Fixed vs variable rates in Ireland

Two different promises

These figures are estimates, not a mortgage offer and not financial advice. A fixed rate is a promise that the interest rate, and so the repayment, stays put for a stated number of years. A variable rate can move. In Ireland a variable rate is not always a tracker. A tracker is tied to another rate, often the ECB rate, by a margin written into the contract. A standard variable rate is one the lender sets. Adverts use the words loosely. The offer letter is the place that says which one you would actually have.

The follow-on rate is the part that gets skipped

A fix of three or five years is not the whole mortgage. When it ends you usually move to a variable rate, or you take another fix if the lender is offering one. The payment is then recalculated on the balance that remains and the years that remain. A cheap first payment is not a cheap mortgage if the rate after the fix is high. Compare the follow-on rate, what it costs to leave the fix early, and how long the fix lasts. Do not stop at the monthly figure for year one.

One figure, so the step-up is concrete

On €300,000 over 30 years at a steady 4%, the repayment is €1,432.25 a month. The monthly rate behind that is 4% divided by 12, the nominal method a mortgage quote uses. It is an illustration, not a rate anyone is offering this week. If the first five years were cheaper and the rest were dearer, the payment would step up at the switch even though you had not borrowed more and the original term had not changed. The mortgage calculator takes both rates and shows the two payments.

The Central Bank limits sit beside the rate

The rate you are offered and the amount you are allowed to borrow are separate questions. A fix does not relax the Central Bank mortgage measures, and a variable rate does not tighten them. First-time buyers: up to 4 times gross income, and a loan-to-value of 90% (a 10% deposit). Second and subsequent buyers: 3.5 times income, and the same 90%. Buy-to-let: 70% loan-to-value, a 30% deposit, with no income multiple in these measures. Lenders may put up to 15% of first-time and second-buyer lending, and 10% of buy-to-let lending, above the limits.

Those figures were checked on 8 October 2026 against the Central Bank mortgage measures and the 8 April 2026 announcement. That announcement exempts certain principal-home bridging loans, of no more than 18 months, from the income limit. The loan-to-value limit still applies. The calculator does not price a bridging loan.

What neither rate includes

Neither a fix nor a variable rate is advice, and a calculator is not an offer. Stamp duty and the lender’s fees sit outside the monthly repayment. A personal loan or a car loan is priced differently again: its APR is turned into a monthly rate with (1 + APR) to the power of 1/12, on the loan calculator. These pages estimate the arithmetic. They are not a credit decision.