FCI Contractor Charges Guide lifts a modest 4% as costs continue to soar

In publishing the FCI Contracting Charges Guide for 2026 the Association of Farm & Forestry Contractors in Ireland (FCI) is satisfied that this averaged price guide continues to provide fair and reasonable guidance for both Farm & Forestry Contractors and their client farmers. However, it must be emphasised that this is only an information guide.

FCI produces these guide figures by collating an average figure for each operation from a panel of FCI Contractor Members and further supported by a member survey across all of the association’s membership, during October 2025. It is accepted that due to local and sectoral circumstances, the actual guide charge will vary between regions, across soil types, distance travelled, size of contract undertaken, size and type of equipment used as well as the scale of the work done. It is for these reasons there are bands in each segment of the guide.

THE 2026 GUIDE:

FCI Contracting Charges Guide Table 2026.pdf

Download PDF • 502KB

........................................................................................................................................................

As inflationary cost increases continue to impact on the agricultural and forestry contracting sector, the sector is now facing significant structural change. This is happening as farm numbers continue to decline, down by 4.6% while farm scale is increasing, up by 6.8%, as reported the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine and Teagasc. What is emerging is a new situation where some agricultural and forestry contracting businesses are now operating across numerous counties as operators learn to cope with new increased cost challenges brought on by wider scale. This newly emerging situation is forcing businesses in the agricultural and forestry contracting sector to plan for a 4% increase in rates in the FCI Contracting Charges Guide for 2026.

This year’s FCI Contracting Charges Guide 2026, with excluding and including VAT columns provides a cleared guide for the increasing number of farmers who are moving towards VAT registration.

It has been reported that the agricultural sector saw a 38% increase in company formations during 2025 and many of these are the result of farm partnership that have moved to a limited company status with VAT registration. “Contractors also have additional costs in 2026, with the combination of the minimum wage increase impact along with the new legal requirements around the provision of pension funding for employees. These are additional increased costs, as well as managing the new extra costs due to structural changes in Irish farming, must be factored by all agricultural and forestry contractors into their 2026 operational costs,” said FCI National Chair, Norman Egar.

“For 2026, our sector remains committed to providing our farmer clients with cost-effective and sustainable machinery services provided by skilled operators. Our FCI Contractor Charges Guide 2026 provides a guide to the modest increases that our members must achieve in order to deliver on that commitment,” added Norman.

The Irish agricultural contractor sector now accounts for annual farmer spending on mechanisation services valued at over €975 million. This reflects an increase in the value of the services provided by FCI members, of 73% between 2015 and 2024 (Sources: Teagasc National Farm Survey 2024 & CSO Farm Structure Survey 2023). This has happened while the relative costs of the services provided by FCI contractor members to Irish farmers have fallen marginally to 14.48% of all farms direct costs in 2024, despite a period of period of huge machinery inflation, labour and fuel cost increases for agricultural contractors. During 2024 there was a slight decrease in spend among Irish farmers in agricultural contractor services. It reduced to €7,228 in 2024 down from €7,340 per farm in 2023, a modest 1.5% decrease. In 2024 Irish dairy farmers spent an average of €18,275, compared with €17,391 in 2023, on agricultural contracting services, an increase of 5% compared with 2023.

Contractor charges on Irish mixed dry-stock farms increased by 12% on average to €10,543 compared with €9,332, while on tillage farms expenditure on agricultural contractor services at €13,600 which was up 3.5% year-on-year. The 2024 data also shows that contractor charges across all Irish farms accounted for just 14.48% of total direct costs, while machinery overhead costs were running almost at three times that level at 36.58% of total farm overhead costs. (Sources: Teagasc National Farm Survey 2024)

“When this is contrasted with what has happened on Irish farms, driven by TAMS grant aid for which agricultural contractors are excluded, we see that machinery operating and depreciation costs on Irish farms have risen by 53% between 2015 and 2024 as a percentage of total overhead costs. This clearly shows why Irish agriculture is dependent on the cost effective input of the agricultural contractor sector where the use of the latest technology can deliver valuable economies of scale across all farms”, said Norman Egar.