Disability Tax Credit approval wait times have stretched out as the Canada Revenue Agency deals with a spike in applications.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Canadians with disabilities are often waiting months for the Canada Revenue Agency to review their applications for a tax credit that may make them eligible to receive a new federal benefit, as the agency struggles with a surge of applications.
Payments for the Canada Disability Benefit, which provides as much as $200 a month to lower-income, working-age people with severe disabilities, started in July. But to receive the new income supplement, Canadians must first qualify for the Disability Tax Credit, a non-refundable tax credit that requires extensive documentation of a person’s disability and its deemed impact on their daily activities.
Approval wait times have stretched out as more people seek to claim it with the likely goal of accessing the new disability benefit. The CRA used to aim for eight weeks to process low-complexity Disability Tax Credit applications but only met its service standard 38 per cent of the time in fiscal year 2024-2025.
Luca Bonifacio-Proietto, the press secretary for Wayne Long, the secretary of state for the CRA, told The Globe and Mail via e-mail that the agency has recently made progress in reducing wait times under the 100-day plan announced by Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne in early September to improve service standards.
But many applicants report waiting between three and six months for an assessment, according to the Plan Institute, a national non-profit that provides support for people with disabilities and their families.
The delays add to the hurdles that lower-income people with disabilities are facing to receive the Canada Disability Benefit, according to advocacy groups. They also raise questions about whether the CRA adequately planned for an increase in tax-credit applications tied to the rollout of the new benefit.
“That’s something that we brought up, along with many others, as the Canada Disability Benefit was being rolled out,” said Stephanie Debisschop, executive director at the Plan Institute, recalling conversations with the federal government about an expected spike in demand for the tax credit.
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Applications rose 30 per cent in fiscal year 2023-2024, an increase the CRA website calls an “unprecedented surge.” The following fiscal year, requests increased by an additional 18 per cent, according to the site.
“While it’s difficult to attribute this growth to a single factor, the planned rollout of the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) is likely linked to this upward trend,” Mr. Bonifacio-Proietto said.
The legislation creating the disability benefit became law in June, 2023. In the 2024 federal budget, the Trudeau government said eligibility would be tied to the Disability Tax Credit.
With the launch of the benefit, the CRA increased the number of employees dedicated to processing the tax credit applications, Mr. Bonifacio-Proietto said. But wait times nonetheless increased.
The CRA currently advises taxpayers on its website that it may take as long as 15 weeks to process tax credit applications. That timeframe does not include cases in which the agency requests additional information from an applicant or their medical practitioner.
Mr. Bonifacio-Proietto said that wait time has recently shrunk to 12 weeks thanks to efforts such as automating routine processing tasks.
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Advocates say the delays come on top of a long list of longstanding challenges to claiming the credit. Canada’s doctor shortage means many people struggle to find medical practitioners to fill out the required documents, said Rabia Khedr, the national director of Disability Without Poverty, a grassroots organization.
And not all doctors know how to effectively advocate for applicants in complex forms that seek to measure the effects of a diagnosed disability on a person’s daily living, experts say.
Another obstacle, particularly for low-income applicants, is the cost of those physician services, with fees ranging from $100 to $300, Ms. Khedr added.
A Statistics Canada study based on the latest available data, which date to 2017, estimated that even among Canadians with severe disabilities, up to 80 per cent had not claimed the Disability Tax Credit.
In its first federal budget, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government announced a one-time $150 payment for recipients of the Canada Disability Benefit to help offset the costs of applying for the Disability Tax Credit. The payment will be available sometime before the end of the 2026-2027 fiscal year, according to the budget.
