What this report details
Our reporting has 2 parts:
- Part 1 – the Report of data about research and development tax incentive entities (data report), published on Data.gov.auExternal Link.
- Part 2 – this Research and development tax incentive – transparency report (analysis report), which provides an analysis of the data.
The Report of data about research and development tax incentive entities 2023–24 provides information on companies that have claimed the R&D tax incentive (R&DTI) for the 2023–24 income year. It also includes information on those companies that have claimed or amended their claim to the R&DTI for the 2021–22 and 2022–23 income years. It's the third data report we've published, and we'll continue to publish it annually.
The data report details data reported by companies in their company tax returns. The data for the 2023–24 income year was extracted as at 30 June 2026 with all data accurate at that time.
Section 3H of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 specifies the data we are required to report. Publishing this data:
- encourages voluntary compliance with the requirements of the R&DTI program
- increases public awareness of which companies have claimed the tax incentive.
Highlights
- The total amount of research and development (R&D) expenditure claimed for the 2023–24 income year is $16.7 billion, a 3% increase from 2022–23.
- 13,490 companies claimed R&D expenditure for the 2023–24 income year, a 4% increase from 2022–23.
- Public and multinational businesses invested the most in R&D in the 2023–24 income year, with a total of $9 billion claimed.
- Small businesses had the highest number of claimants, with a total of 6,920 claimants, making up 51% of the total population.
- Small businesses experienced a 28% growth in expenditure and 15% growth in claimants.
- Privately owned and wealthy groups experienced a 9% decrease in claimants and an 8% decrease in total expenditure.
- The changes across business population segments can be attributed to a combination of companies entering and leaving population segments and improved processes for classifying companies into business population segments.
- Like prior years, the professional, scientific and technical services industry (which includes businesses such as scientific research, computer system design and accounting services) claimed more R&D expenditure than any other industry and made up 44% of the number of claims.
- Australian-owned companies accounted for 93% of this year's population, with 12,561 reporting R&D expenditure.
Interpreting the results
The Report of data about research and development tax incentive entities 2023–24 identifies companies that claimed expenditure under the tax incentive for the 2023–24 income year. The total amount of R&D expenditure each company claimed is published.
If a company has adjusted their claim by requesting an amendment and it was processed by 30 June 2026, we've reported their original claim and their adjusted claim. There are 269 R&D companies that have their amended total R&D expenditure published for the 2023–24 income year. Commissioner-initiated amendments following a review or audit are not published. Legislation stipulates only amendments reported by companies will be published.
The data report will be published on an annual basis.
We do not disclose the amount of the tax incentive each R&D company received or whether it was refundable or non-refundable.
Some companies within the report are reported with a '0' dollar claim. This could be because:
- their feedstock adjustments are more than the notional deductions
- the R&D company adjusted the amount in their tax return – for these, we've published the original total R&D expenditure claimed and the '0' adjusted amount
- the R&D company did not provide information regarding total R&D expenditure.
Figures in this report have generally been rounded. This may result in differences between totals and sums of components in the charts and text compared to that in the data report.