Ireland’s TV Licence Is Dying. The Numbers Show Why.
Ireland's television licence revenue is projected to fall by €8.5m in 2026. The longer trend is even more revealing — and raises questions about how public broadcasting should be funded.
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Ireland’s €160 TV licence is losing paying customers. Not just this year, but year after year. The latest figures suggest 2026 will mark another fall — and they put a question back on the political agenda: is the collection system the problem, or is the funding model itself running out of road?
What the latest figures actually show
Figures given by Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan in response to a Dáil question, and reported by The Irish Times on 10 October, show 536,551 paid licences sold from January to September 2026.
That’s 35,748 fewer licences than in the comparable nine months of 2025, a decline of roughly 6.2%. The associated sales revenue is €85.86 million, approximately €5.7 million below the previous year.
Extending that nine-month run rate across a full year produces a forecast of 715,401 licences and €114.46 million. The full-year number is a projection, not a confirmed 2026 total.
An €8.5 million shortfall is the revenue equivalent of around 53,125 licences at €160 each. It is not a separate count of households that stopped paying: year-on-year changes in actual licence sales must be read from the sales figures.
Eight years of decline, in one chart
| 2019 | 1,025,534 |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 961,277 |
| 2021 | 951,454 |
| 2022 | 947,924 |
| 2023 | 824,278 |
| 2024 | 792,243 |
| 2025 | 768,657 |
| 2026* | 715,401 projected |
2019–23: Oireachtas/An Post. 2024–25: RTÉ 2025 annual report. 2026* is a full-year projection based on Jan–Sep figures reported 10 October, not an actual result. These are paid licence sales, not the total funding received by RTÉ. Source
There were 1,025,534 paid licences sold in 2019. The 2026 forecast is 310,133 lower — roughly three in every ten compared with that baseline.
The steepest visible shift came after 2022. Official returns show 947,924 licences in 2022, followed by 824,278 in 2023, the year of the RTÉ payments controversy. Sales fell again to 792,243 in 2024 and 768,657 in 2025.
The RTÉ controversy damaged public trust, but the declining trend predates it. Changing household viewing habits and reduced ownership of conventional television sets may also play a part. The sales series alone cannot tell us how much is due to non-payment, how much to changing technology, or how much to people who no longer need a licence.
What €37 million less looks like
At the unchanged €160 fee, paid licence sales generated about €151.66 million in 2022. The 2026 projection is €114.46 million: a decline of approximately €37.2 million, or 24.5%, in four years.
That is not the same as the total income RTÉ receives from licence-related public funding. RTÉ’s 2025 annual report records €183.5 million in licence fee income, which includes the State-funded free-licence scheme. Comparing that larger figure directly with the €114.46 million forecast for paid sales would mix different measures.
Does streaming make the €160 licence obsolete?
Not legally. In Ireland, a smart TV still generally needs a licence even if its owner watches only Netflix or YouTube. Watching streaming services on a computer or phone does not normally require one, provided the device cannot receive television signals through the relevant equipment.
These distinctions are explained by Citizens Information and An Post’s TV licence service. The law has not been abolished, and a fall in sales is not permission to stop paying when a licence is required.
But the distinction exposes the policy problem. Two households can watch much the same online programmes yet face different obligations depending on whether they own a television set.
The Government has a bigger RTÉ funding problem
The licence debate comes immediately after a separate Budget 2027 dispute.
The Government’s 2024 funding agreement envisaged €260 million in total public funding for RTÉ in 2027, including licence receipts and Exchequer support. This week’s announced allocation is €240 million, €20 million below that earlier plan. RTÉ and the Government are discussing the shortfall, according to RTÉ’s reporting on 9 October.
These are separate numbers: the €20 million Budget allocation difference is not the €8.5 million year-on-year drop in projected paid licence revenue.
RTÉ’s public-service remit — Irish news, sport, culture, accessible broadcasting and Irish-language output — does not disappear when fewer licences are sold. Equally, a case for public-service media is not an argument for unlimited funding without transparency or accountability.
What could replace the TV licence?
The core question is no longer whether public-service broadcasting is worth funding. It is whether a payment system tied to owning a TV set is the right way to do it.
The licence remains law in 2026. Yet another year of falling paid sales makes reform harder to postpone — and simply asking a shrinking group of people to keep paying €160 is not a long-term funding strategy.
Data note: 2019–23 annual paid licence sales come from Oireachtas-published An Post figures; 2024–25 from RTÉ’s 2025 annual report; January–September 2026 and the 2026 estimate were reported on 10 October 2026. The chart marks the uncompleted 2026 year as projected.
Related on Compound: Budget 2027: Ireland’s main changes · The cost of everyday life in Ireland · More news.
