Am I eligible for the CIR? The 6 questions to answer before you file

Short answer

Two cumulative conditions open the crédit d'impôt recherche (CIR), France's R&D tax credit: being taxed in France on actual profits (corporate income tax, or personal income tax under the normal regime; the micro-enterprise regime is excluded), and carrying out work that qualifies as basic research, applied research or experimental development within the meaning of the OECD Frascati Manual.

The first takes thirty seconds to check. The second is what disqualifies most weak claims: it is not how hard your project was that counts, but the fact that no solution accessible in the state of the art would have resolved the problem you hit.

The six questions below are the grid we use in a first conversation.

1. Is your company taxed in France on its profits?

The CIR is open to industrial, commercial and agricultural businesses of any size and any legal form, provided they are taxed on their actual profits, by law or by election.

Two practical consequences:

• a business under the micro-enterprise regime is not eligible;
• a loss-making business is perfectly eligible. The CIR is not a relief conditional on making a profit: where there is no tax to offset, it becomes a claim on the French State, carried forward against the next three years and refunded immediately for SMEs. Young companies routinely discover this too late.

Some companies exempt from tax on profits can still claim the CIR: jeunes entreprises innovantes and new businesses within the meaning of article 44 sexies of the French tax code. Being exempt does not mean being excluded.

The scheme is not reserved for companies with a laboratory. It looks at the nature of the work, not at what the department doing it is called.

If you are a French subsidiary of a foreign group

This is where English-speaking readers usually need a different answer. The subsidiary itself must be the French taxpayer incurring the expenditure. Three points follow:

• the work must be carried out in France, the EU or the EEA (in a state that has an administrative assistance agreement with France). R&D performed by the parent abroad and recharged to the French entity does not enter the base;
• outsourced research only counts if the provider is accredited by the French ministry responsible for research. Check the accreditation before signing, not after invoicing. This rules out most offshore development teams and intra-group service arrangements;
• transfer pricing and the CIR interact. If the French entity is remunerated on a cost-plus basis for R&D it performs for the group, the expenditure is still its own and can be eligible, but the arrangement needs to be coherent with what you claim. Settle it before the first filing rather than during an audit.

2. Did you face a problem that existing solutions could not resolve?

This is the heart of it, and where claims fall apart.

French tax doctrine is explicit. The state of existing techniques, or state of the art, is the reference used to decide whether a project requires an R&D operation. And it draws the line without ambiguity: if the problem has found no solution in accessible knowledge, there is a scientific lock that justifies an R&D operation. Conversely, "where one or more solutions identified in accessible knowledge make it possible to work around the scientific lock, the work undertaken is classified as engineering", and is not eligible (BOI-BIC-RICI-10-10-10-20, § 90).

So the test is what accessible knowledge already offered: could a person skilled in the art, with normal competence in the field, have solved this using publicly available knowledge, without inventive activity? If they could, you did good engineering. That is not CIR.

Where the line falls

3. Did you proceed by successive trials, with attempts that failed?

In tax terms, R&D is judged by how the work was run. Doctrine applies five criteria drawn from the Frascati Manual (§ 2.7), and all of them must be met:

Uncertainty is the criterion companies document worst. Yet the trials that failed are the best evidence that it existed. A project that ran linearly and exactly to its initial plan is hard to defend as R&D. That usually means there was no lock.

4. Did you look at what already existed before you started?

The state of the art is what establishes that there was a lock, which is why writing it up after the fact for the tax file defeats the purpose. Doctrine describes the exercise precisely: a bibliographic search (journal articles, conference proceedings, books, theses, external research reports, patents, technical databases) and a detailed analysis of existing theoretical and practical approaches.

Two points that change outcomes in an audit:

• a paywalled source is still an accessible source. Not having consulted a database because it is paid does not remove that knowledge from the state of the art;
• an existing patent makes the technical solution accessible even if you cannot use it. Either you license it, or you run your own R&D to find another route, and it is that work which is eligible.

So if the state of the art for your 2026 projects is not written up, write it now, while the teams still remember what they looked for and why.

5. Was the work carried out in France or the EEA?

Expenditure must relate to research operations located in France, the European Union, or an EEA state that has an administrative assistance agreement with France.

The issue arises mainly with subcontracting. Outsourced research expenditure is only retained where the provider holds ministry accreditation and the operation is entrusted to it under the conditions set by the tax code. An offshore development team, a non-accredited provider, an R&D centre outside the EEA: none of that enters the base, even if the work would otherwise qualify as R&D.

6. Did qualified employees spend an identifiable share of their time on it?

The CIR is computed on expenditure, and staff costs for researchers and research technicians make up most of it. On top of those salaries and charges, the base includes a flat rate for operating expenses of 40% of eligible staff costs, plus 75% of depreciation on assets allocated to research.

Which means you need to know who worked on what, and for how long. Without time tracking by project, the base becomes an estimate, and an estimate is arguable. It is the most frequent audit point and the easiest to secure in advance: a per-project, per-person time record kept as you go beats a reconstruction in April.

Answered yes to most of these? Our CIR eligibility test walks through these six criteria, one per screen, with an "I don't know" option. It positions you in two minutes, no sign-up. → Take the CIR eligibility test

What changed recently, and what does not change in 2026

The CIR was amended by the 2025 finance act, for expenditure incurred from 15 February 2025:

• the flat rate for operating expenses fell from 43% to 40% of staff costs;
• costs of filing, maintaining and defending patents and plant variety certificates left the base;
• technology watch expenditure, previously retained up to €60,000 a year, is no longer eligible;
• the favourable regime for young doctorate holders, which allowed staff costs to be counted twice, was abolished.

The 2026 finance act (law no. 2026-103 of 19 February 2026), by contrast, does not change the CIR. Rates remain 30% on eligible expenditure up to €100 million and 5% above (50% in the French overseas departments). Amendments seeking to condition the credit on employment location criteria were not retained. The collaborative research tax credit is extended to 31 December 2028 (art. 37), and the innovation tax credit (CII) remains open until 31 December 2027.

In short: the rules for your 2026 filing are the ones you applied in 2025. It is the claims built before 2025 that need reviewing.

If you are eligible: the three things to do next

1. File. The CIR is declared on form no. 2069-A-SD, attached to the corporate income tax balance statement, no later than the 15th day of the fourth month after year end, i.e. 15 May for a 31 December year end. Companies with research expenditure above €10 million must also file the annex form no. 2069-A-1-SD.
2. Build the supporting file as you go. One technical file per operation: state of the art, the lock identified, hypotheses, trials and results (including the failures), and time spent per contributor. It cannot be improvised on the day of an audit.
3. Secure it upfront where the position is arguable. France's advance ruling procedure (rescrit) gives you the tax authority's formal position on whether a programme qualifies. The request must be filed at least six months before the deadline for form 2069-A-SD; no reply within three months counts as tacit approval. On a first CIR claim over an unusual project, we treat it as the default.

Common mistakes

• Confusing innovation with R&D: a product new to the market is not necessarily new against the state of the art. The CIR is judged against knowledge in the field, not against your competitors.
• Claiming the whole project: an R&D operation has a beginning and an end, and it stops when the five criteria are no longer met. Industrialisation, launch and maintenance are outside the base.
• Forgetting to deduct grants: public grants received for eligible operations are deducted from the base. Combining a Bpifrance grant with the CIR is fine; adding them up without adjustment is not.
• Subcontracting without checking accreditation: that check happens before the contract, not after the invoice.
• Waiting for the audit to write the state of the art: reconstructed three years later, it loses most of its evidential value.

Frequently asked questions

Can a loss-making company claim the CIR? Yes. The credit is offset against tax due; where there is no tax, it becomes a claim on the State, carried forward against the next three years and refunded immediately for SMEs.

Can a French subsidiary of a foreign group claim the CIR? Yes, provided the subsidiary is the French taxpayer bearing the expenditure and the work is carried out in France, the EU or the EEA. R&D performed abroad by the parent and recharged to the subsidiary is not eligible, and outsourced research requires an accredited provider.

Is software development eligible for the CIR? It can be, as experimental development, if the work resolves an uncertainty that the state of the art could not. Building an application, however complex, from documented components and frameworks is engineering and is not eligible.

Do you need a PhD or a laboratory to claim the CIR? No. There is no qualification or equipment requirement. The work does, however, have to call for the knowledge and skills of a researcher, and be carried out by qualified staff whose time is identifiable.

What is the difference between the CIR and the CII? The CIR covers R&D. The innovation tax credit (CII) covers the design of prototypes and pilot installations for new products by SMEs, downstream of R&D. The same project can fall under the CIR in one phase and the CII in another. Take the CII test

How many past years can be claimed if the CIR was never filed? A claim remains possible within the general statutory recovery period. Review it case by case: past years are frequently where the largest amount sits.

Next steps

The test does not replace an analysis of a specific operation: it tells you whether there is a claim to investigate, and which criterion your file is weak on.

→ Take the CIR eligibility test: 6 questions, 2 minutes → Estimate your CIR with the calculator → How the CIR works, in detail

A doubt on a specific operation, a first CIR claim to frame, an audit underway: write to us. We look at the file before we talk about it.

Sources

• BOI-BIC-RICI-10-10-10-20 — definition of eligible research and development activities (Frascati Manual, state of existing techniques, scientific lock)
• BOI-BIC-RICI-10-10-10-25 — distinction between R&D and related activities
• BOI-BIC-RICI-10-10-20-30 — outsourced research expenditure
• Article 244 quater B of the French tax code; article 49 septies F of annex III
• BOI-SJ-RES-10-20-20-20 — advance ruling for the research tax credit
• impots.gouv.fr — "Puis-je prétendre au crédit impôt recherche ?"
• Law no. 2025-127 of 14 February 2025 (2025 finance act), for expenditure incurred from 15 February 2025
• Law no. 2026-103 of 19 February 2026 (2026 finance act)

This article reflects the law as at 8 September 2026. It is not advice on a specific situation.