R&D Relief: The Claims Process

We have a vast amount of experience in advising and assisting companies to make successful R&D claims and aim to make the claim process as painless as possible. Each claim may be different and we are flexible with our approach.

R&D tax reliefs support UK companies working on innovative projects in science and technology. To claim R&D tax reliefs, your project must meet certain criteria and your business type and accounting period will affect what type of relief you can claim. 

Check to see if your activities qualify: To qualify for R&D relief, a project must seek an advance in a field of science or technology. Only companies chargeable to UK Corporation Tax can qualify for this relief. 

Check to see if your costs qualify: To find out what R&D costs you can claim, you need to:

1. check if the R&D activity qualifies for relief
   
   
2. check which costs you’re allowed to claim on the activity
   
   
3. only include costs from the start to the end of your project

You must have already paid the cost to be able to claim the tax relief. Costs that have not been paid before the claim is made are not eligible.

Check to see which relief you can claim: Find out which relief you should claim for, depending on the type of company you are and the accounting period you want to claim for. The SME scheme is for accounting periods beginning before 1 April 2024. The merged scheme is for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024.

Check to see if you can apply for advance assurance: If you’re a small or medium enterprise and you haven’t claimed before you may be able to use the advance assurance scheme to confirm if your project is eligible for R&D tax relief. You can use it as a guarantee that your R&D claim will be accepted if it’s in line with what was discussed and agreed in your application.

Claim Notification form: Check if you need to tell HMRC in advance that you plan to claim R&D relief. Find out what information you’ll need to provide and how to send a claim notification form. If you’re planning to claim R&D tax relief or expenditure credit for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023, you must submit a claim notification form if:

• you’re claiming for the first time
  
  
• your last claim was made more than 3 years before the last date of the ‘claim notification period’.

Your claim notification period starts on the first day of the ‘period of account’ — this is the first date of your notification period and ends 6 months after the end of the ‘period of account’ — this is the last date of your claim notification period.

Prepare your R&D claim:

Submit the Additional Information Form (AIF): You must complete and submit an additional information form to HMRC to support new claims for Research and Development (R&D) tax relief, expenditure credit or both.

To explore the whole range of R&D tax services we provide, please visit our Innovation Tax Reliefs page. 

📞 For more information, or to arrange an initial meeting please call 0208 0371030 or complete the form on this page and one of our R&D specialists will come back to you.