Avoiding (legally) stamp duty on Irish company shares listed on non-ISEQ exchanges

The stamp duty of 1% on shares such as Ryanair (RYA) is a strong disincentive to invest in Irish companies.

Is it possible to avoid the stamp duty by purchasing such companies via a different stock exhange? For example if you purchase Ryanair via the Nasdaq (RYAAY) do you need to pay stamp duty as an Irish investor?

On a related note, are there any other downsides to purchasing shares via this proxy method (other than the temporary cost of having to change from euros to dollars - though ultimately the asset will be denominated in euros so you are not exposed to long term currency risk in terms of capital gain)? I am thinking of issues such as complications around the dividend payment (I guess the dividend will be at the mercy of the euro dollar rate on the date it is paid but other than that it should be business as usual)?

You will probably find that the Ryanair shares are held in ADR (American Depository Receipts). If you haven't heard this term before I wouldn't be too bothered unless you have a specific interest in the mechanics of share ownership. From memory US ADRs don't attract stamp duty so that is probably your answer. I assume that investing this way brings you in US withholding tax W8-Ben, FACTA and lots of other good stuff. Think I'd prefer to pay the stamp duty myself.

Hi @dublin66,

A very big thanks for your reply. I'm fascinated by this issue and I haven't found much info on this topic. Your noting of the potential structure of Nasdaq listed Ryanair stock is very interesting. Is there a resource where I can find out more about this? As regards my (possibly limited) understanding of the cons to investing in Ryanair this way here goes. I'd be interested to see if I've got any of this wrong...

* US withholding tax W8-Ben - this is just a form you fill every 3 years and means tax treaties kick in so that you can consider you tax implications the same as Irish share tax in general (except no stamp duty in the case of U.S. listed stocks)
* FACTA - if you have filled in a W8-Ben you have nothing else to worry about regarding FACTA
* And lots of other good stuff - is there much else - other than declaring profits/losses in euro based on profits/losses earned in dollars.

In summary 1% seems like a high overhead (100euro on a 10k investment) for filling in a W8-Ben form. Thanks again.

I just returned to looking into this. @dublin66 , it would appear that RYAAY is indeed structured as ADR's. One old article I found on the irishtimes website from the 7th of June 2000 (google the phrase "revenue-agrees-to-drop-stamp-duty-on-iteq-nasdaq-listings" and it is the first hit) did say that they were exempt from stamp duty as a result of being ADRs.

I've been trying to get a more up-to-date source confirming that they are exempt but without success. Thanks for giving me a starting point to research this.