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HOW DOES THE RDTI WORK?

What information are you looking for?

How much money could I get?

Do you know what expenditure you can and can’t claim on?

Try our estimator to get a rough idea of what you could claim.

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What expenditure can I claim for?

You can include various types of expenditure as part of your RDTI claim.

There are some restrictions on expenditure that occurs in certain contexts, and there’s a list of specific types of expenditure that are ineligible. Check out all the details below.

  • The main cost businesses usually claim for is the cost of paying people to carry out R&D. 

    As a guide, roughly 70% of a tax credit generally reflects employee costs.

    The other costs you can claim include depreciation and goods and services used to conduct  R&D.

    Find out more about what costs you can claim. 

  • Conditions apply to some types of expenditure, which mean you may not be able to claim the full amount associated with that expenditure.

    Expenditure subject to restrictions includes:

    • expenditure connected with associates
    • expenditure on contractors
    • foreign expenditure
    • expenditure incurred in the course of normal production
    • expenditure incurred in a situation where any goods produced as a result of your R&D are sold (feedstock rule).

    Find out more about expenditure subject to restrictions.

  • There are some types of expenditure that can’t be included at all when you complete your RDTI claim.

    View the full list of excluded expenditure.

We provide free tailored support

For any expenditure queries you may have such as record keeping or eligible expenditure, send an email to  R&DTIteam@IRD.govt.nz

If you have more questions about what you can and can't claim, please get in touch with us. One of our Customer Engagement Specialists will be able to clarify this for you.

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