Can a start-up with no revenue yet still claim SR&ED tax credits?

Yes. A start-up with no revenue yet can still claim SR&ED tax credits, provided it has genuinely eligible research and development expenditures, eligibility is based on the nature of the work being done, not on whether the company has started generating sales. In fact, this is one of the program's most valuable features for early-stage companies, since many smaller corporations qualify for a refundable credit that can generate an actual cash refund even when the corporation has no taxable income at all.

This matters enormously for a pre-revenue company, since a straightforward tax deduction is worth little to a business with no income to deduct against, but a refundable credit can put real cash into the business specifically because of eligible R&D spending, regardless of where the company is in its commercial life. Many early-stage technology companies rely on SR&ED refunds as a genuine source of funding during the period before they have meaningful revenue.

Because the eligibility test focuses entirely on the technical nature of the work rather than commercial stage, a start-up doing genuinely eligible R&D shouldn't assume it needs to wait until it has revenue, or a fully developed product, before claiming.