Disability tax credit retroactive payments: how past years are refunded

Are disability tax credit retroactive payments available for past years?

Yes. If the CRA's notice of determination says you were eligible for the disability tax credit (DTC) in earlier years, the disability amount can be applied to as many as 10 previous tax years (CRA, Claiming the DTC). The CRA does not send a separate DTC cheque. What people call disability tax credit retroactive payments are ordinary tax refunds that come out of reassessing each old return.

A retroactive DTC claim is a request to add the disability amount (line 31600, or line 31800 or 32600 if it was transferred to a family member) to returns that were already assessed. Each corrected year gets its own notice of reassessment, and each one can produce its own refund.

The years you can reach depend on two things: the first year your practitioner certified on Form T2201, Disability Tax Credit Certificate, and the 10-year limit. If the practitioner says the impairment started in 2021, the CRA will not adjust 2019 or 2020, even though they are inside the window. The overview of the credit is on our disability tax credit hub.

How many years back can I claim the disability tax credit?

As of September 2026 the CRA's table of past-year amounts runs from 2016 to 2025, which is the full 10-year reach for a request made in 2026. The window is counted back from the year of the request, so a request made in calendar 2027 generally reaches back to 2017 at the earliest, and 2016 falls out.

That shift matters if the impairment began many years ago. An adult whose practitioner dates the impairment to 2014 cannot recover 2014 or 2015 at all, and waiting past December 31, 2026 to ask costs the 2016 year as well.

For 2026, the CRA's table of indexed amounts sets the disability amount at $10,341; the line 31600 page usually adds it with the 2026 T1 package in January 2027. See our disability tax credit amount page for the provincial amounts that add to each year's saving.

How do I get the retroactive DTC amount added to old returns?

There are three routes, and you only need one. The simplest is to consent on Part A of Form T2201 to let the CRA adjust your previous returns automatically once it approves the application (CRA, How to apply).

1. Automatic adjustment: give consent in Part A of the T2201. After approval, the CRA reassesses the eligible years for the person with the disability. Do nothing else and watch for notices of reassessment.
2. Written request: if you did not give consent, send the CRA a signed letter asking it to apply the DTC to specific years. List each year, your social insurance number and, for a transfer, the name and SIN of the family member whose return should change.
3. Change the returns yourself: use Change my return in your CRA account, ReFILE through certified software, or a Form T1-ADJ for each year. Enter the disability amount on the correct line for that year.

Transfers need extra care. If a parent, adult child or spouse should have claimed the unused amount in a past year, the automatic adjustment may only touch the applicant's own returns. The supporting person should ask for their own returns to be changed, using line 31800 (dependant) or line 32600 with Schedule 2 (spouse).

What decides the size of the retroactive refund?

The DTC is non-refundable, so a past year only produces money back if tax was paid that year. The federal part is the disability amount times the lowest federal rate: 15% for 2016 to 2024 and a blended 14.5% for 2025. The provincial or territorial disability amount adds a second saving for the same year.

Worked example: federal part only

Take an adult approved for every year from 2016 to 2025 who paid at least enough federal tax each year to absorb the credit. The disability amounts for 2016 to 2024 total $78,173; at 15% that is $11,725.95. The 2025 amount of $10,138 at 14.5% adds $1,470.01. The federal retroactive total is about $13,196 before provincial credits and before any refund interest.

Now change one fact: in 2019 and 2020 the same person paid only $400 of federal tax each year. Those years can return at most $400 each, not $1,262.40 and $1,286.40. Any unused portion in those years could have been transferred to a supporting relative, whose own return for that year would then need adjusting.

Other things that shrink or redirect the money

• Debts: the CRA can keep all or part of a refund to pay amounts owed to it or to other government programs, such as a student loan or an EI overpayment.
• Refund interest: the CRA may add compound daily interest to refunds in some cases; the rate on overpayments to individuals was 5% for July to September 2026.
• Unfiled years: a year with no return on file cannot be reassessed. File the missing return first and include the disability amount in it.

How long do DTC retroactive adjustments take?

Two clocks run one after the other. First the CRA decides the T2201; its processing-times page said in September 2026 that DTC applications may take up to 8 weeks. Then each past year has to be reassessed (CRA, Check processing times).

For requests you file yourself, the CRA's September 2026 targets were within 2 weeks for online adjustments and within 14 weeks for paper or phone requests. Adjustments the CRA classes as complex had a 33-week target. Multi-year DTC changes often arrive as a series of notices rather than all on one day.

Each notice of reassessment appears in your CRA account. Check that the disability amount shows on the right line for that year before you assume the refund is final.

Can I get the disability tax credit for previous years for a child?

Yes, and the child's years are usually the ones worth the most, because each year before the child turned 18 also carries the under-18 supplement. For 2024, a parent claiming the full $9,872 plus the $5,758 supplement had $15,630 of disability amount, worth $2,344.50 federally at 15%.

Children rarely owe tax, so the adjustments belong on the parent's returns through line 31800. The parent should confirm the CRA has changed their own past returns, not the child's. More on this in our guide to the DTC for children.