Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit (CEITC)
Compared with the 242 other application forms we have read
- Scored mainly on the jobs it creates for other people. 22 lead with that.
- What does not disqualify you: NRCan technical opinion is optional; No reasonable-efforts proof if 10% met. 119 record an exemption like this.
- 11 documents to attach, against a median of 5.
Can you claim this credit?
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Eligibility & Details
What this program funds and who can apply
Program Description
Refundable 15% investment tax credit on eligible capital costs of clean electricity generation, storage, and inter-provincial transmission equipment, enacted March 26, 2026 via Bill C-15 with retroactive effect to April 16, 2024 (December 16, 2024 for the Canada Infrastructure Bank; November 4, 2025 for Canada Growth Fund Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries). Equipment must be situated in and used exclusively in Canada and must not have been previously used. Full 15% rate requires meeting prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements; non-compliant projects receive 5%.
Eligibility Requirements
- Taxable Canadian corporations
- Municipalities and their wholly-owned corporations (90%+ ownership by municipality or Aboriginal government)
- Aboriginal government-owned corporations (90%+ Aboriginal government ownership)
- Designated provincial and territorial Crown corporations — at least 90% of shares (except directors' qualifying shares) or capital owned by one or more provincial or territorial governments, or Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Qulliq Energy Corporation or Yukon Energy Corporation
- Qualifying pension corporations
- Canada Growth Fund and Canada Infrastructure Bank
- Qualifying trusts — a trust qualifies only if each of its beneficiaries is a corporation described in paragraph 149(1)(o.2) of the Income Tax Act, it is a limited partner of a partnership, and its sole undertaking is owning that partnership interest plus any ancillary activities. An unincorporated business cannot restructure into a qualifying trust.
- Qualifying corporations must hold a business number with a corporation income tax (RC) program account
- Property must be acquired and become available for use between April 16, 2024 and December 31, 2034 — the start date is December 16, 2024 for the Canada Infrastructure Bank and November 4, 2025 for Canada Growth Fund Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries
- Equipment must be situated in and intended for use exclusively in Canada
- Property must not have been previously used, or acquired for use or lease, for any purpose before acquisition
- Claims including qualified natural gas energy equipment require a qualified natural gas energy system evaluation issued by NRCan, plus ongoing emissions-intensity reporting
- Construction of the property must not have commenced before March 28, 2023
- Full 15% rate requires you to ELECT the prevailing wage and apprenticeship standards and ATTEST that you met them, for every installation tax year and designated work site; not electing reduces the rate to 5%, and electing then failing carries additions to tax, a top-up with interest, and penalties
- Tax-exempt qualifying corporations — designated provincial or territorial Crown corporations, municipally- or Aboriginal-government-owned corporations, pension corporations, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and Canada Growth Fund Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries — must sign a written agreement to be subject to the Income Tax Act for this credit; without it they cannot claim.
- If the property is leased out, it must be leased to a qualifying entity (or a partnership all of whose members are qualifying entities) and leased in the ordinary course of a Canadian business whose principal business is selling or servicing that type of property, leasing, lending or financing.
Quick Assessment
Funding Details
- Amount
- 15% refundable tax credit on eligible capital costs (5% if labour requirements not met). No dollar cap — scales with eligible investment.
- Type
- Tax Credit
- Level
- Federal
- Credit rate
- Up to 15% of eligible costs
- Deadline
- December 31, 2034 (program end date for eligible property). Claim filed with annual T2 or T3 return.
Program Scorecard
Competition, effort, and approval at a glance
Difficult — significant preparation needed
Low competition — good odds of approval
Moderate — standard requirements
How to claim
Insider tips, common pitfalls, and what successful applicants look like
Insider TipThe 15% rate requires you to ELECT the prevailing-wage and apprenticeship requirements and ATTEST that you met them, for every installation tax year and every designated work site.
Rejection Pitfalls 9
- Property is not eligible clean electricity property (e.g. fossil fuel generation without abatement, distribution equipment, buildings)
Success Profile
Evaluation Criteria
How CEITC judges your application
What the reviewer scores, what gets applications rejected, and what to write.
Distilled from 6+ source documents on canada.ca, condensed into one brief. Sources as of 2026-09-04.
6 of the sources
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What CEITC favours
Elect labour requirements to keep the regular credit rate◦
“You must elect to meet the prevailing wage requirements and apprenticeship requirements (the labour requirements) to benefit from the regular credit rate of the ITC.”
The form
There is no application form: the credit is claimed on the corporation's, trust's or member's annual tax return, with a written summary standing in for the corporate form that does not yet exist.◦
Judged against
- 1
Is this claimant a qualifying entity?
Show them Confirm you are a taxable Canadian corporation, a qualifying trust or a listed tax-exempt corporation, and sign the written agreement if you are tax-exempt.◦
In the funder’s words · 1
- Be a qualifying entity, which includes qualifying entities that are members of a partnership
- 2
Is the property and the project eligible?
What to show, and the funder’s 3 criteria behind it in Premium
- 3
Did you claim the right year at 15%?
What to show, and the funder’s 2 criteria behind it in Premium
- 4
Can you prove the claim years later?
What to show, and the funder’s 2 criteria behind it in Premium
Where applicants fail
“If you elect to meet the labour requirements but fail to do so, there are financial consequences for non-compliance.”
“You will be liable to pay a dollar amount for each day in the installation tax year for each covered worker who was not paid the prevailing wage. The dollar amount is $20 for 2023 and is adjusted for inflation for each calendar year after 2023.”
Premium · the rest of this brief
See all 21 rules that can reject you and every criterion you are judged on. Premium opens every programme you match.
18 more rules that can reject you · 7 more criteria · 5 more pitfalls
Do you pass?
21 can rule you out; 3 are preferences. Tick the ones you meet.
Your business
Taxable Canadian corporation
Taxable Canadian corporations A taxable Canadian corporation may qualify.
Your organisation
Designated Crown corporation
A designated provincial or territorial Crown corporation is a corporation that meets one of the following conditions: at least 90% of its shares (except directors' qualifying shares) or its capital is owned by one or more provincial or territorial governments; it is Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Qulliq Energy Corporation or Yukon Energy Corporation; all of its shares (except directors' qualifying shares) or its capital are owned by one or more of the corporations described in the preceding two bullets
The project
New equipment only
Must not have been previously used, or acquired for use or lease, for any purpose before acquisition by the qualifying entity
Section 127 ITCs can combine preferred, not required
You can claim both the Clean Electricity ITC and the ITCs in section 127 of the Act (for example, the Atlantic ITC ) for the same property.
3 things this funder says you do NOT need, in Premium.
Documents to attach
Ticks are kept on this device.
The money
Credit rate15% of capital cost
Generally the Clean Electricity ITC rate is 15% of the capital cost of eligible property that is acquired from April 16, 2024, and that becomes available for use on or before December 31, 2034.
Without the electionReduced by 10 percentage points
If you do not elect to meet the labour requirements, the credit rate will be reduced by 10 percentage points.
Filing floorAt least Dec 31, 2026
File this form with your T3 Trust Income Tax and Information Return or T3 Adjustment Request on or before the later of December 31, 2026, and one year after your filing-due date for the tax year in which the property became available for use.
StackingStacks with section 127 ITCs
You can claim both the Clean Electricity ITC and the ITCs in section 127 of the Act (for example, the Atlantic ITC ) for the same property.
What it pays for · 3
- legal, accounting, engineering, or other fees incurred to acquire the property
- site preparation, delivery, installation, or testing costs, or other costs incurred to put the property into service
- in the case of a property that you manufacture for your own use, material, labour, and overhead costs reasonably attributable to the property, but not any profit which might have been earned had the asset been sold
What it does not pay for · 4
- expenditures incurred for a preliminary work activity — permits, regulatory approvals, environmental assessments, front-end design and FEED studies, feasibility and pre-feasibility studies, land clearing or excavation other than excavation directly related to installing the property, a temporary access road, and drilling a well
- any part of the capital cost still unpaid 180 days after the end of the tax year in which the property became available for use — added back to a deemed separate property when paid
- the cost of a property on any portion of which a CCUS ITC or a Clean Hydrogen ITC has been claimed by anyone
- a top-up amount paid to a covered worker to correct a prevailing-wage failure: "The top-up amount does not qualify for any specified tax credit."
From application to money
- Confirm entity and propertyConfirm entity, new equipment, construction start
- Get the NRCan evaluationGet NRCan system evaluation first
- File the returnFile return with Schedule 31 or T1099
- Assessment or reviewCRA assesses; 30 days to respond
- Report any recaptureReport recapture by filing-due date
- Natural gas compliance reportsAnnual reports for first 20 operating years
In the funder’s words · 6
- Confirm entity and property
- Check that you are a qualifying entity, that the equipment is new and used exclusively in Canada, and that the project did not start construction before March 28, 2023.
- Get the NRCan evaluation
- A claim that includes qualified natural gas energy equipment needs an NRCan system evaluation, obtained through a validated system plan submitted to an intake portal that is under development.
- File the return
- Claim at Schedule 31 line 185 or T1099 field 881, with the written summary, the labour election and attestation, and the written agreement if tax-exempt. (the later of one year after the filing due date of either your corporation income tax return or your trust income tax and information return and December 31, 2026)
- Assessment or review
- The CRA assesses the return; if the claim is reviewed you get a written summary of findings and 30 days to respond before it is confirmed. (30 days to respond to the written summary of the review findings)
- Report any recapture
- Both taxpayers and partnerships must report recapture events to the CRA in the prescribed form and manner. (by the taxpayer's filing-due date for the year in which the recapture event occurs)
- Natural gas compliance reports
- File a compliance report with both the CRA and NRCan every year for the first 20 operating years of a natural gas system. (within 180 days after the end of each of the first 20 operating years)
Quoted lines are word for word from the source documents; lines marked ◦ are our reading of them.
Everything you need to claim CEITC
Not a marketing summary. The actual checklist, intel, and stack strategy reviewers look for.
- 9 rejection pitfalls reviewers flag — so you catch them first
- 14-document checklist with what each reviewer is actually checking
- Your Application Game Plan — the print-ready PDF the preview below describes
- 7-step application timeline with prep hours per step
- Insider tip from program officers on what separates winners
- 4-program stacking strategy to combine with compatible funding
- Success profile + evaluation criteria — exactly what the program administrators check
Application Playbook
Step-by-step process, required documents, and expenses
Application Steps
Required Documents 14
Eligible Expenses 10
Ineligible Expenses 9
Claim timing
Deadline Notes
Ineligible Organizations
- 6 more application steps
- 12 more required documents
- 10 eligible expenses
- 9 ineligible expenses
- Claim timing
- Deadline notes
- Ineligible organizations
Funding Stack Strategy
Compatible programs, clawback risk, and combined funding potential
Compatible Programs
Clawback Risk
Medium RiskHow CEITC Compares
Side-by-side with similar programs
| Program | Amount | Difficulty | Payment | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clean Electricity Investment Tax Cred... | 15% | Moderate | Tax Credit Offset | December 31, 2034... |
| Strategic Response Fund (formerly Str... | Minimum $10 million contribution | Hard | Mixed (Advance + Reimb.) | Ongoing — continuous... |
| CanExport SMEs | Up to $50,000 | Moderate | Mixed (Advance + Reimb.) | Between intakes — the... |
| Ocean Supercluster | Up to $5 million | Hard | Reimbursement | Continuous intake (Core... |
| Ontario Innovation Tax Credit | Up to 8% tax credit | Moderate | Tax Credit Offset | Ongoing |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the questions founders most often ask about CEITC