What is a BER certificate in Ireland?

A Building Energy Rating (BER) certificate is a standardised assessment of a home's energy efficiency, issued by a SEAI-registered assessor. It rates homes on a scale from A1 (most efficient) to G (least efficient) based on insulation, heating system, ventilation, and renewable energy installations. A BER certificate is legally required when selling or renting a property in Ireland. The rating affects the home's energy costs, carbon emissions, and — increasingly — its market value and mortgage eligibility.

How does the SEAI retrofit scheme work in Ireland?

SEAI (Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland) administers several residential retrofit schemes. The Better Energy Homes scheme offers grants for insulation, heating upgrades, and solar PV to homeowners. The Warmer Homes scheme provides free upgrades to households receiving qualifying social welfare payments. The National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme (One Stop Shops) offers a fully managed deep retrofit service. In 2024, over 90,000 SEAI-supported upgrades were completed nationally — but uptake is not evenly distributed. Counties with the highest energy need do not consistently receive the highest retrofit rates.

Does BER rating affect house prices in Ireland?

Yes — research from the ESRI and others has found that higher BER ratings are associated with higher sale prices in Ireland, with an A-rated home typically commanding a premium over a D or E-rated equivalent. The premium has grown as energy costs rose and as lenders increasingly factor BER into mortgage valuations under green mortgage products. A BER certificate is also required for the Help to Buy scheme and may affect qualifying loan amounts under green mortgage products offered by Irish lenders.

What percentage of Irish homes are energy-poor (E–G BER)?

According to CSO EBA02 data for 2024, approximately 11.8% of certified Irish homes are rated E–G. However, the certified stock represents only about 5% of all Irish homes — largely homes sold or rented in recent years. The uncertified stock (predominantly older, rural, owner-occupied) is widely considered to have a worse energy profile. The SEAI estimates that over 500,000 Irish homes are in energy poverty, broadly consistent with the E–G category representing around a quarter of the total stock once coverage gaps are accounted for.

What grants are available for home energy upgrades in Ireland?

SEAI offers several grant schemes for home energy upgrades in Ireland. Better Energy Homes grants cover attic insulation (up to €1,500), wall insulation (up to €8,000 for external), heat pumps (up to €6,500), and solar PV (up to €2,400). The Warmer Homes scheme provides entirely free upgrades for households on qualifying social welfare payments. The National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme (One Stop Shops) provides a managed deep retrofit service with grants covering up to 50% of costs. All grant applications go through SEAI at seai.ie.

BER Ratings Ireland · SEAI / CSO EBA02 · 2024

BER ratings in Ireland — energy efficiency by county

Name: Ireland BER County Data — CSO EBA02 2024
Creator: IrelandInsights
License: https://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/environment/domesticbuildingenergyratingber/

Niall Thomas · 7 min read

Ireland's retrofit programme has run since 2011 and reached over 90,000 homes in 2024 alone. The counties that need it most — rural Connacht and Ulster, where up to 18% of assessed homes are rated E, F, or G — receive upgrades at roughly the same rate as Dublin commuter counties, where the housing stock is largely new-build. The correlation between a county's energy need and its retrofit investment is 0.07: statistically zero. The data is below.

National headline — BER 2024

National avg E–G

11.8%

Of BER-certified homes

National avg A–B

52.7%

Of BER-certified homes

Certified homes

105,297

In assessed stock, 2024

Coverage

~5%

Of national housing stock

BER data reflects the certified stock only — approximately 5% of Irish homes have been assessed. Uncertified homes are predominantly older, rural, and owner-occupied — likely to have lower ratings. County figures should be read as indicative of the assessed stock, not the full housing stock.

% of homes rated E–G, by county Switch to A–B share → Switch to retrofit rate →

Is retrofit reaching the right homes?

The correlation between a county's BER E–G share and its SEAI retrofit rate is 0.07 — statistically near zero. Retrofit uptake is not concentrated in areas of highest energy need. Demand-led schemes (Better Energy Homes, Solar PV) tend to reach counties where households have higher disposable income to co-fund works.

The Warmer Homes scheme, which provides free upgrades for low-income households, partially offsets this — western rural counties including Kerry, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo show above-median retrofit rates despite high E–G shares. But counties like Cork, Donegal, Monaghan, and Clare still show need well above their retrofit uptake. Comparing the E–G choropleth with the retrofit rate choropleth on the map above makes the gap visible at a glance.

The correlation between retrofit rate and energy need, county by county, is 0.07 — the programme is not systematically reaching the homes that need it most.

Counties with the highest proportion of E–G rated homes

Mayo, Roscommon, Leitrim, and Donegal lead nationally on E–G share — reflecting a concentration of older rural housing built before modern insulation standards. Each of these counties records an E–G share above 15% in the certified stock.

County	% E–G rated	A–B share
1. Roscommon	17.7%	42.2% A–B
2. Mayo	17.6%	40% A–B
3. Leitrim	17.4%	42.5% A–B
4. Donegal	15.8%	39.7% A–B
5. Longford	15.3%	45.6% A–B
6. Tipperary	14.5%	48.7% A–B
7. Monaghan	13.7%	53% A–B
8. Offaly	13.4%	50.6% A–B
9. Kerry	12.6%	50% A–B
10. Sligo	12.6%	48.4% A–B

View E–G map for all counties →

Counties with the highest proportion of A–B rated homes

The most efficient assessed stock is in the Dublin commuter belt — Meath, Kildare, Wicklow, and Louth — reflecting high new-build activity since 2010. These counties show A–B shares above 60%, driven largely by post-2015 construction built to Part L energy standards.

County	% A–B rated
1. Meath	64.8%
2. Kildare	62.8%
3. Laois	61.6%
4. Dublin	61.4%
5. Louth	61.3%
6. Wicklow	58.9%
7. Kilkenny	57.8%
8. Cork	56.5%
9. Carlow	55.6%
10. Wexford	53.9%

View A–B share map →

SEAI retrofit uptake by county — 2024

SEAI-supported residential upgrades completed in 2024 across all schemes — Better Energy Homes, Warmer Homes, Solar PV, and the National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme. Measured per 1,000 households using Census 2022 counts so small counties are not unfairly penalised by volume comparisons.

County	Upgrades per 1,000 households
1. Galway	40.5/1,000
2. Wexford	36.6/1,000
3. Roscommon	36.3/1,000
4. Meath	35/1,000
5. Carlow	34.4/1,000
6. Mayo	34.2/1,000
7. Sligo	33.8/1,000
8. Tipperary	32.7/1,000
9. Wicklow	32.2/1,000
10. Leitrim	32/1,000

View retrofit rate map →

Why do western counties have more energy-poor homes?

The concentration of E–G rated homes in Connacht and Ulster reflects the age and construction type of rural Irish housing. A large proportion of the rural western stock was built between 1940 and 1980 using cavity or single-skin masonry construction with little or no insulation — the standard of the period. These homes are structurally harder and more expensive to retrofit than more recent construction.

Income is a strong compounding factor: the correlation between county household income and BER E–G share is −0.82, the strongest statistical signal in the energy dataset. Lower-income counties show more energy-poor housing partly because older rural stock concentrates there, and partly because higher-income households are more likely to assess and retrofit their homes — skewing the certified sample toward more efficient ratings.

What is a BER certificate?

A Building Energy Rating (BER) certificate is a standardised assessment of a home's energy performance, issued by a SEAI-registered assessor. It rates homes from A1 (highest efficiency, lowest energy cost) through to G (lowest efficiency, highest energy cost). A BER certificate is legally required when a property is sold or let in Ireland.

A1–B3 (efficient): well-insulated, modern heating systems, often new-build or recently retrofitted. Annual energy costs typically below €900.
C1–D2 (average): partial insulation, older heating. Most of the Irish stock assessed to date falls in this range. Energy costs €1,200–€2,500/year.
E–G (energy-poor): poor insulation, oil or solid fuel heating, pre-1980 construction dominant. Annual energy costs can exceed €3,500. These homes are the primary target of SEAI retrofit schemes.

BER data — coverage and limitations

Certified stock only: approximately 5% of Irish homes have a BER certificate. The uncertified 95% is likely to have a worse energy profile on average — national E–G percentages understate the true scale of energy poverty in the housing stock.
Dublin outlier: Dublin has a coverage rate of around 2% — significantly below the national average of 5%. This reflects the city's large owner-occupied stock, which is only assessed on sale or rental. Dublin's BER figures reflect its transactional and new-build stock, not its full housing stock.
Certificate date, not construction date: a home certified after a retrofit appears with its post-upgrade rating. The BER data captures the current state of the assessed stock, not the original construction quality.
Annual update: CSO publishes updated BER counts quarterly. IrelandInsights refreshes from CSO EBA02 at server startup and caches the result.

The counties where energy need most clearly outpaces current retrofit investment — Clare, Donegal, Monaghan, Tipperary — are visible on the map above by switching between the E–G and retrofit rate layers. If the Warmer Homes scheme scales to meet its programme targets, the targeting gap should narrow over the next two reporting years.

Explore BER and retrofit data on the map

Switch between E–G share, A–B share, and retrofit rate per 1,000 households to see where the efficiency gap is largest — and where upgrade activity is highest.

BER E–G share map BER A–B share map Retrofit rate map Dublin BER Mayo BER

Explore BER data by county

Each county profile shows BER band distribution, retrofit uptake, and housing context data including vacancy rates, tenure, and market prices.

Dublin Cork Galway Limerick Waterford Meath Kildare Wicklow Louth Wexford Kilkenny Tipperary Clare Kerry Mayo Roscommon Sligo Donegal Cavan Monaghan Leitrim Offaly Westmeath Longford Laois Carlow

← Housing crisis by area · Empty homes in Ireland → · Home ownership →

BER data: CSO PxStat EBA02 · Domestic Building Energy Ratings · 2024 · cso.ie/ber
Retrofit data: SEAI National Retrofit Plan Full Year Report 2024 · seai.ie/retrofit
Denominator: CSO Census 2022 household counts