If you run a restaurant, café or takeaway in Ireland, the problem in 2026 isn't getting customers through the door — it's keeping anything once they've paid. Fixed costs have climbed faster than menu prices, and the squeeze is showing: 150 food-led businesses shut their doors in the first three months of 2025, with 65% of operators reporting a decline in financial performance in 2024 (Restaurants Association of Ireland, 2025).
You can't control the wholesale price of electricity or the cost of public liability cover. But you have more room on your overheads than most owners realise — and every euro you claw back off a fixed cost drops straight to the bottom line. Here are nine concrete, Ireland-specific levers operators are pulling this year.
Key takeaways
- Energy is the fastest-rising line. Restaurant electricity is up more than 96% and gas over 58% per kWh since 2022 (RAI, 2025) — so your tariff and your consumption are the two biggest levers.
- A free SEAI energy audit is worth €2,000 and, in most cases, covers the whole cost of the audit (SEAI, 2026).
- Insurance is quietly eating margin — the average Irish business package premium hit €3,043 in 2024, up 23% on 2020 (Central Bank of Ireland, 2024) — and most owners never shop the renewal.
- The 9% hospitality VAT rate returns on 1 July 2026, a permanent margin lever on food and catering (vatcalc, 2026).
- The cheapest savings are contractual, not operational: switching supplier, re-tendering insurance and renegotiating card fees take phone calls, not capital.
How bad is the cost squeeze in 2026?
The headline numbers explain why overheads — not wages alone — are what owners now lose sleep over. According to the RAI's Cost of Doing Business 2025 survey of more than 170 operators, insurance and utility bills have climbed by 32.89% and 25.81% respectively since 2022, on top of the energy increases (RAI, 2025). Faced with that, 70% of restaurants said they expect to reduce overall staff numbers — a sign of how little slack is left.
Energy deserves special attention because Ireland is an outlier. Irish households now pay the highest electricity prices in the European Union — 40.42 cent per kilowatt-hour, against an EU average of 28.96 cent, with prices up 32.7% between H2 2024 and H2 2025 (Eurostat, via RTÉ, 2026). Your business tariff sits in the same expensive market. That's the backdrop for lever one.
1. Lock down your energy tariff before anything else
This is the single biggest controllable line. Commercial electricity and gas contracts roll over silently onto out-of-contract rates that are often the dearest your supplier offers, so the first move costs nothing: find your contract end date and put it in your diary.
- Compare the whole market, not just your incumbent's renewal quote. Brokers who deal only in business energy can run a tender across suppliers in a day.
- Decide fixed vs. variable deliberately. A fixed term gives you a known number to budget against; in a falling market a variable rate may win. Pick based on your cash-flow tolerance, not inertia.
- Check your Maximum Import Capacity (MIC). Many venues are billed for far more capacity than they draw and can have it reduced.
With electricity up more than 96% and gas over 58% per kWh since 2022 (RAI, 2025), a few points off your unit rate is real money. A venue spending €18,000 a year on electricity that trims its unit rate by 10% keeps €1,800 — without changing a single thing on the menu.
2. Get a free SEAI energy audit and cut consumption
Switching tariff lowers the price per unit; an audit lowers the number of units. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland's Support Scheme for Energy Audits (SSEA) provides a voucher worth €2,000, which in most cases covers the entire cost of the audit (SEAI, via ORS, 2026). To qualify, your business spends at least €10,000 a year on energy at the site — which most kitchens clear easily.
An auditor walks your premises and identifies where the watts go. In a restaurant that's almost always the same suspects: refrigeration running around the clock, extraction, and cooking. Practical follow-ups that pay back fast:
- Service and reseal walk-in and reach-in fridges — worn door gaskets make compressors work overtime.
- Switch remaining halogen and fluorescent lighting to LED.
- Fit time clocks and zone controls so heating, hot water and signage aren't running when the doors are shut.
3. Stop auto-renewing your insurance
Insurance is the overhead owners most often pay on autopilot — and it's risen sharply. The average premium for a package policy covering employers' liability, public liability and commercial property reached €3,043 in 2024, a 4% rise year-on-year and 23% higher than in 2020, according to the Central Bank of Ireland (reported by the Irish Examiner, 2024).
Employers' liability is effectively non-negotiable if you have staff, but the premium isn't fixed:
- Re-tender the policy every renewal, ideally through a broker who places hospitality risk. The first renewal quote is rarely the best one in the market.
- Manage your claims history. Wet-floor signage, kitchen-safety records and CCTV all feed into how an underwriter prices you.
- Right-size your sums insured — over-insuring stock or fit-out is money spent for cover you can't claim.
4. Claw back delivery-app commission
Delivery commission behaves like an overhead because it's a fixed percentage off the top of every order — owners call it "the new rent". The platforms require commission payments of 25 to 35% per order for listing your restaurant (RTÉ Brainstorm, 2025). The lever here isn't leaving the apps; it's shifting the mix toward channels you keep more of.
- Push collection over delivery. Collection orders on the platforms cost a fraction of full-service delivery, and many regulars are happy to pick up.
- Build a direct ordering channel. Every order taken on your own website or ordering page is one where you pay card processing instead of 25–35% commission — and a simple DineHere ordering page is one way to keep that margin in-house rather than handing it to an aggregator.
For the full per-order teardown in euro, see our breakdown of what Deliveroo and Just Eat really cost Irish restaurants.
5. Bank the 9% VAT cut from 1 July
This one is timing, not negotiation. From 1 July 2026 the VAT rate on restaurant, café and catering food permanently returns to 9%, down from 13.5% — the reduced rate applies to food and hot takeaway, but not to alcohol, soft drinks or bottled water (vatcalc, 2026).
The practical question is what you do with the 4.5-point gap. You can pass it to diners as a price cut to drive volume, hold prices and widen margin, or split the difference — but only if your point-of-sale is set up to charge the right rate on the right items from day one. Get your POS VAT codes reviewed before the changeover so food, drink and mixed orders are split correctly. Our guide to the Irish hospitality VAT rate walks through what qualifies.
6. Tighten rostering, not just headcount
Labour is the largest cost in most kitchens, and the instinct under pressure is to cut heads. The cheaper, less damaging lever is scheduling. Over-rostering quiet shifts and leaning on overtime or agency cover are where margin leaks without anyone deciding to spend it.
- Roster to demand, not to habit. Pull your sales by day-part and match cover to the actual covers, not to "what we always do on a Tuesday".
- Cut agency reliance by retaining the staff you have — turnover is itself an overhead, in recruitment and training.
Holding onto good people is usually cheaper than replacing them; our guide on reducing staff turnover in your Irish restaurant covers the retention side, and the employment-law compliance checklist keeps the rostering you do change on the right side of the WRC.
7. Cut food waste before you cut portions
Food cost is the line owners reach for first, but trimming portions risks the value perception that brings people back. Cutting waste takes cost out without touching the plate.
- Tighten stock control and ordering so you're not over-buying perishables you bin on Sunday night.
- Track waste for two weeks. Most kitchens are surprised by where it goes — prep offcuts, over-production, spoilage — and you can't fix what you don't measure.
- Use menu engineering to steer customers toward dishes that use overlapping ingredients, so less stock sits idle.
8. Renegotiate your card-processing fees
Almost every sale now carries a processing cost, and those fees are negotiable far more often than owners assume. Rates quietly creep up after the introductory period ends.
- Read your merchant statement for the effective rate you actually pay across debit, credit and commercial cards — not the headline figure you were sold.
- Re-tender annually. Acquirers compete hard for hospitality volume, and switching is straightforward.
- Know the surcharging rules. Be clear on what you can and can't pass on under Irish and EU consumer rules before adding any card surcharge.
9. Audit the rest of your fixed-cost stack
The smaller lines add up to a meaningful number, and they're the ones nobody ever revisits:
- Waste collection and bins — re-tender, and check whether better segregation cuts your general-waste charge.
- Water and trade effluent — confirm you're billed for what you use.
- Broadband, phone, music licensing and SaaS subscriptions — owners routinely pay for software seats and services they no longer use. Cancel the dead ones.
- Commercial rates — make sure your valuation reflects your actual premises; you can appeal it if it doesn't.
None of these is glamorous. But re-tendering three or four contracts in an afternoon can recover more than a price rise you'd be nervous to put on the menu.
Frequently asked questions
What is the biggest overhead for an Irish restaurant in 2026?
Labour is usually the largest single cost, followed by food and then energy. But energy is the fastest-rising line — restaurant electricity is up more than 96% per kWh since 2022 (RAI, 2025) — which is why it tops most owners' worry list this year.
Why is electricity so expensive for restaurants in Ireland?
Ireland has the highest household electricity prices in the EU at 40.42 cent per kWh against an EU average of 28.96 cent (Eurostat, via RTÉ, 2026), driven by import dependence and grid costs. Business tariffs sit in the same high-priced market.
Is the SEAI energy audit really free for a restaurant?
The SEAI Support Scheme for Energy Audits provides a €2,000 voucher that in most cases covers the full cost of the audit, for businesses spending at least €10,000 a year on energy (SEAI, via ORS, 2026). Most kitchens easily exceed that energy-spend threshold.
When does the 9% VAT rate for hospitality start?
The reduced 9% VAT rate on restaurant and catering food returns permanently from 1 July 2026, down from 13.5% (vatcalc, 2026). It excludes alcohol and soft drinks.
How much has restaurant insurance gone up in Ireland?
The average business package premium covering employers' liability, public liability and commercial property reached €3,043 in 2024 — up 4% year-on-year and 23% on 2020 (Central Bank of Ireland, 2024).
Should I leave Deliveroo and Just Eat to save money?
Not necessarily — but shift your mix. The platforms charge 25 to 35% commission per order (RTÉ Brainstorm, 2025), whereas collection orders cost far less and direct orders through your own ordering page only carry card-processing fees. See our Deliveroo and Just Eat cost breakdown for the per-order maths.
Can I cut labour costs without making redundancies?
Yes. Rostering to actual demand, cutting overtime and agency reliance, and reducing staff turnover all lower labour cost without redundancies. Retention is often cheaper than recruitment — see our guide to reducing staff turnover.
How do I lower my card-processing fees?
Read your merchant statement for the effective rate, then re-tender to competing acquirers — they compete hard for hospitality volume. Check the Irish and EU surcharging rules before passing any fee on to customers.
Are commercial rates negotiable?
Your rates bill is based on a valuation of your premises. If that valuation doesn't reflect your actual property, you can appeal it through the valuation process, which can reduce your annual charge.
Where should I start if I only have one afternoon?
Start with contracts, not operations: find your energy contract end date, request your insurance renewal early so you can re-tender it, and pull your merchant statement to check your real card rate. These cost nothing but phone calls and tend to return the most, fastest.
