’re the ones whose answers count.

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