Registration is what makes the Australian scheme different from the other six. Before an offset can be claimed, the R&D activities for the income year must be registered with the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, which administers the program through AusIndustry on behalf of Industry Innovation and Science Australia. Register your activities with the department within 10 months of the end of the income year in which the R&D took place. The ATO then processes the offset against the registration number.
What it is
| Element | Rule |
|---|---|
| Who registers | The R&D entity that incurred the expenditure, or its tax agent or R&D consultant on its behalf |
| What is registered | Each core R&D activity and each supporting R&D activity conducted in the income year |
| When | Within 10 months after the end of the income year |
| Where | The R&D Tax Incentive customer portal on business.gov.au |
| Result | A registration number, quoted on the R&D tax incentive schedule |
| What it decides | That the activities are registered. It is not a finding that they are eligible; the department can examine them later |
| Legal basis | Industry Research and Development Act 1986, Part III |
Who it applies to
Every company that intends to claim the offset, every year. There is no exemption for repeat claimants, small claims or continuing activities: an activity that runs across three income years is registered three times, once for each year, and each registration describes the work done in that year. Companies that use a registered research service provider or contribute to a Cooperative Research Centre still register their activities; the exemption those arrangements give is from the A$20,000 minimum spend, not from registration.
A company that is a head company of a consolidated group registers on behalf of the group, since the group is one R&D entity for tax purposes.
How it works
- Set up access. The portal is accessed with a digital identity linked to the company through the government's relationship authorisation service, or by an authorised tax agent or consultant.
- Enter the company details. ABN, income year, whether a substituted accounting period applies, aggregated turnover band, and whether the company is part of a group.
- Describe each core activity. The form asks for the new knowledge the activity sought, why the outcome could not be known in advance and what sources were checked, the hypothesis, the experiments conducted, how results were evaluated, and the conclusions, together with start and end dates and the estimated expenditure.
- Describe each supporting activity. What it was, which core activity it supported, and where the dominant purpose test applies, why that purpose was dominant.
- Record any findings and overseas work. Advance and Overseas Finding references, and any activities conducted outside Australia.
- Declare and submit. An officer of the company or the agent declares the information is true and correct. The department issues a registration number, usually within a few weeks, and may ask questions before registering.
- Quote the number on the R&D tax incentive schedule with the company tax return.
Descriptions are read later by examiners. The department's guidance asks for plain descriptions of what was done, in the company's own words, not for marketing copy, and treats a hypothesis of the form "we believed that X would achieve Y because Z" as the core of a good registration.
Worked example
Illustrative example. Derwent Analytics Pty Ltd, a hypothetical company with a 30 June 2026 year end, ran two experiments during the year: whether a new anomaly-detection model could cut false positives below 2% on its customers' sensor data, and whether the model could run on an edge device within a 200 millisecond budget. In February 2027 its data science lead writes the two core activity descriptions from the project notebooks, and the finance manager adds three supporting activities: building the labelled test dataset, porting the model to the edge hardware, and benchmarking harnesses. The application is submitted on 12 March 2027, well before the 30 April deadline. The department asks one clarifying question about the dataset activity and issues the registration number on 9 April. The return, lodged in May, quotes it. In 2027-28 the second experiment continues, and Derwent registers it again for that year with the work done in that year.
Common questions
Does registration mean our activities are approved? No. Registration records the activities; eligibility can be examined later. An Advance Finding gives a binding decision.
Can we register before the year ends? The registration for an income year is made after the year ends, within the 10 months. Advance Findings are the pre-year-end mechanism.
Can we change a registration? You can ask the department to vary it, for example to correct a description. New activities cannot be added after the deadline without an extension.
Who should write the descriptions? The people who did the work, with the finance team adding the expenditure. Examiners expect to meet them.
Related pages
Official sources
Educational content only, not tax advice. See the disclaimer.