Ireland's auto-enrolment legislation came into effect in January 2026. Under these rules, employees who aren't already in a qualifying pension scheme — or whose scheme doesn't meet the government's minimum contribution thresholds — may be automatically enrolled into the Government My Future Fund.

Kota gives you full visibility over your scheme's compliance status, and the tools to act on it quickly. This article walks you through everything you need.

🏦 How your pension works on Kota

When you set up a pension on Kota, you create a package that defines how contributions work — how much you contribute as the employer, whether employees contribute on top, and who gets enrolled. Kota handles enrolment, monthly billing, and sending contributions to your pension provider.

Employees can view their pension details and manage their contributions from the Kota mobile app.

📋 What your scheme needs to stay exempt

To keep your employees on your existing scheme, it must meet both of the following:

Minimum employer contribution: 1.5% of gross pay (or €1,200/yr, whichever is lower)
Minimum total contribution (employer + employee): 3.5% of gross pay (or €2,800/yr, whichever is lower)

These thresholds are based on gross pay — that includes base salary plus any bonuses, commission, etc

If your employees receive variable pay such as bonuses, commission, etc, you'll need to record this in Kota so the assessment is based on accurate figures. See the Keeping earnings data up to date section below for how to do this.

💡 Employees under 23, over 60, or earning less than €20,000/yr are automatically exempt regardless of contribution levels.

🚨 Seeing when your scheme is at risk

Kota surfaces pension compliance issues in two places.

From the Benefits page, you'll see an At risk badge on your Ireland Pension card if any employees need attention. Click Resolve now to go directly into the pension benefit page and see the full breakdown.

From the pension benefit page, you'll see a warning banner — Employees may be added to government's pension scheme — if any employees need attention. Depending on your situation, you may see one or more cards, each flagging a different type of issue.

Click the button on any card to go straight into the flow to resolve it.

If you don't see any warning, there's nothing you need to do

🔍 Check your full compliance status

To see the full details of your current status, including the government's exemption requirements, your current company contribution, and the specific employees at risk, click Learn more in the top right of the banner.

1️⃣ Fix missing employee information

When does this appear? When providers are missing data needed for employees to join the pension scheme — most commonly a PPS number.

How to fix it:

Click Add information in the first card
You'll see a list of affected employees and exactly what's missing for each one
Fill in the missing details directly within this section
Once saved, Kota reassesses their pension status automatically

2️⃣ Increase contribution levels to meet the minimum

When does this appear? When one or more employees have an employer or total contribution below the legal minimums.

What you'll see: A summary of the government's exemption requirements (1.5% minimum employer contribution or €1,200/yr; 3.5% minimum total contribution), your current company contribution percentage, how many employees are below the required threshold, and a list of the specific employees at risk.

How it works:

Click Update contributions in the second card
Review your current status and the list of at-risk employees
Set your adjusted minimum employer contribution — select 1.5% or input a custom percentage
Click Confirm and continue
On the next screen, review the outcome:
- The new minimum employer contribution will be applied to all at-risk employees, updating your company pension settings going forward. Pensions that are already compliant won't be touched.
- If the employer contribution alone doesn't reach 3.5% total, Kota automatically sets the remaining amount as the employee contribution — for example, 1.5% employer → 2% employee
Choose whether to turn on Allow Kota to keep you exempt. When enabled, Kota will:
- Always meet the minimum required contribution
- Block employees from contributing less than the required minimum
- Notify you when government requirements change
Click Confirm and continue to save

📊 Keeping earnings data up to date

If your employees receive variable pay — such as bonuses, commission, etc — this needs to be recorded in Kota so the risk assessment is based on accurate gross pay figures. Use the Report earnings button in the top navigation of your pension benefit page to upload this data each month as part of your regular payroll process.

How to upload:

Click Report earnings
Download the template — it has four columns: employee tax ID, month, amount, currency
Fill it in for each relevant employee, matched to the payroll month the income will be paid in
Upload it back into Kota — the file is validated on upload to catch errors like duplicate entries for the same employee in the same month

Once uploaded, you can check an employee's variable compensation at any time. Click the ··· next to their name in the pension benefit page. Under Contribution history, the Additional earnings tab shows all variable compensation entries by month.

💡 Kota will send you a reminder 3 days before your billing date each month if any employees have variable pay on record, so you always have the opportunity to submit before billing runs.

⚙️ Managing your pension settings

You can update your pension settings at any time from General configuration on your pension benefit page.

📅 Reporting dates

Click the edit icon next to Reporting dates to update your billing or payroll date.

Billing date — the day of the month Kota calculates pension contributions and charges your company. Changes made within 48 hours of your billing date will take effect the following month.
Payroll date — the day of the month your company runs payroll. Changing your payroll date does not generate a new payroll report.

💡 If a new employee joins between your billing date and your payroll date, Kota automatically runs a supplemental billing and payroll report for them to make sure they're captured in payroll from their first month. Employees who join after your payroll date are picked up in the following month's cycle as normal.

👥 Automatically enrol new joiners

When this is turned on, Kota invites every new joiner to the pension benefit and enrols them automatically. To disable this, reach out to us at [email protected].