A claim notification form must be submitted when a company wishes to claim R&D relief for the first time or has not claimed in the last three years.
The claim notification was introduced for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2023. For a standard 12 month chargeable accounting period, the claim notification period runs for 18 months, beginning on the first day of the accounting period, ending six months after the end of the accounting period.
As an example, if your company has an accounting period from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024, the claim notification period runs from 1 January 2024 to 30 June 2025.
If you do not notify HMRC of an intention to make a claim it can mean that any subsequent claim for that period is rejected by HMRC, so the repercussions are severe!
The three-year look back
As mentioned above, a company does not have to submit a claim notification form if it has made an R&D claim in the last three years.
In essence, the company needs to identify the claim notification deadline for the period of account and look back three years from that deadline to see if a claim was previously made.
Critically, the company needs to look at the date the R&D claim was made, not the accounting period it related to.
For example, for the year ended 31 May 2025, the claim notification deadline will be 30 November 2025. However, if an R&D claim was submitted by the company at any time in the three-year lookback period (1 December 2022 to 30 November 2025), the company will be exempt from submitting a pre-notification form.
Don’t confuse this with the Additional Information Form
Claimants for R&D tax relief will also need to remember the Additional Information Form (‘AIF’), which is required for all R&D tax relief claims submitted since 8 August 2023.
The advanced claim notification form has not replaced the AIF, which is required for all claims.
Some companies will need to file both forms prior to filing an R&D tax relief claim.
Sounds complicated?
The rules surrounding R&D tax relief claims are not straightforward and the failure to submit an advanced notification form within the required timeframe could mean that the R&D tax relief claim for that period will be invalid and rejected by HMRC.
Our team are well placed to guide and support companies through the R&D process, so if you are feeling overwhelmed by the rules, please get in touch.
If you have a 31 December 2024 year end and are hoping to claim R&D tax relief for the first time then you only have until 30 June 2025 – a matter of weeks, until your claim notification period runs out.
