Many founders assume research credits are for labs. In practice a large share of software development qualifies, as long as the team was solving technical uncertainty and can show how.
What usually qualifies
- Wages for engineers designing, building and testing new functionality
- A share of contractor costs for the same work
- Cloud costs used for development and testing environments
What usually does not
Routine bug fixes after release, cosmetic changes, sales engineering and anything funded by a customer contract are generally excluded.
Keep the evidence as you go
Tickets, design docs and sprint notes written at the time are worth far more than a narrative reconstructed a year later. We set up a simple tagging habit in your issue tracker during onboarding so the claim almost writes itself. Rules change, so confirm eligibility with your tax adviser each year.
