The government announced in the Budget on 28 October 2026 that it will remove the R&D claim notification form for claims made on or after 1 April 2027. This is good news, but the exact wording won’t be known until it is put into legislation.
Until it is, nothing has changed. If your company needs to file a claim notification for a period of account, the normal deadlines still apply, and not getting it right will cost you a claim.
What was announced
Two things, both administrative. Neither changes how much relief anyone gets.
The claim notification form will no longer be required for claims made on or after 1 April 2027, including claims made by amendment. The additional information form stays, but the government intends to simplify it from autumn 2027.
The detail that will catch people out
The cut-off turns on when the claim is made, not on the accounting period it relates to. Every other recent change to the R&D rules has been scoped by accounting period, so this one reads backwards and will be misremembered.
The practical effect is that two companies with the same year-end can be in completely different positions depending on when they file.
What this does not do
It does not help you now. The notification requirement remains in force for every claim made up to and including 31 March 2027, and the six-month deadline — six months from the end of the period of account, not the accounting period — runs as it always has.
It does not change the claim time limits. A claim must still be made within two years of the last day of the period of account, or 42 months from the first day when the period of account is longer than 18 months. Removing the notification form does not buy you more time to claim.
It does not change the additional information form. That requirement remains in effect until the simplification arrives, and a claim without it is invalid.
The opportunity we are watching
If the notification requirement falls away for claims made on or after 1 April 2027, then a company that missed its notification deadline but is still inside its claim time limit would, on a literal reading, be able to make the claim by filing after that date.
Two examples show this may work.
A company with a 31 December 2025 year end that has never claimed before had a notification deadline of 30 June 2026. If it missed that deadline, its claim time limit still runs to 31 December 2027. A claim filed in, say, May 2027 would fall on the far side of the cut-off.
A company with a 31 March 2025 year-end is in the opposite position. Its claim time limit expires on 31 March 2027 — one day before the change takes effect. Nothing about the announcement helps it.
Our position on this. We are recording it as a potential opportunity and reviewing affected clients now, so that we know who is in the first group before the position is known.
If you think you are in the first group, tell us now so we can file the position. The wrong thing is to stop filing notifications on the strength of a Budget announcement.
What to do between now and April 2027
Keep notifying. Diarise the deadline for every client in every year, including the ones you expect to be exempt. Where there is any doubt about whether the exemption applies, file the form — it costs an hour, carries no penalty and commits you to nothing.
Then, separately, identify any period where a notification deadline has already been missed and the claim time limit has not yet expired. That is the population this change may eventually reach.