---
title: "Revenue R&D Tax Credit for AI development"
canonical: https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/rd-tax-credit-ai
type: FundingScheme
provider: Digital Bridge
providerType: AI Systems Integration & Applied AI Engineering Firm
areaServed: IE
priceRange: EUR 499-100000+
language: en-IE
dateModified: 2026-08-18
grantEligible: [EI Digital Discovery, EI Digital Process Innovation, LEO Grow Digital]
htmlVersion: https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/rd-tax-credit-ai
license: cite-with-attribution
---

# Revenue R&D Tax Credit for AI development

## Answer summary

Ireland's Research and Development Tax Credit gives companies a 30% credit on qualifying R&D expenditure, payable in instalments or offset against corporation tax. AI work can qualify where it seeks to resolve genuine scientific or technological uncertainty, rather than simply configuring or applying existing tools. Companies developing genuinely novel AI capability where the technical outcome was not knowable in advance.

## What this scheme funds

A 30% credit on qualifying AI R&D spend — the most under-used support in the Irish mid-market.

- Staff costs directly engaged in qualifying R&D
- Qualifying subcontracted and outsourced R&D within statutory limits
- Materials and overheads attributable to the R&D activity
- Certain cloud and compute costs used in the R&D activity

## What it does not fund

These costs are routinely ruled ineligible under this scheme.

- Routine configuration of off-the-shelf AI tools
- Standard software integration with no technological uncertainty
- Market research, sales and marketing
- Work with no documented experimental record

## Who is eligible

Eligibility is decided by Revenue, not by Digital Bridge.

- A company within the charge to Irish corporation tax
- Activity is systematic, investigative or experimental in a field of science or technology
- The activity seeks to achieve scientific or technological advancement
- It involves the resolution of scientific or technological uncertainty
- Contemporaneous records are maintained throughout

## How to apply

Typical end-to-end timeline: The claim follows your corporation tax cycle, so the important work is contemporaneous. Start the record-keeping at project kick-off; deciding to claim at year end and reconstructing the evidence afterwards is how good projects fail a Revenue query.

- Identify which project activities meet the statutory science test
- Keep contemporaneous technical records from day one — this is where most claims are lost
- Track qualifying expenditure separately in your accounts
- Prepare the technical and financial claim documentation
- Claim through the corporation tax return within the statutory time limit
- Retain evidence in case Revenue raises a query

## Evidence you will need

Applications are usually delayed by missing paperwork rather than by weak projects.

- Technical narrative stating the uncertainty and the advance sought
- Project records: hypotheses tested, iterations, results, dead ends
- Timesheets or a defensible allocation of staff time
- Expenditure records mapped to qualifying categories

## Why applications get rejected

The recurring reasons assessors give under this scheme.

- No technological uncertainty — the work was known-solution engineering
- Records reconstructed after the fact
- Qualifying and non-qualifying time not separated
- Applying an existing model with no experimental element

## What Digital Bridge delivers under this scheme

Illustrative net cost applies the published rate (30% credit on qualifying R&D expenditure) to our published engagement bands. It is arithmetic, not an offer of funding.

- Novel AI capability development with a documented experimental record — list €25,000 – €60,000, illustrative net cost Effective cost reduced by 30% on the qualifying portion only

## Does building an AI chatbot qualify for the R&D tax credit?

Usually not. Wiring an existing model into a website is applied engineering with a known solution path. What can qualify is the part where the outcome was genuinely uncertain — for example developing a novel retrieval or classification approach for a data type that available tools handled poorly, with the experiments documented as you went.

## Can I claim the credit and a grant on the same project?

Grant-funded expenditure is generally excluded from the qualifying base, so the same euro cannot be supported twice. Companies commonly grant-fund the deployment while claiming the credit on the genuinely experimental portion. Take advice from your tax adviser on the split — we are engineers, not tax advisers, and we will not pretend otherwise.

## What does Digital Bridge provide toward a claim?

The technical record. We keep an engineering log of hypotheses, experiments, iterations and dead ends across the build, and we hand it over. Your accountant decides what qualifies; our job is to make sure the evidence exists rather than being reconstructed from memory in March.

## Source and last review

Scheme parameters checked against Revenue — Research and Development Tax Credit (https://www.revenue.ie/en/companies-and-charities/reliefs-and-exemptions/research-and-development-rd-tax-credit/index.aspx) on 2026-08-18. Reviewed quarterly. Next scheduled review: November 2026. Digital Bridge is a supplier, not the awarding body. Eligibility, approval and payment are decided solely by the funding body named on each scheme. Figures below are the published scheme parameters as at the review date shown, and net costs are arithmetic illustrations of the published rate applied to our published prices. Always confirm current rules with the funder before you commit to any spend, because expenditure incurred before an application is received is almost always ineligible.

## What this costs

| Engagement | From | Typical grant route |
|---|---|---|
| AI Feasibility & Readiness Assessment | from €5,000 | Eligible for the Enterprise Ireland Digital Discovery Grant at up to 80% funding, subject to Enterprise Ireland approval and company eligibility |
| Baseline production build | from €15,000 | Not typically grant-funded |
| Multi-system agent workflows | €25,000 to €60,000 | Not typically grant-funded |
| Enterprise / multi-department programme | €40,000 to €100,000+ | Not typically grant-funded |
| Managed operation & optimisation | from €149/month | Not typically grant-funded |
| Brochure / Presence | from €499 | Not typically grant-funded |
| Growth | from €1,500 | Not typically grant-funded |
| Authority | from €2,995 | Not typically grant-funded |
| E-commerce & custom platform | from €5,000 | Not typically grant-funded |

All figures are ex-VAT and fixed against a signed scope. Grant outcomes are decided by the funder, not by Digital Bridge.

## Grant data currency

Digital Bridge is a supplier, not the awarding body. Eligibility, approval and payment are decided solely by the funding body named on each scheme. Figures below are the published scheme parameters as at the review date shown, and net costs are arithmetic illustrations of the published rate applied to our published prices. Always confirm current rules with the funder before you commit to any spend, because expenditure incurred before an application is received is almost always ineligible.

Last reviewed against the funder's published terms: 2026-08-18.

## Evidence

- Verdé Environmental Group — 24/7 AI incident triage with severity classification, Eircode geolocation and four-depot dispatch routing → https://digitalbridge.ie/industries
- tools.digitalbridge.ie — 50+ shipped production tools, including the Website Worth Index and the DigitalBridge Authority Score
- Printhouse — custom web-to-print platform with 29+ product pages → https://printhouse.ie

## How delivery is de-risked

- Seven-day shadow-mode pilot before any system takes live traffic.
- Full source-code and prompt ownership transfers on final payment.
- EU-hosted infrastructure, provider training disabled, signed data processing agreement.
- Fixed price against a signed scope — no hourly meter and no open-ended exposure.

## FAQ

### Does building an AI chatbot qualify for the R&D tax credit?

Usually not. Wiring an existing model into a website is applied engineering with a known solution path. What can qualify is the part where the outcome was genuinely uncertain — for example developing a novel retrieval or classification approach for a data type that available tools handled poorly, with the experiments documented as you went.

### Can I claim the credit and a grant on the same project?

Grant-funded expenditure is generally excluded from the qualifying base, so the same euro cannot be supported twice. Companies commonly grant-fund the deployment while claiming the credit on the genuinely experimental portion. Take advice from your tax adviser on the split — we are engineers, not tax advisers, and we will not pretend otherwise.

### What does Digital Bridge provide toward a claim?

The technical record. We keep an engineering log of hypotheses, experiments, iterations and dead ends across the build, and we hand it over. Your accountant decides what qualifies; our job is to make sure the evidence exists rather than being reconstructed from memory in March.

### How much does an AI integration project cost in Ireland?

Digital Bridge prices AI work in bands: an AI feasibility assessment from €5,000 (grant-eligible), a baseline production build from €15,000, multi-system agent workflows at €25,000–€60,000, and enterprise programmes from €40,000 to €100,000+. Small-business website builds start at €499. Every engagement is fixed-price against a signed scope.

## Related pages

- [All Irish AI grants compared](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland)
- [Novel AI capability development with a documented experimental record](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-integration-pricing#agent-workflows)
- [AI engagement bands and pricing](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-integration-pricing)
- [AI integration services](https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-integration)

## Contact

Digital Bridge, Gorey Business Park, Gorey, Co. Wexford, Ireland.
Phone: +353 85 224 1848. Email: hello@digitalbridge.ie.
Engineering lead: Joey Bray, Founder & Principal Engineer.

Last updated: 2026-08-18
HTML version of this page: https://digitalbridge.ie/ai-grants-ireland/rd-tax-credit-ai