Form T2201: how to apply for the disability tax credit

Form T2201 is the single piece of paperwork standing between you and the disability tax credit. Get it right and it can reduce tax for years, reach back a decade, and make you eligible to open a registered disability savings plan. Get it wrong and the CRA sends a denial letter that explains very little.

You may be reading this as the person with the impairment, filling this out for yourself. You may be the parent, spouse or adult child doing the paperwork for someone else. Both roles appear on this form, in different boxes, and the rules change depending on which one you are. Where that matters, the text says so.

What is Form T2201?

Form T2201 is the Disability Tax Credit Certificate. It is the CRA application for the disability tax credit, and it is free to file. The form has two parts. You fill out Part A. A medical practitioner fills out Part B, certifying how the impairment affects you.

The CRA does not decide based on your diagnosis. It decides based on what the practitioner writes in Part B about the effects of the impairment. Two people with the same condition can get different answers, because the form asks about function, not labels. That is the single most useful thing to understand before anyone picks up a pen.

You qualify through one of three routes: a marked restriction in one category, significant limitations in two or more categories added together, or life-sustaining therapy. The categories are walking, mental functions, dressing, feeding, eliminating, hearing, speaking and vision, as CRA sets out on its eligibility page.

Which medical practitioner can certify your impairment?

It depends on the category. A medical doctor or a nurse practitioner can certify any impairment. The other practitioners are limited to their own area. Sending the form to the wrong professional is a common reason an application comes back incomplete, and it costs weeks.

The list comes straight from the CRA application page. If you are applying on the cumulative effect of two limitations, and those limitations sit in two different professionals' areas, a doctor or nurse practitioner is the practical choice because one person can certify both.

Practitioners are allowed to charge a fee for completing the form. The CRA does not charge anything. If you do pay a fee, you may be able to claim it as a medical expense on line 33099 or line 33199 of your return.

How do you send the T2201 to the CRA?

There are two methods, digital and paper, and you must use the same one for both parts. If Part A goes in digitally and Part B arrives by mail, the CRA cannot process it. That single rule causes more restarts than anything else on this form.

With the digital form, you complete your portion in your CRA account and receive a reference number. You give that number to your practitioner, who completes Part B online. When they do, the application submits itself. Nothing else is needed from you.

Two changes landed in 2026 and they invalidate a lot of older advice still sitting on the internet.

Both dates are confirmed on the CRA notice about speeding up DTC applications. If you are mailing a paper form, download the current version from the CRA form page and send it to your tax centre. Keep a copy. You will want it if the decision goes against you.

What happens after the CRA receives your application?

The CRA compares what your practitioner wrote against its eligibility criteria, then sends a notice of determination. Both parts must arrive together for the file to count as complete. If reviewers want more detail, they write to your practitioner, who has 60 business days to answer.

Approval is not always permanent. The notice tells you which years you are eligible for. If it carries no expiry date, you never reapply unless the CRA asks. If it carries one, you reapply at the end of that period, and the CRA warns you a year ahead and again in the expiry year on your notice of assessment, as its decision page explains.

You can reapply at any point during that final year, which is worth doing early so eligibility does not lapse between plans and benefits that depend on it. There is an obligation running the other way too: if the condition improves enough that you no longer meet the criteria, you have to tell the CRA in writing.

A denial is not the end. You can ask for a review and send new documentation, file a formal objection, or call and discuss it. In my experience the most productive first move is comparing your copy of the form against the reasons in the notice, because the gap is usually a Part B answer that described the diagnosis rather than the functional limit.

What is an approved T2201 actually worth?

For the 2025 tax year the disability amount is $10,138 for someone 18 or older. A person under 18 on the last day of the year may also claim a supplement of $5,914, for a combined $16,052. These are non-refundable amounts, so they reduce tax owing rather than generating a payment on their own.

Where you enter it depends on who is claiming. Line 31600 is the disability amount for yourself. Line 31800 is the amount transferred from a dependant. Line 32600 covers amounts transferred from a spouse or common-law partner. The figures and lines are on the CRA page for claiming the credit.

The part people leave on the table is the past. If you were eligible in earlier years but never claimed, you may be able to go back up to 10 years. Ticking the adjustment box in Part A tells the CRA to reassess those returns for you. Skip it and you have to request the changes separately. A backdated approval often produces a refund rather than a smaller future tax bill, which is a very different outcome for a household with little tax owing. You can estimate what that might come to with our free DTC refund calculator.

Approval also makes you eligible for other federal programs: the registered disability savings plan, the child disability benefit, the Canada workers benefit disability supplement and the Canada disability benefit. The RDSP is the one with the largest numbers attached, since government grants and bonds flow into it, and you can open an RDSP online once approval is in place. For background on the credit itself, start with our guide to the disability tax credit.

Which application method should you choose?

If you have a CRA account and your practitioner is willing, apply digitally. The form is always current, it hides sections that do not apply to you, and it removes the mailing step where applications go quiet for weeks. Paper is a fallback, not a default.

One last thing worth saying plainly. Nobody has to pay a percentage of a refund to get this form filed. The CRA charges nothing, the only legitimate cost is whatever your practitioner bills for their time, and that fee is itself claimable as a medical expense.

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Is there a fee to file Form T2201?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The CRA charges nothing to file Form T2201 or to review it. Your medical practitioner may bill you for the time it takes to complete Part B, and that is a legitimate cost. You may be able to claim that fee as a medical expense on line 33099 or line 33199 of your return."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Can I apply for the disability tax credit online?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes. You complete your portion in your CRA account and receive a reference number, then give that number to your medical practitioner so they can finish Part B online. The application is submitted automatically once they are done. You cannot mix methods, so both parts must go through the digital form."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Which version of Form T2201 do I need?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"You need a version from 2023 or later. Starting September 8, 2026 the CRA no longer accepts older versions, because they do not meet the current requirements. If you saved a copy some time ago, download a fresh one from the CRA form page. The online application is always the current version."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How many years can the disability tax credit go back?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Up to 10 years, if you were eligible in those years but never claimed the disability amount. There is a box in Part A asking the CRA to adjust your previous returns. Tick it. If you miss it, you have to ask the CRA in writing or adjust the returns yourself."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Who can sign Part B of the T2201?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"A medical doctor or a nurse practitioner can certify any impairment. An optometrist covers vision, an audiologist hearing, a psychologist mental functions, a speech-language pathologist speaking, a physiotherapist walking, and an occupational therapist walking, feeding and dressing. Sending the form to the wrong professional is a common cause of delay."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What happens if my disability tax credit application is denied?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Your notice of determination explains the reason. Compare it against your copy of the form and the eligibility criteria. You can ask the CRA to review the file with new documentation, file a formal objection, or call to discuss it. Most gaps sit in how Part B described functional effects."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Does approval expire?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Sometimes. Your notice of determination shows which years you are approved for. With no expiry date you never reapply unless the CRA asks. With an expiry date you reapply at the end of the period, and the CRA notifies you a year in advance and again in the expiry year."}}]}