The Australian Taxation Office has released its second annual transparency report on companies claiming the R&D Tax Incentive, providing some of the clearest data yet about which companies are investing in Australian innovation - and how the national program is evolving.
With the 2022-23 data now capturing many more entities (including non-standard year ends, as well as amendments and late lodgers), we have a more complete picture of Australia’s business R&D ecosystem.
Key RDTI Insights and Numbers
Number of R&D Tax Incentive Claimants:
The sharp increase for 2022-23 is largely attributable to more entities being captured - not just new claimants or more spend at a company level. In fact, there were 4,107 new entrants to the dataset, perhaps suggesting that the number of overall claimants has decreased year-on-year.
2021-22 | 2022-23 | |
Total claimants | 11,545 | 13,135 |
Claimed over $1M | 2,287 | 3,165 |
Claimed over $5M | 317 | 540 |
Total R&D Expenditure
Aggregate spend is up as expected, but the list of top claimants is strikingly familiar: high-profile names in life sciences, tech, advanced manufacturing, energy, and resources continue to invest heavily.
Average Claim Size
In the 2021-22 data, the average expenditure amount was $972k. This has increased to $1.25M for 2022-23, again in part skewed by the addition of some large claimants that weren’t accounted for in 2021-22.
What’s Consistent? What’s New?
Australian Innovation still highly concentrated
- There are more than 13,000 companies listed with a total of $16.5bn of R&D expenditure.
- The top 150 companies (1.2% of claimants) account for 29% of total R&D expenditure; that’s a total of $4.8bn spent by just 150 companies.
R&D Landscape remains relatively unchanged
- Atlassian is the highest claimant for the second time, increasing its annual R&D spend by 10% to $220M
- Fortescue nearly doubled its R&D spend to $151M, and overall resources spend increased significantly, in part due to the addition of several big name industry players, including Rio Tinto, Chevron, Shell Energy, Woodside Energy, and Exxon Mobile.
- In contrast, CSL decreased spend by $18M or ~14%, but still remain in the top 10 spenders.
- In one of the biggest YoY increases, GOTW Pty Ltd increased R&D spend by nearly $100M, or 500%, to become the 4th highest claimant in the country. The company, which mostly goes under the radar, is involved in flour milling, processed wheat products, crop harvesting, and ethanol production.
- One of the largest decreases was Tassal, with the seafood producer reducing R&D spend by over $36M. Or 66%.
- Interestingly, The Lottery Corporation, which operates The Lott and Keno games, reported R&D expenditure of over $10 million - an almost twenty-fold increase on the prior year. At the same time, the government is in the process of changing the rules to prevent gambling organisations from accessing R&DTI benefits.
- Life sciences, digital/tech, manufacturing, and natural resources remain the strongest performing industries, both in number of participants and in total R&D spend.
Who Dropped Off and What Does That Tell Us?
While the overall list of top claimants remained relatively stable, around 2,800 companies present in the previous year’s dataset no longer appear among 2022-23’s R&D claimants.
This “drop-off” effect can occur for several reasons, including changes in company structure, project lifecycles, acquisitions, or simply variations in annual R&D activity and timing of claims.
This highlights one of the important realities of the R&D landscape; R&D investment profiles aren’t static - companies can fluctuate in and out of the program as projects start, finish, or evolve.
Broader Coverage: What’s Changed in the Data
A critical point in interpreting this year’s data is understanding the shift in coverage:
- 2021-22: Only included companies with income years starting 1 July 2021 - i.e., “standard” (30 June) year ends. Many claimants with different financial year cycles weren’t included in last year’s report.
- 2022-23: Expands the collection to cover nearly all claimants for the year, including those with non-June year ends, late 2021-22 claimants, and amendments.
The significant rise in total participants and total R&D expenditure in 2022-23 therefore reflects this broader, more inclusive dataset, not a genuine surge in per-company or national spending.
Join Australia’s Most Innovative Companies
The broadened 2022-23 dataset provides Australia’s most representative snapshot of R&D tax incentive participation and expenditure to date. With almost all entities now captured, future reports should offer more meaningful year-on-year comparisons - and a true measure of growth and progress at both the national and company level.
Want to see your business join Australia’s most innovative companies - or benchmark your R&D strategy against the nation’s leaders? Contact our R&D consultants via the form below to find out how you can make the most of the R&D Tax Incentive.
Important Footnote: Comparing 2021-22 and 2022-23 totals at face value is flawed. Any headline “growth” is largely due to expanded data coverage.
