Pocket money for a 5 year old in Ireland
Five is where a pocket wage starts, and the rate is deliberately small: the point is the habit, not the money.
A 5 year old in Ireland earns
€3.10an hour
About €4.65 a week if they do 1½ hours of paid jobs. That's 21.9% of the minimum wage in Ireland.
Worked out from Workplace Relations Commission — National Minimum Wage, rates from 1 January 2026.
The rate at every age in Ireland.
Pocket Wage is a straight line, one step every birthday, until it meets the real minimum wage. Here's the whole ladder in Ireland.
- Pocket wage, paid by you
- Real minimum wage, paid by a boss
At 16, the legal minimum in Ireland is €9.91 an hour. Pocket Wage draws a straight line from there back to zero, and a kid's age picks the spot on it.
What a 5 year old can do, and what it pays.
Every paid job has a standard time: how long it should take, not how long it did. Dawdle and you earn less a minute. Get good at it and you earn more. There's no timer to game and no price to haggle.
A five year old can do real work if the job is short and the finish line is obvious. Put the shoes in the rack. Carry the cutlery to the table. Feed the cat, with someone watching the scoop. Each job takes five minutes at most and pays a few cents, and that is exactly right. The lesson at five is that work has an end, and the end is when you get paid.
Do not start with a chart of ten jobs. Start with two, do them at the same time every day, and hand over the money on payday in coins they can hold. A five year old understands three coins in a jar far better than a number on a screen.
The payslip at 5
One line: jobs done, and what they paid. No deductions yet. The whole point is that the number on the payslip is the number in their hand.
The Jobs Board at age 5, €3.10 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Put the shoes in the rack | 5 min | €0.26 |
| Carry the cutlery to the table | 5 min | €0.26 |
| Feed the cat | 5 min | €0.26 |
| Put the toys back in the box | 10 min | €0.52 |
Example jobs and times. Family Duties, like clearing your own plate, are unpaid: belonging isn't billable.
How junior wages work in Ireland.
Ireland's national minimum wage is set by the government each January on the advice of the Low Pay Commission. Workers under 18 are entitled to 70% of the adult rate, 18 year olds to 80%, and 19 year olds to 90%, with the full rate at 20.
Pocket Wage anchors on the under-18 rate at sixteen and draws a straight line back to zero. From sixteen the site shows the real statutory rates. When the rate changes each January, every age on this site moves with it.
Children can do light work from 14 during school holidays and from 15 in term time, with limits on hours. The under-18 minimum wage applies to any employed young person.
Source: Workplace Relations Commission — National Minimum Wage, rates from 1 January 2026.
Questions parents ask about 5 year olds.
Is five too young to pay for jobs?
Not if the jobs are five minutes long and the pay arrives the same week. What is too young is a weekly amount that shows up whether or not anything happened, because that teaches the opposite lesson.
How many jobs a week should a five year old do?
About an hour and a half of paid work spread over the week, which is two or three short jobs a day. Family Duties, like clearing their own plate, are on top of that and unpaid.
Should I pay in cash?
Yes, at five. Coins in a jar make the maths visible. The app keeps the ledger, and you hand over the physical money on payday.
What is the minimum wage for a 16 year old in Ireland?
70% of the adult national minimum wage, the rate for anyone under 18. It is shown on our 16 year old page from the official source, and it is the anchor for every younger age here.
Every birthday is a pay rise.
The app runs the whole thing: the Jobs Board, the standard times, a sacred weekly payday with a payslip, and Pay-Rise Day on every birthday. No cards, no stored money. The parent is the bank.