Supporting Canadian Innovation

About the SR&ED Program

The CRA’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Tax Incentive Program is the largest Government of Canada program supporting research and development in Canada.

• Over $4 billion in tax incentives annually
• Over 18,000 businesses annually

What are SR&ED tax incentives?

• A deduction against net income for income tax purposes
• An investment tax credit (ITC) that can be non-refundable or refundable

How your business can benefit from SR&ED tax incentives

If you are doing SR&ED work, you can use your pool of deductible SR&ED expenditures to:

• Reduce your net income for tax purposes in the current year
• Deduct them in a future year

Your ITCs will be at least 15% and can be 35% of your qualified SR&ED expenditures. You can use the ITCs to reduce your income tax payable for the year. If you have remaining ITCs in the current year, you may be eligible to get a refund.

If you have any current year unused ITCs, you can carry them back 3 years or forward 20 years.

The maximum annual expenditure limit that earns an ITC at the enhanced rate of 35% is $6 million.

Find out if you can claim SR&ED tax incentives

To earn SR&ED tax incentives, your work must be conducted in Canada and meet both of the following requirements:

• The work is conducted for the advancement of scientific knowledge or for the purpose of achieving a technological advancement (the why)
• The work is a systematic investigation or search that is carried out in a field of science or technology by means of experiment or analysis (the how)

Businesses must disclose any financial assistance they receive for SR&ED work, as it could impact the amount of their qualifying expenditures. This includes any government or non-government assistance.

Eligible work categories

• Basic research
• Applied research
• Experimental development

Eligible Support work

• Engineering
• Design
• Operations research
• Mathematical analysis
• Computer programming
• Data collection
• Testing
• Psychological research

What types of expenditures qualify

• Salary or wages
• Materials
• Third-party payments
• SR&ED capital expenditures
• Overhead and other expenditures
• Contract amounts paid for SR&ED work

We’re here to help!

Learn about the program

Register for an SR&ED webinar or book a one-on-one educational call with an SR&ED specialist to get an overview of the program.

Find out if your work may be eligible

Use our SR&ED Self-Assessment and Learning Tool to:

• Find out if your work may be eligible
• Estimate your potential ITC amount
• Understand the documentation you need to support your SR&ED claim

Request pre-claim approval for your planned projects

Receive a determination from the CRA on whether your projects meet the definition of SR&ED before work starts or costs are incurred.

Prepare your claim

Access the SR&ED Client Portal, a secure, self-service space within My Business Account, designed to help you prepare your claim. You can:

• Start building your claim using a pre-claim workbook
• Prepare project descriptions and calculate your expenditures
• Request to speak to an SR&ED specialist
• And more!

Contact us

Call our SR&ED-specific regional phone lines if you have any questions:

• Ontario Region: 1-833-446-0934
• Quebec Region: 1-888-784-8709
• Western Region: 1-866-578-4538
• Atlantic Region: 1-866-433-5986

Subscribe to our electronic mailing list to stay up to date on the latest SR&ED news.