The SR&ED Claim You Are Leaving on the Table

When we review a prior-year claim prepared without advisory support, the eligibility of the projects is usually fine. The cost base is where the money was lost.

Commonly Missed

• People who do not write code. A product manager defining the experiments, a QA engineer building the test harness for the uncertain component, a designer running the technical usability testing that informed the hypothesis. Directly engaged support work counts.
• Founders' own time. Technical founders routinely omit themselves, or omit the portion of their time spent on eligible work because their salary is mixed with sales and admin. Split it and claim the eligible share.
• Contractors and subcontractors. Canadian arm's length contractor costs are claimable, at a reduced rate. Many founders assume only employees count.
• Partial projects. A project can be ninety percent routine development with a genuinely uncertain component. Claim the component.
• Failed projects. The project that was abandoned is often the most clearly eligible work you did all year.

Where Founders over-Claim Instead

For balance: routine bug fixing, standard integrations, market research, and building a second version of something you already built are not eligible. Including them weakens a claim that would otherwise be straightforward.

What to Do

1. List everyone who touched an eligible project, not just the developers, and assign an eligible percentage.
2. Check that your own compensation structure supports the claim you intend to make.
3. Review the projects you killed this year. They belong in the conversation.

General information for Canadian founders, current to 2026. It is not tax advice and does not account for your specific facts. Rates, thresholds and rules change, confirm the current figures before acting.