How to file an SR&ED claim

• Form T661 is the SR&ED claim itself. It describes each project and lists the eligible costs.
• Schedule 31 works out the investment tax credit from those costs, including any refundable part.
• Both go with your corporation's T2 return. Most provinces have their own form for their credit too.

Individuals and partnerships can claim SR&ED as well, with different forms. This guide covers corporations, which make most claims.

The Income Tax Act says the SR&ED form must reach the CRA within 12 months after your return's filing due date. A corporation's T2 is due six months after its tax year ends, so for most corporations the SR&ED deadline is 18 months after the end of the tax year.

1. Find your projects. List the work during the year where the team hit a technological uncertainty. Group it into projects, each with one clear goal. Not sure what qualifies? See What work qualifies for SR&ED?.
2. Gather the records. Pull together what was made at the time: tests, results, code history, tickets, notes and design documents for each project.
3. Work out the time. For each person, estimate or total the share of their time spent on each project. Recorded time is stronger than estimates, so keep the two apart.
4. Add up the costs. Salaries for that time, materials, contractors and any eligible equipment. Then choose how to handle overhead (see below).
5. Write the project descriptions. Answer the three questions in Part 2 of the T661 for each project.
6. Fill in the numbers. Complete the cost parts of the T661 and Schedule 31, and any provincial form.
7. Add the preparer details. The form asks who helped prepare the claim, and whether they were paid. This is required even if you prepared it yourself.
8. File it with your T2 return. If you file it separately, it still has to reach the CRA by the deadline.

You pick one of two ways to include overhead, and you make the choice on the T661 itself:

• Proxy method: add a flat 55% of the salaries of the people directly doing the work, instead of tracking overhead. It is simple, has caps, and is what most companies use.
• Traditional method: claim the actual overhead used for SR&ED, like a share of rent and utilities. It takes more tracking, and suits companies whose real overhead is clearly higher than the proxy.

For the full math, including worked examples, see How to get money back from SR&ED.

Part 2 of Form T661 asks three questions for each project. This is where a reviewer decides whether the work sounds like SR&ED, so it is worth getting right.

• Line 242: name the specific technical unknown and why known methods could not solve it. Not "build a faster app", but what exactly made it uncertain.
• Line 244: walk through what you tried, in order: the ideas, the tests, the results, and how each result changed the next step. Include what failed.
• Line 246: say what the team learned about the technology, whether it worked or not.

The CRA is consulting on a revised T661 as part of the 2026 changes, so check that you have the current version of the form before you file.

The CRA processes the claim with your return. Many claims are accepted as filed. Others are selected for a review, which can be:

• A technical review, where a CRA research and technology advisor checks whether the work is SR&ED. They may ask to meet the people who did it and see the records.
• A financial review, where a CRA financial reviewer checks the costs and how they were calculated.

From April 1, 2026 the CRA is changing how this works. Companies can ask for an optional pre-claim approval of a project's eligibility before starting it. For claims that went through it and still need a cost review, processing time is cut from 180 days to 90. The CRA is also using more automation to let low-risk claims through without an audit, and cutting steps from the review process.

• Missing the 18 month deadline, or filing an incomplete form.
• Claiming whole projects instead of the part that meets the tests.
• Descriptions that talk about business goals instead of technical uncertainty.
• Hours rebuilt from memory long after the work, with no records behind them.
• Forgetting that grants for the same work reduce the claim.
• Leaving out support work that did count, like testing and data collection for the experiments.

Many companies work with an accountant or a specialist SR&ED consultant. Some charge a fixed fee and some take a percentage of the credit. Either way, the claim is still yours: you sign it, and the facts in it must be true. The better your records, the less of their time you pay for.

Sredify is built for both cases. It finds the likely SR&ED work in the tools your team already uses, keeps recorded time apart from estimates, and drafts the T661 project descriptions, so you or your preparer start from a claim that is already organised.