your roadmap
The whole journey from Nepal to Ireland, end to end — with accommodation running alongside every stage rather than waiting at the end of it.
Eight stages. Two things distinguish Ireland's sequence: tuition is paid before the visa decision, and your permission is only completed after you land, when you register for the IRP.
Shortlist ILEP-eligible programmes
The eligibility gate. Check it before you fall for a course.
English test
Early enough to resit if needed.
Apply as soon as applications open
Direct or via PAC. Competitive master's fill on opening, not on deadline.
Offer, then pay tuition
Read the refund policy for visa refusal before transferring. This money moves before anyone assesses your visa.
MoEST NOC
After the offer, before remitting.
Lodge via AVATS
Online, with documents, medical insurance and biometrics as instructed.
Travel
On approval. Your permission is not yet complete.
Register within 90 days
For your IRP with Stamp 2, paying €300. Then PPS number, bank account and enrolment.
Accommodation is the binding constraint on studying in Ireland — an availability problem, not just a cost one. Start it the day you have an offer.
Your options, in the order most students should try them:
University-managed housing
Apply the day your offer arrives. Limited, allocated early, and by far the simplest way to land.
Purpose-built student accommodation
More expensive but predictable and furnished — often the realistic Dublin option.
Shared rental
Cheapest per room and the norm after first year, but hard to secure from Nepal before arriving.
Outside Dublin
Cork, Galway and Limerick — cheaper, easier to find, and the teaching is often just as strong.
Within 90 days: register for your Irish Residence Permit with Stamp 2, paying €300 — this is a hard deadline
To work and be taxed correctly: apply for a PPS number
Medical insurance: private medical insurance is required for registration as well as for the visa
Then a bank account, a SIM and enrolment. The order matters — registration is the one with a hard deadline, so book that appointment as soon as you know your arrival date rather than after you have settled in.
One decision made now shapes what happens two years from now, and it is worth holding in mind from the start.
After graduating: Stamp 1G gives master's graduates 24 months and honours-bachelor graduates 12 months of full-time work in any field, with no separate permit
Because Stamp 1G lets you work full-time in any field with no permit, the constraint on your outcome is not permission — it is whether your field lines up with where Ireland's jobs actually are. Tech, pharma, finance and med-tech multinationals are concentrated in Dublin, and those are also where the critical-skills occupations cluster. Choose with that in view.