International Financial Services Centre

The International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) is an area of central Dublin and part of the CBD established in the 1980s as an urban regeneration area and Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on the derelict state owned former port authority lands of the reclaimed North Wall and George's Dock areas of the Dublin Docklands. The term has now morphed into use as a metonym for the Irish financial services industry as well as being used as an address and still being classified as an SEZ.

It officially began in 1987 as an SEZ on an 11-hectare docklands site in central Dublin, with EU approval to apply a 10% corporate tax rate for "designated financial services activities" on the site. Before the expiry of this EU approval in 2005, the Irish Government legislated to effectively have a national flat rate by reducing the overall Irish corporate tax rate from 32% to 12.5% which was introduced in 2003.

An additional primary goal of the IFSC was to assist the urban renewal and development programme of the North Wall area as a result of its dereliction following the advent of containerisation in the 1960s. The area continues to benefit from Section 23 (Urban Renewal) income tax reliefs for property owners as of 2019 although new entrants ceased being able to avail of reliefs from 1999.

The original 11-hectare IFSC site has gone through several expansions to become a 37.8-hectare area by 2018 which is now a major European financial centre situated within Dublin's central business district. By merging with the Spencer Dock and Grand Canal Dock (sometimes called Silicon Docks) area, the IFSC is now considered to be an "International Services Centre", covering a broader range then being purely "financial". The creation and development of the IFSC is considered by author Nicholas Shaxson to be an important part of Ireland's economic growth story.

A 2015 Irish Government IFS 2020 Strategy Paper, lists the Irish financial services sector as comprising over 400 companies, employing over 35,000 people (one third outside Dublin), with over €3.2 trillion in funds under administration, providing €2bn in taxes and €2.3bn in wages and salaries. KMPG estimate the IFSC constitutes 7% of Irish GDP. The IFSC has now become one of Europe's most important centres for § Fund Administration & Domiciling, and § Securitisation, and ultimately became the birthplace of and global leader in § Aircraft leasing.

Some of the largest offices in the IFSC are those of the major Irish accounting and law firms. They have become associated with the creation and development of international tax management tools, (such as the Double Irish, Single malt, and Capital allowances for intangible assets (CAIA) BEPS tools; and Section 110 SPV, QIAIF and ICAV zero-tax legal structures), leading to concerns of Ireland as a tax haven. In 2017, a University of Amsterdam study estimated that the IFSC was one of the world's largest Conduit OFCs for facilitating global corporate tax avoidance. In 2018, a Gabriel Zucman study estimated that Ireland had become the world's largest corporate tax haven by virtue of its use as a Conduit OFC.

Dublin encompassing the IFSC ranked 38th overall out of 102 major global financial centres in the 2019 Global Financial Centres Index as well as ranking 15th out of 15 in the maiden list of leading Fintech centres in the same publication (GFCI25, March 2019).