Agritech companies qualify for R&D tax relief more often, and more defensibly, than most sectors. Work in crop science, precision farming, controlled environment growing and livestock technology sits squarely within HMRC’s definition of qualifying R&D, and the relief is worth between 15p and 26.97p per £1 of qualifying spend depending on which scheme applies. The harder questions in agritech are usually about boundaries: where the science ends, how grant funding interacts, and how to evidence work that runs on growing seasons rather than sprint cycles.

What agritech work qualifies as R&D?

Work that seeks an advance in science or technology by resolving an uncertainty a competent professional in the field could not readily settle. Agritech meets that test across both of its halves, the biology and the engineering. At concept level, qualifying work looks like this:

Crop science and breeding. Developing growing protocols, trait selection methods or treatment regimes where existing agronomy cannot predict the outcome.
Controlled environment agriculture. Resolving the interactions between light, nutrient delivery and energy use in vertical or indoor growing systems where no published data settles the design.
Precision farming. Sensor, imaging and decision systems that have to perform in variable field conditions, where models validated in trials degrade in real deployments.
Livestock technology. Monitoring, welfare and yield systems where biological variability defeats standard approaches.
Agricultural machinery and automation. Field robotics and harvesting systems operating in unstructured environments.

The advance must be to the field’s knowledge or capability, not just your company’s. Applying an established sensor platform to a new crop is unlikely to qualify on its own; developing the platform because no existing one survives the conditions is a different matter. Our guide to what counts as qualifying R&D sets out the test in full.

How do growing seasons affect a claim?

They compress your chances to experiment, which makes contemporaneous records more valuable, not less. A field trial may give you one data point per year, so hypotheses, protocols and results should be captured as the season runs rather than reconstructed at year end. Trials that fail still qualify: the relief rewards the attempt to resolve the uncertainty, not the outcome.

Which R&D scheme applies to agritech companies?

It depends on profitability and R&D intensity. Profitable agritech companies claim under the merged scheme: a 20% expenditure credit worth £20,000 gross on £100,000 of qualifying spend, which nets to £15,000 at the 25% corporation tax rate or £16,200 where the 19% rate applies. Loss-making companies under the merged scheme also receive £16,200 net in cash on the same spend.

Pre-revenue agritech companies should look hard at Enhanced R&D Intensive Support (ERIS). A loss-making SME whose R&D expenditure is at least 30% of its total expenditure receives up to 26.97p per £1: on £100,000 of qualifying spend, a £26,970 payable credit. Many venture-backed agritech businesses in their development years pass the intensity test comfortably, and a one-year grace period protects a qualifying company whose intensity later dips. The ERIS intensity calculator works through the 30% ratio, and the claim value calculator estimates both schemes on your own numbers.

Does grant funding reduce an agritech R&D claim?

No, not under the current schemes. Agritech runs on grants, from Innovate UK to DEFRA-backed programmes, and under the old SME rules grant funding restricted relief. Those rules are abolished for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024: a grant-funded project claims in full under the merged scheme or ERIS, and neither current scheme is notified state aid. Much of the advice still circulating online predates this change. Our page on grant funding and R&D tax relief covers the position, and we look at the most common case in Innovate UK grants and R&D tax relief together.

Can overseas field trials qualify?

Sometimes, under a deliberately narrow exception. The default rule is that subcontractor costs qualify only where the R&D is undertaken in the UK. But where conditions necessary for the R&D, whether geographical, environmental, social or regulatory, are not present in the UK and cannot reasonably be replicated here, the expenditure can still qualify. Trialling a crop system in a climate the UK does not have is the kind of case the exception was written for. Cost and workforce availability are expressly excluded as justifications. The detail is in our guide to overseas R&D costs.

How we work with agritech companies

LimestoneGrey is a firm of chartered tax advisers and chartered accountants specialising in R&D tax relief, regulated by ICAEW, with a deliberate focus on R&D-intensive companies, agritech among them. Every claim is prepared by our specialist team and signed off by a chartered adviser, enquiry support is included as standard, and the fee is agreed before work starts.

Two compliance points are worth flagging early. First claims (or first claims in three years) must be notified to HMRC within six months of the end of the period of account, or the claim is invalid. And HMRC now checks roughly one in six R&D claims, which is precisely why agritech claims should be built on trial records, not year-end recollection.

If you are weighing a first claim, an ERIS position or a grant interaction, get in touch for a considered view from a chartered adviser.

Written by Matthew Jones ACA CTA. Last reviewed July 2026.