Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit

• You must be a qualifying corporation or trust, including an eligible partner in a partnership. Corporations include taxable Canadian corporations; designated provincial or territorial Crown corporations; qualifying municipal or Indigenous-government-owned corporations; qualifying corporations jointly owned by municipalities and designated Crown corporations; certain pension corporations; Canada Infrastructure Bank; and Canada Growth Fund Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries. The Crown category includes corporations with at least 90% of shares (apart from directors’ qualifying shares) or capital owned by one or more provincial or territorial governments, Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Qulliq Energy Corporation and Yukon Energy Corporation, and wholly owned subsidiaries of these bodies. Under paragraph 149(1)(d.5) of the Income Tax Act, at least 90% of shares or capital must be owned by one or more municipalities in Canada, qualifying Indigenous governments or governing bodies. Under paragraph 149(1)(d.6), all shares (except directors’ qualifying shares) or capital must be owned by those bodies or by corporations qualifying under paragraph 149(1)(d.5). The joint municipal/Crown category requires complete ownership. These non-taxable corporate categories must sign an agreement to follow the Act for this credit and have a corporation income tax account.
• A qualifying trust must have only pension-corporation beneficiaries under paragraph 149(1)(o.2), be a limited partner, and have no undertaking other than owning that partnership interest and ancillary activities.
• Equipment must be in Canada and intended for use exclusively there, and must not previously have been used or acquired for use or lease. Projects that began construction before 28 March 2023 are excluded. Permits, assessments, consultations and similar preliminary activities do not count as construction. CRA may treat genuinely separate phases of a major project as separate projects.
• If you own equipment and lease it to another user, that user must be a qualifying corporation or trust, or a partnership whose members all qualify. You must lease it in the ordinary course of your Canadian business. Your principal business must be selling or servicing that type of property, leasing property, lending money, or buying obligations representing payment for merchandise or services, or a combination of those activities. The purchase category includes conditional sales contracts, accounts receivable, bills of sale, chattel mortgages or hypothecary claims on movable property, bills of exchange and other such payment obligations.
• Where labour rules apply, choose to meet the wage and apprenticeship requirements by filing an election with your tax claim, and confirm that you met them, to receive 15%; without the election the rate is 5%. The rules apply to preparation or installation from 28 November 2023; they do not apply if all that work finished earlier. The wage rules cover employees doing primarily manual or physical preparation or installation work at the equipment’s work sites, including contractors’ and subcontractors’ employees. Administrative, clerical and executive employees and business visitors to Canada are excluded. These workers must receive the applicable eligible collective-agreement wages and benefits, or the closest eligible agreement’s equivalent. Generally, make reasonable efforts for apprentices registered in a Red Seal trade to work at least 10% of the preparation or installation hours worked during the year at each work site by covered workers whose duties are those normally performed in a Red Seal trade, or equivalent duties. Red Seal is Canada’s skilled-trades programme; where a province or territory does not use it for a particular trade, an equivalent provincially registered trade counts. If a law or collective agreement limits apprentice hours below 10%, make reasonable efforts to achieve the highest permitted percentage. Meeting the 10% target, or the applicable lower limit, removes the need to demonstrate reasonable efforts. Keep supporting records for each installation year and work site. Electing but failing to comply has financial consequences.
• You cannot claim different Clean Economy credits on the same amount. If any portion of an equipment item’s capital cost has attracted the Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) or Clean Hydrogen credit, that equipment’s cost cannot enter this credit. Different eligible property in one project can receive different credits, and section 127 credits such as the Atlantic ITC can coexist. A natural gas system cannot receive this credit if any property within it has attracted the CCUS credit.

Qualified natural gas equipment needs a Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) system evaluation before claiming. Submit a plan prepared by an independent qualified validation firm using construction-ready engineering documents. The plan must show expected emissions below 65 tonnes CO₂ per gigawatt-hour, net electricity exports exceeding net heat exports, and electricity used for carbon capture equipment below half the gross electricity produced. An optional earlier design review is insufficient for claiming.

For natural gas systems, report actual emissions, electricity production and shutdowns to CRA and NRCan within 180 days after each of the first 20 operating years. An operating year counts 365 days of operation and excludes shutdown periods. The fifth-year report needs independent verification of each year in the five-year compliance period. Late reports can incur penalties. Average emissions above 68.5 tonnes CO₂ per gigawatt-hour over that compliance period trigger recovery tax, potentially with interest from the original claim year; emissions above 65 in operating years 6–20 can trigger recapture.

Selling, exporting or converting equipment to an ineligible use can require repayment of credit: an event in the acquisition year or following ten calendar years is covered, or twenty for natural gas equipment. Eligible related-party transfers can defer this repayment if the equipment remains qualifying, with reporting required.

Statut

Deschis continuu

Condițiile sesiunii de finanțare

• Claim through the relevant annual tax return; deadline is the later of one year after its filing due date and 31 December 2026.[^c14]
• Property acquisition and availability-for-use dates are eligibility rules, not a fixed application round.[^c1]

Claim through the Canada Revenue Agency with your corporate or trust tax return for the year the property becomes available for use. Corporations enter the credit on Schedule 31, line 185, and include it in T2 line 780. Provide the calculation details with the return while the corporate calculation form is unavailable, including labour election and attestation where applicable. Tax-exempt corporations also attach their signed agreement.

Qualifying trusts complete Form T1099, attach the PDF until an electronic version is available, and claim on T3 field 881 (line 55). Partnerships allocate the credit to qualifying members using T5013 slips and submit calculation details with their partnership return; the members make their own claims.

File the credit claim by the later of one year after your return’s filing due date and 31 December 2026. Natural gas applicants must first submit their construction-ready system plan through NRCan’s secure portal and obtain the required evaluation.