Boston Scientific has laid the groundwork to allow the medical device giant to shift dividends of $15 billion (€12.8 billion) out of the country, new company filings have shown.
An Irish-based entity used by Boston Scientific to hold more than $20 billion worth of intellectual property (IP) completed a big restructuring of its balance sheet in March of this year.
A note attached to new accounts for Boston Scientific Medical Device Limited said the reorganisation transferred $15 billion from the company’s reserves into its profit-and-loss reserve. Following the move, these amounts can be distributed to its immediate parent in the Netherlands and on to its ultimate parent in the US.
In the past three financial years, the entity set up in 2017 has begun to pay large dividends to its parent companies. Last year, it paid a dividend of $800 million to its Dutch parent, which brought total payouts to more than $3.7 billion since 2023.
RM Block
Boston Scientific Medical Device Limited has been used by the medical device giant to hold tens of billions of dollars worth of IP since 2019, when the group moved $34.8 billion worth of IP into the company.
Revenues at the firm, generated from IP licensing and medical-device sales, have grown from $1.4 billion to $9.3 billion in the period, but it has recorded a loss of between $497 million and $1.6 billion each year.
The losses were realised following substantial amortisation charges by the company of its IP. This is a common accounting practice used by multinationals in Ireland that reduces the book value of an intangible asset like IP over its expected useful life and contributes to its accounting losses, which in turn can help minimise tax liabilities.
Boston Scientific Medical Device Limited has amortised the value of its IP by at least $2 billion a year since 2019 and the firm has booked large losses. At the end of 2025, it said the carrying value of its IP was now $23 billion.
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Further accounts published this week by Boston Scientific showed its Irish manufacturing arm reported an 18 per cent increase in turnover to $2.07 billion and pretax profits rose 22 per cent to $135.7 million.
Boston Scientific, which has expanded in Ireland through new facilities and acquisitions of Irish-based companies, first set up a presence in the country in 1994. The Irish operation now manufactures more than 30 million devices here each year for patients worldwide.
The group employed more than 7,000 people in the Republic last year, spread across bases in Galway, Clonmel and Cork. Earlier this year, it announced plans to invest a further €75 million in its Irish business.
