What CCA Is
When your business buys equipment, a vehicle, or a building, the CRA won't let you deduct the full cost in the year you buy it. Capital Cost Allowance is the system that spreads the deduction out: each type of property belongs to a numbered class, each class has a rate, and each year you deduct that percentage of what's left.
A $10,000 machine doesn't become a $10,000 deduction. It becomes a Class 8 asset at 20%, which — under 2026 rules — gives you a $3,000 deduction in year one, $1,400 in year two, $1,120 in year three, and a shrinking amount every year after that.
Two terms carry the whole system. The class pool is the running total of all your assets in one class — most classes lump every asset together rather than tracking them separately. The undepreciated capital cost (UCC) is what's left in the pool after everything you've claimed so far. Every CCA calculation starts and ends with UCC.
Pools, Rates, and UCC
Most classes use the declining-balance method: the rate applies to the UCC remaining in the pool, not to the original cost. Buy something, and its cost is added to the pool. Sell something, and the lesser of your proceeds and its original cost comes out. Claim CCA, and the UCC drops by what you claimed.
Here's a $10,000 Class 8 purchase from 2018, back when the half-year rule applied:
| Year | Opening UCC | CCA (20%) | Closing UCC |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 (half-year rule) | $10,000.00 | $1,000.00 | $9,000.00 |
| 2019 | $9,000.00 | $1,800.00 | $7,200.00 |
| 2020 | $7,200.00 | $1,440.00 | $5,760.00 |
| 2021 | $5,760.00 | $1,152.00 | $4,608.00 |
Notice the shape: the deduction never ends. Declining balance approaches zero without reaching it, so a pool keeps producing small claims for decades unless the last asset in it is sold. That's normal, not an error.
One planning point that surprises people: claiming CCA is optional. Each year you may claim anything from zero up to the maximum. If this year's income is low, claiming less keeps UCC available for a year when the deduction saves more tax.
The Half-Year Rule
In the year you acquire an asset, the default rule allows only half the normal rate — whether you bought it on January 2 or December 28. The CRA introduced it to stop businesses from buying assets in the last week of December and claiming a full year's deduction on them.
That's why the 2018 purchase above claimed $1,000 in its first year instead of $2,000.
The half-year rule is mostly dormant right now. For most property acquired from 2025 through 2029, the Reaccelerated Investment Incentive replaces it with an enhanced claim — covered next. As legislated today, the half-year rule returns for property that becomes available for use after 2033.
First-Year Incentives in 2026
Since late 2018, Ottawa has repeatedly juiced the first-year claim to encourage investment. The current version is the Reaccelerated Investment Incentive (RIIP), enacted by Bill C-15 with Royal Assent on March 26, 2026. For most classes, property acquired after December 31, 2024 and available for use before 2030 gets 1.5× the normal rate in year one, with no half-year rule.
On top of that, several classes get full 100% first-year write-offs. Here's the whole timeline in one table, for a general-rate class like Class 8:
| Acquired / In Use | First-Year Treatment | Class 8 Example ($50,000) |
|---|---|---|
| On or before Nov 20, 2018 | Half-year rule — 50% of the rate | $5,000 |
| Nov 21, 2018 – 2023 | Accelerated Investment Incentive — 1.5× the rate | $15,000 |
| 2024 | AII phase-out — half-year suspended, normal rate | $10,000 |
| 2025 – 2029 | RIIP — 1.5× the rate | $15,000 |
| 2030 – 2033 | RIIP phase-out — half-year stays suspended | $10,000 |
| 2034 onward | Half-year rule returns (as legislated today) | $5,000 |
The special cases with bigger write-offs:
- Classes 54–56 (zero-emission vehicles): 100% first-year write-off for property acquired 2019–2023 and again from 2025–2029, with 75% in 2024 and during 2030–2031, then 55% in 2032–2033. Class 53 (manufacturing equipment) gets the same treatment within its own window — the class covers machinery acquired 2016 through 2025.
- Classes 44 (patents), 46 (network equipment), and 50 (computers): 100% first-year write-off if acquired after April 15, 2024 and in use before 2027 — a separate Budget 2024 measure. A $4,000 laptop bought in 2026 is a $4,000 deduction.
- New manufacturing buildings: 100% write-off for eligible buildings acquired on or after November 4, 2025 and in use before 2030.
One caution: incentives change the timing, never the total. You deduct the same cost either way — RIIP just moves more of the deduction into year one. That's valuable cash flow, but it isn't extra money.
Common CCA Classes
There are dozens of classes; small and mid-sized businesses touch maybe ten of them. These are the ones that matter:
| Class | Rate | What Goes In It |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4% | Buildings acquired after 1987. Land is never depreciable. |
| 8 | 20% | Furniture, appliances, tools $500 and over, and equipment not in another class — the default catch-all. |
| 10 | 30% | Motor vehicles, and passenger vehicles costing up to the year's ceiling. |
| 10.1 | 30% | Passenger vehicles over the ceiling — own pool per vehicle, cost capped. |
| 12 | 100% | Small tools under $500, dishes and cutlery, application software. |
| 13 | SL | Leasehold improvements — straight-line over the lease term. |
| 14.1 | 5% | Goodwill, incorporation costs over $3,000, other intangibles. |
| 16 | 40% | Taxis, vehicles for rent, coin-operated games, freight trucks over 11,788 kg. |
| 43 | 30% | Manufacturing and processing machinery not eligible for Class 53. |
| 44 | 25% | Patents and rights to patented information. |
| 46 | 30% | Data network infrastructure equipment. |
| 50 | 55% | Computer hardware and systems software. |
| 53 | 50% | Manufacturing and processing machinery acquired 2016–2025. |
| 54 | 30% | Zero-emission vehicles, capped at $61,000. |
| 55 | 40% | Zero-emission taxis and rental vehicles. |
Rates per the CRA's CCA class guidance (T4012 / T2 Schedule 8) — the full CRA class list covers the specialized classes this table leaves out.
Run your own numbers
Our free CCA calculator applies the right first-year rule for any acquisition year from 2015 to 2033 and builds the 10-year UCC schedule for you.
Vehicles: Class 10 vs 10.1 vs 54
Vehicles cause more CCA confusion than everything else combined, because the class depends on the price and the type — and the price ceilings change almost every January.
- Class 10 (30%): vans, trucks, and passenger vehicles that cost up to the year's ceiling. Pooled normally, no special restrictions.
- Class 10.1 (30%): passenger vehicles above the ceiling. Each vehicle gets its own pool, the depreciable cost is capped at the ceiling, and there's no recapture or terminal loss when you sell. A $95,000 SUV bought in 2026 depreciates as if it cost $39,000 — the other $56,000 is never deductible.
- Class 54 (30%): zero-emission passenger vehicles, capped at $61,000, currently eligible for a 100% first-year write-off.
| Year Acquired | Class 10.1 Ceiling | Class 54 (ZEV) Ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | $39,000 | $61,000 |
| 2025 | $38,000 | $61,000 |
| 2024 | $37,000 | $61,000 |
| 2023 | $36,000 | $61,000 |
| 2022 | $34,000 | $59,000 |
| 2019–2021 | $30,000 | $55,000 |
Ceilings are before tax, per Finance Canada's annual automobile deduction limit announcements — the 2026 limits were announced January 14, 2026.
A Full Worked Example
Say you buy $50,000 of shop equipment — Class 8, 20% — in 2026. Under RIIP, year one claims 1.5× the rate: 30% of $50,000. Here's the five-year schedule next to the same purchase made in 2018 under the half-year rule:
| Year | 2026 Purchase (RIIP) | 2018 Purchase (Half-Year) |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $15,000.00 | $5,000.00 |
| Year 2 | $7,000.00 | $9,000.00 |
| Year 3 | $5,600.00 | $7,200.00 |
| Year 4 | $4,480.00 | $5,760.00 |
| Year 5 | $3,584.00 | $4,608.00 |
| Five-year total | $35,664.00 (71%) | $31,568.00 (63%) |
The 2026 purchase deducts $10,000 more in year one. At a combined small-business rate of roughly 12%, that's about $1,200 of tax deferred into later years — real cash flow in the year you're paying for the equipment.
How to Claim CCA
Corporations claim CCA on Schedule 8 of the T2 return. Sole proprietors and partnerships use Area A of form T2125. Both are the same calculation: opening UCC per class, plus additions, minus dispositions, times the rate, with the first-year adjustment applied to net additions.
If you're tracking assets in a spreadsheet, start from our free CRA-ready asset register template — it includes a CCA worksheet laid out like Schedule 8 with the 2026 first-year rules built in.
Four rules that catch people in practice:
- Available for use. You claim CCA starting when the asset is capable of doing its job — not when you ordered or paid for it. Equipment delivered December 28 but installed in January belongs to next year's claim.
- Short fiscal years prorate. A 100-day first year for a new corporation gets 100/365 of the normal claim.
- Rental properties can't go negative. CCA cannot create or increase a rental loss. Income of $3,000 before CCA caps that year's claim at $3,000.
- Personal use reduces the claim. A vehicle used 70% for business claims 70% of the CCA.
Selling Assets: Recapture and Terminal Loss
When you sell, the lesser of the proceeds and the original cost comes out of the pool. Two things can happen at the edges:
Recapture. If the subtraction pushes UCC negative, you claimed more CCA than the asset actually lost in value — the negative amount is added back to income. Example: a pool sits at $2,000 UCC. You sell its last asset (original cost $10,000) for $5,000. UCC goes to −$3,000, and that $3,000 is recapture, taxed as income this year. Buildings generate recapture constantly, because real estate tends to sell above its depreciated value.
Terminal loss. The mirror image: the pool's last asset is gone but $2,500 of UCC remains. You deduct the full $2,500 that year.
Class 10.1 vehicles sit outside both rules — no recapture, no terminal loss, and unlike other classes, half the normal CCA can be claimed in the year of disposal.
CCA Is Not Your Book Depreciation
The single most common misconception about CCA: that it's the same thing as the depreciation in your financial statements. It isn't, and the CRA doesn't let you choose.
Your books depreciate assets under your own accounting policy — useful life, method, and start date are yours to set, and the numbers flow to your income statement. The CRA ignores all of it. On the tax return, book depreciation is added back to income (Schedule 1 for corporations, the T2125 adjustment for proprietors) and CCA is deducted in its place.
The practical consequence: every business with capital assets maintains two depreciation numbers per asset, and both depend on the same underlying record — what you bought, when, for how much, and what happened to it. When that record lives in a spreadsheet, the two calculations drift apart, and year-end becomes an archaeology project.
faManager handles the book side
Daily book depreciation calculated to the exact day, a clean asset register with acquisition dates and costs, and disposal tracking with gain/loss — the record your CCA claim is built from. Free for up to 50 assets.
Frequently Asked Questions
This guide covers federal rules in plain language and simplifies where precision would need a professional — notably the available-for-use details, partnership allocations, and every Quebec calculation, which the province does separately under its own rules. Verified against CRA publications and Bill C-15 as of July 22, 2026. It is not tax advice; confirm your claim with your accountant before filing.