Guidance

Submit information to support your claim for R&D Corporation Tax reliefs

What detailed information you need to send to HMRC to support your Research and Development (R&D) tax relief claim, and when and how to submit it.

From:
HM Revenue & Customs
Published
1 April 2023
Last updated
18 March 2024 — See all updates

When you must submit

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.

You need to complete an additional information form for each accounting period.

If you have a long period of account, you’ll need to submit:

  • an additional information form for the 12-month accounting period
  • a further additional information form for the following short accounting period

The additional information form for each accounting period should only include information relevant to that accounting period.

An accounting period can include claims for both R&D tax relief and R&D expenditure credit. If it does, requirements in the following 3 sections apply to each claim separately, not to the accounting period as a whole:

  • include qualifying expenditure details
  • provide details of projects you’re claiming for
  • give a description for each of the projects

You must send us the additional information form before or on the same the day you submit the Company Tax Return.

If you do not submit an additional information form, any R&D or expenditure credit claim will not be valid.

We’ll write to you to confirm that we’ll remove your claim for R&D tax relief from your Company Tax Return. If this happens close to the last date for amending the return, you may not be able to make a valid R&D claim for that accounting period.

Who can submit

You can complete the additional information form if you’re:

If you’re an agent

You must log in to your agent services account before you can complete an additional information form on your client’s behalf. The company should give you their permission to complete the form for them.

Find out about registering with HMRC for an agent services account.

Include company details and contact details

To complete the additional information form you’ll need the following details.

Company details

Your company’s:

  • Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR), this must match the one shown in your Company Tax Return
  • employer PAYE reference number
  • VAT registration number
  • business type, for example your current standard industrial classification (SIC) code

Contact details

The contact details of:

  • the main senior internal R&D contact in the company who is responsible for the R&D claim, for example a company director
  • any agent involved in the R&D claim

Any agent involved in the R&D claim’ includes:

  • all agents who have provided advice in relation to any part of the R&D claim
  • agents who have helped prepare all or parts of the claim, through technical assessment, or analysing costs
  • agents who are involved in the claim, for example by:
    • providing information for or completing the online forms
    • filing the Company Tax Return

Accounting period start and end date

The accounting period start and end date for which you’re claiming the tax relief. This must match the dates shown in your Company Tax Return.

Include R&D intensity details

For R&D expenditure incurred on or after 1 April 2023

You can claim a higher rate of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) scheme payable tax credit if you meet the R&D intensity condition as a SME and your accounting period began before 1 April 2024.

To meet the intensity condition

Your relevant R&D expenditure (plus that of any companies connected with you) must be at least 40% of your total relevant expenditure (plus that of any companies connected with you).

You’ll need to give details of your:

  • relevant R&D expenditure
  • total relevant expenditure
  • connected companies’ relevant R&D and total expenditure

Connected companies

This includes any companies connected to you on at least one day during the accounting period for which the claim is made.

Only trading companies chargeable to UK Corporation Tax (or companies eligible to claim relief for pre-trading expenditure under section 1045 of Corporation Tax Act 2009) can have relevant R&D expenditure.

For more information on pre-trading expenditure, read HMRC manual CIRD90200.

For more information on connection, read HMRC manual CIRD82150.

Total relevant expenditure

This includes:

  • expenditure brought into account under generally accepted accounting practice (GAAP) to calculate trade profits, feeding into the profit (loss) before tax position in the profit and loss account or income statement in your GAAP accounts
  • if you’re pre-trading, any pre-trading expenditure on which you’ll get relief under section 1045 of Corporation Tax Act 2009, read HMRC manual CIRD90200
  • any amount of capitalised R&D expenditure on which you’re taking a tax deduction under section 1308 of Corporation Tax Act 2009, read HMRC manual CIRD81450

It does not include:

  • any amount of amortisation you have to add back in your tax computations because you’re taking or have taken a s1308 deduction
  • expenditure on payments or other transfers of value to a connected company

For accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024

The higher 14.5% rate of credit is available under enhanced R&D intensive support, replacing the SME scheme for R&D intensive loss-making SMEs only. The intensity threshold drops from 40% to 30%.

You’ll also need to qualify as loss-making. This means that you must make a loss for tax purposes before the additional deduction for the relief is taken. Unless you make such loss, you cannot claim the additional deduction or the payable tax credit.

Profit-making and non-R&D intensive SMEs can instead claim relief under the merged R&D expenditure credit scheme, if all other conditions are met.

Grace period

You may still be able to claim enhanced support under the grace period, as long as in your last 12 month accounting period:

  • you met the intensity condition
  • you claimed SME relief or enhanced R&D intensive support on expenditure incurred on or after 1 April 2023

Include qualifying expenditure details

Include details of the qualifying expenditure — check the work qualifies for R&D tax relief.

If you meet the conditions, in the Company Tax Return you can claim for:

  • tax relief as a SME
  • expenditure credit as a large company or SME

If you’re claiming for SME tax relief, you may be able to claim for:

  • cloud computing costs, including storage, for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023
  • consumable items, this could include materials, water, fuel and power
  • data licence costs, for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023
  • externally provided workers
  • payments to participants of a clinical trial
  • software
  • staff
  • subcontractor costs

If you’re claiming for expenditure credit, you may be able to claim for:

  • cloud computing costs, including storage, for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023
  • consumable items, this could include materials, water, fuel and power
  • contributions to independent R&D costs
  • data licence costs, for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023
  • externally provided workers
  • payments to participants of a clinical trial
  • software
  • staff
  • some subcontractor costs

If you’re claiming SME tax relief and expenditure credit, you’ll need to provide details of the qualifying expenditure for your tax relief and expenditure credit claims separately. 

You must answer the PAYE cap questions for all SME claims relating to accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2021.

Only companies with an accounting period starting on or after 1 April 2023 have the option of submitting:

  • the number of externally provided workers that have been involved in projects
  • the employer’s PAYE references for all externally provided workers

This does not prevent companies from claiming costs for externally provided workers in accounting periods that started before 1 April 2023.

Include qualifying indirect activities

These are activities which form part of a project but do not directly contribute to the resolution of the scientific or technological uncertainty.

You can claim for the types of qualifying expenditure detailed in the section ‘Qualifying expenditure details’, if they were incurred on the following qualifying indirect activities:

  • scientific and technical information services, which are conducted for the purpose of R&D support, such as the preparation of the original report of R&D findings
  • indirect supporting activities such as maintenance, security, administration and clerical activities, finance and personnel activities, which are undertaken for R&D
  • ancillary activities essential to the undertaking of R&D, for example:
    • taking on and paying staff
    • leasing laboratories
    • maintaining R&D equipment including computers used for R&D purposes
  • training required to directly support an R&D project
  • research by students and researchers carried out at universities
  • research (including related data collection) to devise new scientific or technological testing, a survey or sampling methods, where this research is not R&D in its own right
  • feasibility studies to inform the strategic direction of a specific R&D activity

Provide details of projects you’re claiming for

You need to give us details of the projects you’re claiming for in the accounting period. The details you need to give us depends on the number of projects that you’re claiming for.

If you’re claiming for 1 to 3 projects, you need to describe all the projects you’re claiming for that cover 100% of the qualifying expenditure.

If you’re claiming for 4 projects or more, you need to describe the lower of the following:

  • the number of projects that account for a minimum of 50% of the qualifying expenditure, but you must describe a minimum of 3 projects
  • 10 projects

If the qualifying expenditure is split across multiple smaller projects, describe the 10 with the most qualifying expenditure (the form will allow you to include more projects if you need to).

If you’re claiming both SME tax relief and expenditure credit, you’ll need to provide separately:

  • details of the required number of projects based on the qualifying expenditure for your tax relief claim
  • details of the required number of projects based on the qualifying expenditure for your expenditure credit claim

For example, if you have 8 SME projects and 2 R&D expenditure credit projects then you’ll need to provide:

  • project details for SME projects accounting for at least 50% of the total qualifying expenditure for SME relief, with a minimum of 3 projects described
  • project details for both projects for which you are claiming R&D expenditure credit relief

If you’re a large business customer

For information on how HMRC deals with expenditure credit claims for large business customers, read HMRC manual CIRD80370.

If you have any questions about the additional information form, you can contact the Large Business directorate using the relevant contact us email address, copying in your customer compliance manager (CCM).

In addition, you can send us further supporting details about your R&D projects in a separate R&D report, this can include:

  • the claim methodology
  • use of sampling
  • details of the competent professionals

You can submit the separate R&D report either:

Give a description for each of the projects

1. What is the main field of science or technology

Provide a brief description of the field of science or technology that the project relates to.

The following terminology will help you complete the description.

Science is the systematic study of the nature and behaviour of the physical and material universe.

Work in the arts, humanities and social sciences, including economics, is not science for this purpose.

From 1 April 2023 mathematical advances in themselves are treated as science for these purposes, whether or not they are advances in representing the nature and behaviour of the physical and material universe.

Technology is the practical application of scientific principles or knowledge.

2. What was the baseline level of science or technology that the company planned to advance

Describe the level of knowledge or capability that existed at the time the project started and which the company intended to advance, for example if the intention was to:

  • improve an existing material or device, describe what its existing features and capabilities were
  • develop new knowledge in a particular area of science or technology, describe what was already known

3. What advance in that scientific or technological knowledge did the company aim to achieve

Provide a description of the advance using the baseline level of science or technology in the previous answer as a comparison.

The following information will help you complete the description.

An advance in knowledge or capability in science or technology may have physical consequences or may be an increase in overall knowledge. In either case, a competent professional working in that field would recognise it as an appreciable improvement.

The improvements may include:

  • creating a process, material, device, product or service that increases overall knowledge or capability in a field of science or technology
  • appreciably improving an existing process, material, device, product or service, for example to save costs or reduce waste (this refers to genuine non-trivial improvements which result in more than a minor or routine upgrade)
  • using science or technology to copy the effect of a current process, material, device, product or service in a new or improved way

4. The scientific or technological uncertainties that the company faced

You must include only scientific or technological uncertainties, for example, the company:

  • does not know if it is possible to create or improve the product or process
  • cannot readily deduce how to create or improve the product or process, for example you tried to build a medical diagnostic tool combining non-invasive testing technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and portability, but you’re not sure about the method to do this

Your description of the uncertainties should explain:

  • what is stopping you from achieving the advance in scientific or technological knowledge (a problem is not an uncertainty if it can be resolved in a discussion with peers)
  • why is it a technological or scientific uncertainty for the industry, not just your company
  • if a competent professional working in the field would be uncertain as to how to achieve the advance, and explain why

5. How did your project seek to overcome these uncertainties

Provide more details about the direct R&D activities that try to resolve the scientific or technological uncertainties, as well as qualifying indirect activities.

Describe the information in sufficient detail to tell us:

  • how the R&D project was not straightforward
  • the methods planned or used to overcome the uncertainty
  • if the uncertainties were resolved, if yes how, and if no why not

Activities which directly contribute to R&D may include:

  • creating or adapting software, materials or equipment needed to resolve the uncertainty
  • planning activities such as a detailed plan of how you’ll carry out the project
  • designing, testing and analysis to resolve the scientific or technological uncertainty

Include the qualifying expenditure for each project for indirect activities that do not directly lead to resolving the uncertainty. A list of what may be included can be found in the section ‘qualifying indirect activities’.

6. Which tax relief you’re claiming for and the amount

Tell us what you’re claiming for, for example R&D tax relief, expenditure credit, or both, and what amount of the qualifying expenditure applies to each specific project.

Submit your form

Online services may be slow during busy times. Check if there are any problems with this service.

You can submit the form if you’re:

  • a representative of the company — you’ll need the Government Gateway user ID and password you used when you registered for Corporation Tax, if you do not have a user ID, you can create one the first time you sign in
  • an agent — you’ll need the Government Gateway user ID and password you used when you registered for the agent services account, if you do not have a user ID, you can create one the first time you sign in

You will not be able to access the form once it’s been submitted, so save a copy before you submit it.

If you do not have a Government Gateway account, make sure you register for one in good time to receive the details you need to submit your additional information form.

Each company in the group needs its own Government Gateway account to submit an additional form. You cannot use a ‘Group Tax Manager’ account.

Start now

You’ll then get an email to confirm that we’ve received the form. This email will contain a reference number.

Keep a note of this reference number so that:

  • you can discuss your additional information form with HMRC
  • if we need to, we can check that you’ve submitted your additional information form

How to claim

If you decide to continue with your claim:

Read more information on how to complete the Company Tax Return.

We are aware of a problem with completing boxes 655 and 657 on form CT600. Changes and issues affecting the Corporation Tax online service explains what action you should take while we resolve this problem.

Published 1 April 2023
Last updated 18 March 2024 + show all updates

  1. A new section on Research and Development (R&D) intensity details has been added.

  2. Agents submitting additional information forms need an agent services account. They do not need to be authorised as the company’s Corporation Tax agent through Online Agent Authorisation to provide it.

  3. Who needs to submit an additional information form and what information needs to be submitted for each period has been clarified. Guidance for agents making authorised claims for companies has been added.

  4. The mandatory submission date has been changed from '1 August 2023' to '8 August 2023'. The 'Qualifying expenditure details' for claiming expenditure credit on subcontractor costs has been updated to clarify that only some of the costs can be claimed for. The 'Qualifying expenditure details' for claiming expenditure credit and SME tax relief on consumable items has been amended to remove utilities and include water, fuel and power. The list of 'qualifying indirect activities' has been updated to clarify which activities form part of a project. The 'Project details' for 11 to 100 (more) projects has been changed to clarify that you will need to describe the 10 projects with the most qualifying expenditure, and to clarify the description of the appreciable improvements.

  5. Added translation

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