Ireland Start-up Entrepreneur Programme (STEP) Explained
How Ireland's founder-driven STEP residence route works for an innovative, internationally-traded business — and why it is not an employer-sponsored work permit.
A quick but important note before anything else: STEP's current minimum funding figure, its current application fee, the exact job-creation and sales benchmarks DETE is applying today, and the precise residence-status progression toward Stamp 4 are all matters of current official guidance that can be revised. This article describes the programme's durable structural logic — who it is for and how it differs from Ireland's employer-sponsored work permits — without asserting a specific current funding threshold, fee, or timeline as settled fact. Always confirm current requirements directly with Ireland's Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE) or the Irish Immigration Service before advising a specific case.
This piece is a deliberate companion to our existing Ireland explainers — the Critical Skills Employment Permit, the General Employment Permit, and the Stamp 2 vs Stamp 4 pieces — not a restatement of any of them. Those three all sit on the employer-sponsorship side of Irish immigration, where an employer's job offer drives the application. STEP sits on an entirely different side: it has no employer sponsor at all, and is built instead around an applicant personally founding and running their own business.
Who STEP is actually built for
STEP is generally described as a residence route for a non-EEA national who wants to come to Ireland specifically to found and personally operate a new, innovative business with genuine international reach — not to take up a job with an existing Irish employer, and not to run a purely locally-facing business like a shop, restaurant, or personal service. A candidate whose actual plan is to work for an Irish company should generally be pointed toward the Critical Skills or General Employment Permit routes instead, since STEP's entire evaluation logic is built around the founder's own business plan rather than an employer's job offer.
It is a founder's residence route, not an employment permit
STEP does not require, or work through, an employer sponsoring a job. It is built around a non-EEA national coming to Ireland to found and personally run their own qualifying business full-time — a structurally different legal category from the employer-driven Critical Skills or General Employment Permits.
The business has to be genuinely new, innovative, and internationally traded
Reported criteria describe a qualifying business as introducing a new or innovative product or service to international markets, generally through manufacturing or internationally traded services. Retail, catering, and personal-services businesses are reported as excluded from the scheme entirely.
A minimum funding figure is commonly cited, but should be confirmed current
Sources commonly cite a minimum of €50,000 in available funding the applicant must be able to show, which can reportedly come from personal funds, family investment, or third-party investment, and can be held in a foreign account. Treat this as a figure to verify against current DETE guidance before advising a client, not as a fixed number to quote from memory.
Growth targets are part of the pitch, not a guarantee to promise a client
The business plan is commonly reported as needing to show a credible path to creating around 10 jobs in Ireland and reaching roughly €1 million in sales within three to four years of starting up. These are evaluation criteria for the application itself — a consultancy's role is to help a client build a credible, evidence-backed case against these criteria, not to promise the outcome.
What "new and innovative" and "internationally traded" mean in practice
Reported evaluation criteria center on the business introducing a genuinely new or innovative product or service to international markets, generally through manufacturing activity or internationally traded services, rather than an already-common local business model. Retail, catering, and personal-services businesses are commonly reported as excluded from the scheme outright, regardless of how well-funded or well-planned the application otherwise is. This means the very first filtering question for a consultancy fielding a STEP enquiry is whether the underlying business idea plausibly clears this bar at all — a well-funded but purely local retail concept, for instance, would not be a STEP candidate no matter how strong the funding looks.
Funding, growth benchmarks, and fees — treated as needing verification
Beyond the innovation and international-trade requirement, applicants are commonly reported as needing to show a minimum funding level — commonly cited around €50,000, from personal funds, family investment, or third-party investors — plus a business plan credible enough to support DETE's reported evaluation benchmarks of roughly 10 jobs created in Ireland and around €1 million in sales within three to four years. An application fee commonly cited around €350, reportedly covering the applicant and qualifying family members and reportedly non-refundable, has also been reported. This article deliberately does not restate any of these as a fixed, current number, since minimum-funding thresholds, evaluation benchmarks, and fees on a scheme like this are exactly the kind of detail that gets revised — the current figures should be confirmed against DETE's current programme guidance before a client budgets or plans around them.
What happens after approval
Reporting describes an approved STEP applicant receiving an initial residence permission that is renewable, with a described pathway toward Stamp 4 status after a period commonly cited as around five years. This article deliberately does not state the exact initial stamp type or a guaranteed timeline, because status-progression details are precisely the kind of thing that should be confirmed against current Irish Immigration Service guidance for the applicant's specific case rather than assumed from a general description found online.
What a consultancy can actually control
Given how much of the STEP picture depends on DETE's current evaluation criteria and funding thresholds, the practical value a consultancy adds is disciplined case-building and honest client expectations rather than memorized figures. That means confirming early whether a client's actual situation is a founder story or an employee-with-a-job-offer story, since those are entirely different applications; helping a genuine founder build a business plan that speaks directly to the innovation, international-trade, funding, and growth-benchmark criteria DETE is currently applying, rather than a generic business plan; and being upfront that STEP's approval criteria, fee, and status-progression details all need checking against current official guidance before a case is filed. Keeping a founder's business-plan evidence, funding documentation, and application status organized on one case record makes it realistic to re-check a case against current guidance at filing time rather than relying on what was true when the case was first opened.
To be direct about what this article will not do: it will not state a specific current minimum funding figure, a specific current fee, a specific current job-creation or sales benchmark, or a specific timeline to Stamp 4 as settled fact, because none of those were confirmed as fixed, current figures at the time of writing. All of them should be confirmed directly against DETE's current programme guidance or Irish Immigration Service guidance before being relied on for a real case. For the broader context of how STEP sits alongside Ireland's other employer-sponsored and status-progression routes, our Ireland visa consultant software page covers how a case-management platform can help track founder documentation, funding evidence, and application status across a consultancy's Ireland caseload — though, again, it is a case-management resource rather than a source of immigration law, so it does not replace confirming current requirements with DETE or the Irish Immigration Service.
Frequently asked questions
What is Ireland's Start-up Entrepreneur Programme (STEP)?
STEP is a residence permission route, administered by Ireland's Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE), for a non-EEA national who wants to come to Ireland to found and personally operate a new, innovative, internationally-traded business. Unlike Ireland's Critical Skills Employment Permit or General Employment Permit, which we cover in our separate Critical Skills Employment Permit and General Employment Permit explainers, STEP does not involve an employer sponsoring a job offer at all — it is a founder-driven route built around the applicant's own business plan and personal, full-time involvement in running it. Because DETE's evaluation criteria, minimum funding figure, and application fee are all matters of current official guidance, this article deliberately treats specific figures as needing fresh verification rather than restating them as fixed.
What kind of business actually qualifies for STEP?
Reported criteria describe a qualifying business as one that introduces a new or innovative product or service into international markets, generally through manufacturing activity or internationally traded services, rather than a business serving only the local Irish market in an already-established way. Retail businesses, catering businesses, and personal-services businesses are commonly reported as excluded from the scheme entirely, regardless of funding level. Whether a specific business idea meets the "new and innovative" bar, and whether it counts as internationally traded in DETE's current assessment, is a case-by-case evaluation question that should be checked against current programme guidance rather than assumed from a similar-sounding prior case.
How much funding does an applicant need to show?
Sources commonly cite a minimum of €50,000 in funding that must be available to the business, which can reportedly come from the applicant's own personal funds, family investment, or third-party investors, and can reportedly be held in an account outside Ireland at the time of application. This article does not treat that figure as guaranteed current, since minimum funding thresholds on programmes like this are the kind of detail that gets revised — the current figure, and what counts as acceptable evidence of it, should be confirmed directly against current DETE guidance before a client is advised on how much to raise or set aside.
What growth does the business need to show, and by when?
Reported evaluation criteria describe DETE looking for a credible plan to create in the region of 10 jobs in Ireland and reach approximately €1 million in sales within three to four years of the business starting up. These figures function as evaluation benchmarks embedded in the business-plan assessment, not as a legally binding target the applicant is penalized for missing after approval, and not as a promise a consultancy should make to a client about what will definitely happen. The practical job for a consultancy is helping a client build a credible, evidence-supported business plan against these benchmarks — current wording and weighting should be confirmed against DETE's current programme guidance.
Is there an application fee, and what does it cover?
Sources commonly cite an application fee of around €350, reportedly covering the main applicant along with qualifying family members included in the same application, and reportedly non-refundable regardless of whether the application succeeds. As with every other figure in this article, the current fee amount and exactly which family members it covers should be confirmed against current DETE guidance before a client is quoted a number.
What residence status does an approved STEP applicant end up with, and for how long?
Reporting describes an approved applicant receiving an initial residence permission that is renewable, with a described pathway toward Stamp 4 status after a period commonly cited as around five years. This article deliberately does not state the exact initial stamp type, the precise renewal conditions, or a guaranteed timeline to Stamp 4, because immigration-status progression details are exactly the kind of thing that should be confirmed against current Irish Immigration Service guidance for the applicant's specific case, not assumed from a general description.
How is STEP different from the Critical Skills and General Employment Permits?
The core structural difference is who the route is built around. The Critical Skills Employment Permit and General Employment Permit, covered in our separate explainers, are both employer-sponsored: an Irish (or Irish-based) employer offers a specific role, and the permit is tied to that employment relationship. STEP has no employer sponsor at all — it is built around a non-EEA national personally founding and running their own qualifying business full-time, evaluated on the business plan's innovation, international trade basis, funding, and growth potential rather than on a job offer or an occupation list. A consultancy fielding an Ireland enquiry needs to establish early on whether the client is coming as an employee with a job offer or as a founder starting their own business, since these are entirely different applications with different evidence requirements.
What should a consultancy verify before advising a STEP case?
Before advising a client, confirm the current minimum funding figure and acceptable proof-of-funds documentation; confirm the current application fee and which family members it covers; confirm the current business-plan evaluation criteria, including the specific job-creation and sales benchmarks DETE is currently applying; and confirm the current residence-status progression, including the initial permission type and the current pathway and timeline toward Stamp 4. None of these should be assumed from a previous case, this article, or general online commentary — all of them should be confirmed directly with DETE's current programme guidance or the Irish Immigration Service before being relied on for a real application.
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