Line 21500 – Disability supports deduction

Individuals who have an impairment in physical or mental functions and have paid for certain medical expenses can, under certain conditions, claim the disability supports deduction.

Eligibility criteria

If you have an impairment in physical or mental functions, you may be able to deduct the expenses that you paid in the year so that you could:

work
go to school
do research for which you received a grant

Only the person with the disability can claim expenses for this deduction.

If you lived outside Canada for part or all of the year and the CRA considers you to be a factual resident (see Income Tax Folio: S5-F1-C1, Determination of an Individual's Residence Status) or deemed resident of Canada, you can claim the expenses that you paid to a non-resident person for services provided outside Canada.

Eligible expenses

See the list of eligible expenses for the disability supports deduction and any certification from a medical practitioner that may be needed.

List of eligible expenses
Expense	Prescription needed?	Written certification from a medical practitioner needed?
Attendant care expenses	See details	See details
Bliss symbol boards	Yes	No
Braille note-taker devices	Yes	No
Braille printers, synthetic speech systems, large print-on-screen devices	Yes	No
Deaf-blind intervening services	No	No
Devices or software	Yes	No
Electronic speech synthesizers	Yes	No
Job coaching services^{Footnote 1}	No	Yes
Note-taking services	No	Yes
Optical scanners	Yes	No
Page turner devices	Yes	No
Reading services	No	Yes
Real-time captioning	No	No
Sign language interpretation services	No	No
Talking textbooks	No	Yes
Teletypewriters	Yes	No
Tutoring services	No	Yes
Voice recognition software	No	Yes

Amounts you cannot claim

You cannot claim amounts you or someone else claimed as medical expenses (lines 33099 or 33199) or amounts for which anyone was reimbursed or entitled to be reimbursed by a non-taxable payment, such as insurance.

However, the person with the disability can claim the medical expense on either line 21500 or line 33099. They could also split the claim between these two lines, as long as the total amount claimed is not more than the total expense.

How to calculate your claim

Use Form T929, Disability Supports Deduction, to calculate your deduction. Do not attach Form T929 or your receipts to your tax return. Keep them in case the CRA asks to see them at a later date.

Reporting the amount on your tax return

Enter the amount from line 12 of your Form T929, Disability Supports Deduction, on line 21500 of your tax return (Step 3 – Net income).

Expenses must be claimed in the same year they are paid. Unused amounts cannot be applied to another year.

Forms and publications

Page details

Date modified:: 2024-01-23

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