Renting in Ireland without being scammed: where to look, how to pay and what the law guarantees
How to rent a room in Ireland without getting scammed: the warning signs the Gardaí list, the one-month deposit limit, checking RTB registration by Eircode, notice periods and what to do if you lose money.
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PTDo not pay anything before you see the property in person. The Irish police (An Garda Síochána), Citizens Information and the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB, the public body that regulates renting in Ireland) all give this instruction to people looking for a home. If you are still in your home country, this means you can only secure your long-term room after you land. You need temporary accommodation for the first weeks, booked before you travel.
In the 2023 accommodation survey(opens in new tab) by the Irish Council for International Students (ICOS), 13% of the 819 students who answered said they had been the victim of an accommodation scam in Ireland. Only 11% of those victims reported it to the Gardaí. Most respondents (82%) came from outside the European Economic Area, and 54% were English language students.
Before you travel
The ICOS accommodation guide(opens in new tab) tells you to ask your school for help first, to arrive well before your course starts, and to consider a stay in a hostel as a base for your search. Another ICOS page recommends arriving 2 or 3 weeks before classes(opens in new tab) to give yourself time to look. A school with a course on the ILEP, the official list of English language courses, must offer students advice and assistance. The list's criteria(opens in new tab) give finding accommodation as an example.
If the school holds the TrustEd Ireland mark, the homestay it offers follows the mark's code of practice(opens in new tab). The school visits and inspects the home in person before it accepts the host family, and again at least every three years. Living with a host family means living in the owner's home, which changes your rights, as the table further down shows.
Where to look
In the ICOS survey, 33% of students found their home through a friend, 27% on social media, 15% through their school or college, 14% on listing sites such as Daft.ie and 7% through an agency.
A listing on a large site has not gone through an identity check. Daft.ie says in its terms and conditions(opens in new tab) that it has no obligation to verify the identity of the people who advertise. Its safety page(opens in new tab) says it does not handle payments between users.
The Garda warning of August 2026(opens in new tab) asks you to be very wary of social media adverts, and of anyone who will only talk through Messenger or WhatsApp. In a 2022 warning(opens in new tab), the Garda economic crime bureau wrote that the situation is worse when the student is a foreign national. They may already be paying high rates for temporary accommodation, or they may have arranged everything online.
The scams the Gardaí describe
The 2026 warning counts over 230 reports of rental and reservation scams between January and July, with losses of over €400,000. It names August to October as the yearly peak. The Gardaí sort the scams into three types:
| Scam | How it works |
|---|---|
| The absent landlord | The advertiser says they are out of the country and asks for a deposit before handing over the keys or showing the property. |
| The fake host or mass showing | The scammer poses as an occupant or an agent, shows the property to many people, takes a deposit from each of them and disappears. |
| The key failure | Everything looks normal until moving day, when the keys do not work, someone already lives there or the landlord has vanished. |
The warning signs the Gardaí list in that warning and in the one from August 2025(opens in new tab):
- a price far below others in the same area (prices by city are in our guide to the cost of living in Ireland(opens in new tab));
- pressure to pay quickly, with a "once-in-a-lifetime offer" or a demand for money before any lease;
- constant excuses for not showing the property or meeting you in person;
- payment in cash, cryptocurrency, gift cards or peer-to-peer transfer apps, where you cannot get the money back;
- a bank account for the deposit in another country, including your home country;
- photos copied from other listings, which the Gardaí suggest checking with a reverse image search.
The Gardaí advise you to view the property and test the keys in the locks before you hand over any money. They also advise you to ask the person renting it for official photo identification, to make sure the property is registered with the RTB, and to pay by credit card or another traceable method with consumer protection.
Daft describes scammers who ask for your ID to look genuine and then use the copy for other fraud. Ask for the landlord's ID before you send yours.
Before you sign: who is renting you the room
Ask at the viewing whether the owner lives in the house. Irish rental law, the Residential Tenancies Act, does not apply to a home where the landlord also lives. In that case you are a licensee. You have a licence to occupy the room and you lose most of the protections of the law, as Citizens Information(opens in new tab) explains. A homestay is also in this group.
| The owner lives in the house | The owner does not live in the house | |
|---|---|---|
| Your status | Licensee, outside rental law | Tenant, covered by the law |
| Deposit | No legal limit. The government's voluntary framework(opens in new tab) recommends up to one month, and up to two months for deposit and advance rent together. | Up to one month's deposit and up to one month's rent in advance |
| RTB registration | Does not exist | Required, and anyone can check it by Eircode |
| If the owner wants to end it | At any time, with reasonable notice | Only with the minimum notice periods in the law |
| Deposit disputes | Small Claims Court: €25, claims up to €2,000 | RTB: free mediation or adjudication for €30 |
| Refusal because of nationality | Equality law does not cover it | Illegal |
The RTB and the courts decide whether an agreement is a licence by its real terms, whatever the document is called, according to the RTB registration page(opens in new tab).
Renting a room from another tenant, who lives in the property and sublets a room to you, is a separate case. Citizens Information(opens in new tab) says you are usually a licensee in that situation. The RTB, which enforces the law, says on its subletting page(opens in new tab) that the head tenant must register the sub-tenancy. If the landlord does not know about it, it may be an illegal sub-tenancy that the RTB cannot deal with. Ask whether the landlord knows about the sublet and has agreed to it.
Deposit, registration and paperwork
The limit in the table, one month's deposit plus one month in advance, is on the RTB page on deposits(opens in new tab). The RTB guide for students(opens in new tab) counts any advance payment for bills or service charges inside that two-month total.
In the RTB tenancy registration check(opens in new tab), you enter the Eircode or the address. The result is Found = Y if a tenancy is registered there, or Found = N if not. The check does not show the landlord's name or the rent. A landlord has 30 days from the start of a new tenancy to register it. After registration, the RTB sends the tenant a letter with an RT (Registered Tenancy) number. Licences do not appear in the check.
The law accepts verbal agreements, so ask for everything in writing: the lease, a receipt for each payment and an inventory of what is in the property. The landlord must give you a rent book or receipts, according to Citizens Information(opens in new tab), and an inventory(opens in new tab). The lease also counts as proof of address when you apply for a PPS number, as our guide to the PPS number(opens in new tab) shows.
Tenancies that started on or after 1 March 2026 follow the new RTB rules(opens in new tab). At the start, the landlord gives you a rent setting notice with three examples from the RTB Rent Register. Rent increases are capped at 2% or inflation, whichever is lower. In the first six months, any landlord can end the tenancy for any reason, with the correct notice. If you join a shared house to replace a tenant who left, you join the existing tenancy, under the rules from the date it began.
Refusing a tenant because of their nationality is illegal outside the owner's home. If you are refused, you send the landlord form ES1 within two months, then bring a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission within six months, according to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission(opens in new tab). Compensation can reach €15,000.
When you leave
Your notice must be in writing, by letter or email, and signed. It must include the date you serve it and the date the tenancy ends. The minimum notice depends on how long you have lived there, according to the RTB(opens in new tab): 28 days if under six months, and 35 days from six months to one year. The lease can ask for longer notice, up to 90 days for a tenancy under six months, under the Residential Tenancies Act(opens in new tab).
In a fixed-term tenancy, leaving before the end can cost you the deposit even if you give notice, according to Citizens Information(opens in new tab). The ways out include a break clause in the lease, an agreement with the landlord, and the landlord refusing to let you sublet or assign the tenancy to someone else.
The deposit comes back as soon as possible after the tenancy ends. That may not be on the day you move out, because the landlord may need to inspect the property. The landlord can only keep money for insufficient notice or leaving a fixed term early, unpaid rent or bills, and damage beyond normal wear and tear, according to Citizens Information(opens in new tab). To deduct for damage, the landlord must show evidence, says the RTB(opens in new tab).
A Hey Ireland contributor went through this:
The lease said I had to give one month's notice before leaving, and I did. The landlord replied that I could not leave in the middle of the month, because few people look for a home then. I told him the lease said nothing about that. It only asked for one month's notice, and I was giving it. He did not accept it, so I said I would go to the RTB. The landlord had lived in the house at first, but he had already moved out. On the RTB website I could check by Eircode whether the house was registered, and it was not. That is when I knew he would change his mind. He did: he said I had been a good tenant, that we did not need to go that far, and he returned my deposit. Find out your rights before you accept what a landlord imposes.
Because the landlord no longer lived in the house, the people renting the rooms were usually tenants, under the Citizens Information(opens in new tab) definition. A landlord with an unregistered tenancy cannot bring a dispute to the RTB, but the tenant can, according to Citizens Information(opens in new tab). Not registering is also a criminal offence, with fines of up to €5,000 (RTB(opens in new tab)). The mid-month condition was not in the lease, and it is not on the legal list of reasons to keep a deposit. Before you accept a new rule when you leave, check it on the RTB page on deposits(opens in new tab).
At the RTB, a dispute can go to mediation, which is free, or to adjudication, which costs €30 and took 20 weeks on average in 2025, according to the RTB guide to adjudication(opens in new tab). Since 14 September 2026, adjudication hearings are public, and the report can include the names of the people involved and the address of the property (Citizens Information(opens in new tab)). If you live with the owner, your route is the Small Claims Court(opens in new tab). It costs €25, accepts claims up to €2,000 and covers a deposit not returned in this kind of home.
If you have been scammed
Go to your nearest Garda station(opens in new tab) and call your bank to ask for a recall of the payment. Do both as soon as possible, as the 2025 Garda warning advises. Use the number on the back of your card, as FraudSMART(opens in new tab), the Irish banks' fraud awareness campaign, recommends. The Gardaí do not take fraud reports online. Their online reporting(opens in new tab) covers only theft of property worth €1,000 or less and hate crime. Also report the listing to the website or group where you found it, as the Garda page on online scams(opens in new tab) asks.
What we could not source
No official source sets a number of days for returning a deposit. The law says it must be returned promptly.
If you are still deciding
When the law covers your tenancy, the landlord can ask for up to two months' rent when you sign. For a double room at €812, the national average used in our guide to the cost of living in Ireland(opens in new tab), that is up to €1,624 at once. Add the weeks of temporary accommodation before you find a room. In the ICOS survey, 1 in 10 students took more than 100 days to find somewhere to live.
If you have already decided
- Ask your school whether it offers accommodation or help with the search, as ICOS(opens in new tab) advises.
- Book temporary accommodation for the first weeks and keep the confirmation in your hand luggage.
- Do not pay a deposit for a room before you view it and test the keys, as the Garda warning(opens in new tab) advises.
- At the viewing, ask whether the owner lives in the house and ask for photo ID from the person renting it.
- If the owner does not live there, check the Eircode in the RTB tenancy registration check(opens in new tab).
- Refuse requests for more than one month's deposit plus one month in advance, the legal limit(opens in new tab).
- Pay by credit card or another traceable method. Never pay in cash, cryptocurrency, to an account outside Ireland or through a peer-to-peer transfer app.
- Keep the lease, receipts and inventory.
- To leave, send written and signed notice, following the RTB notice periods(opens in new tab).
- If you are scammed, go to a Garda station(opens in new tab) and call your bank the same day.
Sources
Verified on 1 October 2026.
- An Garda Síochána, student fraud warning, 25 August 2026 (230 reports and €400,000 to 31 July, August to October peak, the three scam types, warning signs, credit card payment, photo ID and RTB registration). https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/our-departments/office-of-corporate-communications/press-releases/2026/august/25-08-2026-an-garda-siochana-issues-student-fraud-warning-ahead-of-cao-offers-25th-august-2026.html(opens in new tab)
- An Garda Síochána, student accommodation fraud warning, August 2025 (account in another country, report to the Gardaí and the bank, recall). https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/our-departments/office-of-corporate-communications/press-releases/2025/august/an-garda-siochana-student-accommodation-fraud-warning-august-2025.html(opens in new tab)
- An Garda Síochána, GNECB Fraud Awareness Week, Accommodation Fraud, 31 March 2022 (foreign national students). https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/our-departments/office-of-corporate-communications/press-releases/2022/march/gnecb-fraud-awareness-week-accommodation-fraud-31st-march-2022-.html(opens in new tab)
- An Garda Síochána, Can I report crime online? https://www.garda.ie/en/victim-services/reporting-a-crime-faqs/can-i-report-crime-online-.html(opens in new tab)
- An Garda Síochána, I've been caught out by an online scam, what should I do? https://www.garda.ie/en/crime/cyber-crime/i-ve-been-caught-out-by-an-online-scam-what-should-i-do-.html(opens in new tab)
- FraudSMART, warning of 4 September 2026 (call your bank on the number on your card). https://www.fraudsmart.ie/2026/09/04/consumers-warned-to-be-on-alert-for-highly-deceptive-scams-as-new-figures-show-27-jump-in-losses/(opens in new tab)
- Irish Council for International Students, Accommodation Survey of International Students 2023 (819 responses, 13% scam victims, 11% reported, search channels, more than 100 days). Published November 2023. https://www.internationalstudents.ie/sites/default/files/media/file-uploads/2023-11/ICOS_Accomodation_Survey_2023.pdf(opens in new tab)
- Irish Council for International Students, Accommodation Guide (school first, hostel as a base, test the keys). https://www.internationalstudents.ie/info-and-advice/practical-information/accommodation-guide(opens in new tab)
- Irish Council for International Students, Student Services (arrive 2 or 3 weeks early). https://www.internationalstudents.ie/info-and-advice/practical-information/student-services(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Security deposits (limit, return, reasons for deductions). Page modified 8 June 2025. https://rtb.ie/renting/rights-responsibilities/security-deposits/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Student Renting 101 (two-month limit including advance bills, RT number letter, verbal agreements). August 2026. https://rtb.ie/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Student-Renting-Handbook-WEB-English.pdf(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Tenancy registration check (search by Eircode, Found = Y or N). Page modified 28 February 2026. https://rtb.ie/compliance/check-the-register/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Who should register (30 days, licence judged by its real terms, owner-occupied homes exempt). Page modified 14 September 2026. https://rtb.ie/register-tenancies/register-a-tenancy/who-should-register/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Consequences of not registering (fines up to €5,000). Page modified 14 September 2026. https://rtb.ie/register-tenancies/register-a-tenancy/consequences-of-not-registering/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, How a tenant can end a tenancy (notice periods, format, fixed terms). Page modified 14 September 2026. https://rtb.ie/renting/ending-a-tenancy/how-a-tenant-can-end-a-tenancy/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Subletting and assignment. Page modified 14 September 2026. https://rtb.ie/renting/rights-responsibilities/subletting-and-assignment/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Wear and tear (evidence for deductions). Page modified 6 June 2025. https://rtb.ie/renting/rights-responsibilities/wear-and-tear/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Guide to adjudication (€30, 20 weeks in 2025). Page modified 14 September 2026. https://rtb.ie/disputes/guide-to-adjudication/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Board, Rental law changes from 1 March 2026 (rent setting notice, rent cap, first six months, joining an existing tenancy). Page modified 2 July 2026. https://rtb.ie/renting/rental-law-changes-from-1-march-2/(opens in new tab)
- Residential Tenancies Act 2004, revised to 1 March 2026 (section 19B on deposits and advance rent, sections 60 and 65 on notice). https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/2004/act/27/revised/en/html(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Looking for a flat or house to rent. Page edited 16 July 2026. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting-a-home/looking-for-a-flat-or-house-to-rent/(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Sharing accommodation with your landlord. Page edited 16 July 2026. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting-a-home/tenants-rights-and-responsibilities/sharing-accommodation-with-your-landlord/(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Sharing rented accommodation (room from another tenant, landlord you do not live with). Page edited 13 August 2025. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting-a-home/tenants-rights-and-responsibilities/sharing-rented-accommodation/(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Rent books. Page edited 11 September 2025. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting-a-home/tenants-rights-and-responsibilities/rent-books/(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Tenants' rights and obligations (inventory, fixed terms). Page edited 5 March 2026. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting-a-home/tenants-rights-and-responsibilities/tenants-rights-and-obligations/(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Landlords' rights and obligations (reasons to keep a deposit). Page edited 18 September 2026. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting-a-home/landlords-rights-and-responsibilities/landlords-rights-and-obligations/(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Residential Tenancies Board (unregistered tenancies). Page edited 18 September 2026. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting-a-home/resolving-disputes/residential-tenancies-board/(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Disputes between landlords and tenants (public hearings since 14 September 2026). Page edited 18 September 2026. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting-a-home/resolving-disputes/disputes-between-landlords-and-tenants/(opens in new tab)
- Citizens Information, Small claims procedure. Page edited 1 December 2025. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/justice/courts-system/small-claims-court/(opens in new tab)
- Department of Housing (gov.ie), Rent-a-Room Voluntary Regulatory Framework. Page updated 20 August 2026. https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/be552-rent-a-room-voluntary-regulatory-framework/(opens in new tab)
- Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, Discrimination in housing (nationality, ES1, time limits, €15,000). Updated December 2023. https://www.ihrec.ie/factsheets/discrimination-in-housing(opens in new tab)
- Immigration Service Delivery, ILEP English language programme criteria, 21 March 2025 (help with finding accommodation). https://www.irishimmigration.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/EL-Prog-Criteria-21-March-2025.pdf(opens in new tab)
- QQI, TrustEd Ireland code of practice for English language education, August 2024 (homestay inspections). https://www.qqi.ie/sites/default/files/2024-01/code-of-practice-for-provision-of-programmes-of-english-language-education-to-international-learners.pdf(opens in new tab)
- Daft.ie, Safety Online (no payment handling, scammers asking for your ID). Updated 28 September 2026. https://support.daft.ie/hc/en-ie/articles/360003988977-Safety-Online(opens in new tab)
- Daft.ie, Terms and conditions (no obligation to verify users). Updated 25 September 2026. https://support.daft.ie/hc/en-ie/articles/5127313728273(opens in new tab)
Rental rules, amounts and deadlines change. If you are reading this months after the verification date, check the original sources before you pay.