Under PAYE Modernisation, all employees will be placed on emergency tax until they are updated by a Revenue Payroll Notification.
Therefore, when setting up an employee record for the first time or on import of your employee records from the previous tax year, this will be brought to your attention when you access the employee's Revenue Details utility:

Emergency basis straddling two tax years
Please note: the emergency basis no longer resets at the start of the tax year.
Example:
An employee commences work in tax week 46 of 2025 and leaves in week 5 of 2026. The emergency basis will apply throughout as follows:
- Weeks 46-49 are the first four weeks for the purposes of the emergency procedure
- Weeks 50-52 are weeks five, six and seven for the purposes of the emergency procedure
- Weeks 1-4 of 2026 are weeks eight, nine, ten and eleven of the emergency procedure