SR&ED Claim Processing Times

The claim processing time depends on whether the CRA accepts the claim as filed or selects it for a review.

The Canada Revenue Agency’s current service standards are:

• All claims which have been accepted as filed will be processed within 60 calendar days of the date we receive a complete claim.
• Refundable claims selected for review/audit will be completed within 180 calendar days of the date we receive a complete claim.

Our target is to meet these standards 90% of the time.

The CRA no longer publishes a service standard for non-refundable claims selected for review. Those claims are processed as filed and can be reviewed later, up to the date the tax return becomes statute-barred.

The CRA is currently beating its targets. In its 2025 to 2026 program statistics, 95% of claims accepted as filed were processed within 60 days, and 92.5% of refundable claims selected for review were processed within 180 days.

So if you are a CCPC with a clean claim, you can generally expect your refund within about 2 months, or within about 6 months if your claim is reviewed.