HMRC’s published aim is to pay 85% of payable tax credits within 40 days of receiving the claim, or to make contact about the claim within that time. On its own published figures it processed 92% of claims within 40 days in 2023-24, above the 85% aim. Those are HMRC’s aims and HMRC’s numbers. Neither we nor any other adviser can promise you a payment date: the processing is HMRC’s, and nobody outside it controls the queue.
What the 40 days covers
The aim has two limbs, and only one of them is money: pay, or make contact. A letter asking questions inside 40 days meets the standard as fully as a payment does. HMRC also states that the aim does not apply to claims which, in exceptional circumstances, are not made electronically, or to claims without accurate BACS details. The bank details on the return matter. Where adviser marketing quotes a payment speed, it is describing HMRC’s processing, which no adviser performs.
What has to be in place first
Nothing starts until the claim is valid. HMRC requires it in the company tax return or an amendment to it, with computations that reflect the claim, a completed CT600, and a CT600L where the claim includes the merged scheme R&D expenditure credit or a payable ERIS credit. The amount must be quantified. HMRC’s manual is blunt about the alternative: where an incomplete return is received, or the relief is not quantified, there is no valid claim.
The Additional Information Form comes first. HMRC’s guidance requires it before or on the same day as the CT600, and ahead of the return if both go the same day. Without it the claim is not accepted: where the return arrives first, HMRC writes to confirm it is removing the R&D claim from the return. Companies have lost whole periods that way.
What arrives may not be cash
For a profitable company, a payment date is the wrong thing to watch. The merged-scheme credit runs through a fixed sequence of steps. The first discharges the company’s corporation tax for the period, whether or not that tax is still outstanding. Later steps set it against corporation tax for other periods, allow surrender to another group company, and discharge other liabilities to HMRC such as VAT or PAYE. Only what survives is paid out. Our page on how much a claim is worth has the arithmetic. A company paying corporation tax by instalments should also know that the credit does not reduce those: instalments are estimated gross of it, and the benefit lands at the claim.
What stops or slows payment
HMRC deciding not to pay. Where it thinks a claim may be incorrect it withholds the money, and its published aim is to open an enquiry within 60 days of receiving the claim. A payment that has not arrived is not necessarily lost — it may be a claim under examination.
Then the conditions on the final step. The credit is payable only if the company met the going concern condition when it claimed, and HMRC need not pay while the return is under enquiry or while the company’s PAYE or national insurance for the period is unpaid. VAT arrears work differently and end the same way: at an earlier step the credit is applied against the company’s other debts to HMRC, VAT among them, so what reaches the bank is only what survives that. Arrears anywhere on the tax account leave less to pay out.
Errors do the rest. Figures that disagree across the CT600, the computation and the Additional Information Form invite the contact rather than the payment. Filing one complete claim, reconciling those documents first, and answering promptly when HMRC writes is the whole of what a company controls.
If your company’s claim has been with HMRC for more than 40 days with neither a payment nor a letter, send us the question and a qualified adviser will reply.
Payment is processing, not approval
HMRC pays most claims and checks afterwards. In its own words, post-payment checks let customers receive payment quickly but can leave uncertainty about whether a claim might later be found non-compliant and recovered. A decision to pay does not stop it enquiring within the statutory time limit. Money in the bank is not a decision in your favour — see can HMRC make me pay back an R&D tax credit.
Where to go next
If cash timing bears on a decision, plan on the claim being examined rather than paid quickly. Our free claim review is a confidential read on a claim already filed.
Sources
- CIRD80525: practice note for ISBC and WMBC — HMRC’s aim to pay 85% of payable tax credits or make contact within 40 days, the exclusion of non-electronic claims and claims without accurate BACS details, the 60-day aim for opening an enquiry where it decides not to pay, and its ability to enquire after paying.
- HMRC’s approach to R&D tax reliefs 2023 to 2024 — 92% of claims processed within 40 days in 2023-24 against the published 85% aim, and the trade-off HMRC describes in post-payment checks.
- CIRD181000: reformed reliefs, claims process — what a valid claim must contain, including computations reflecting the claim, the CT600 and CT600L, and the requirement that the amount be quantified.
- Additional information you must submit before you claim R&D tax relief — the form must be submitted before or on the same day as the Company Tax Return, and the removal of the claim from the return where it is not.
- CIRD112100: merged scheme payment steps — the order the credit is applied in, from discharging the period’s corporation tax through to the amount payable, the application at step 6 against other HMRC debts including VAT, and the going concern, open enquiry and PAYE conditions on the final step.
Every CIRD paragraph cited above (CIRD80525, CIRD112100 and CIRD181000) is indexed on our CIRD reference index, with HMRC’s own title for each, a line on what it says and the date HMRC last revised it.
This page describes the rules as they stood at the review date above, as general information rather than advice on your circumstances. For how that distinction works, see our terms; for an answer on your own facts, talk to us.