Introduction
Quebec’s move to CDAE-IA isn’t just about changing which activities qualify—it’s a complete shift in how you need to approach technical hiring, team structure, and employee certification. CFOs and CTOs must align their talent and funding strategies.
Switching from CDAE to CDAE-IA marks a pivotal moment for Quebec tech companies. While most conversations focus on the new AI integration requirements, the employee eligibility rules are just as crucial for how you build, organize, and retain your technical teams.
If your company claims over $100,000 in tax credits each year, your choices around employees directly affect your funding. Hiring the wrong roles, poor time tracking, or delays in certification can mean losing tens of thousands in credits. On the other hand, a talent strategy built around CDAE-IA rules helps you maximize both innovation and funding recovery.
Understanding the Six-Employee Minimum
CDAE-IA still requires at least six eligible full-time employees primarily dedicated to qualifying activities. This isn’t just a numbers game—it’s a strategic baseline that shapes how you build your team and allocate resources.
What counts as an “eligible employee” under CDAE-IA:
Who doesn’t count toward the minimum:
For smaller teams, losing even one eligible employee can put your entire CDAE-IA eligibility at risk. That’s why retention and backup planning are essential parts of your funding strategy.
The New Calculation: Salary Thresholds Instead of Caps
One of the biggest changes with CDAE-IA is how employee pay factors into your credit. The old $83,333 salary cap is gone, but now there’s a new exclusion threshold.
How the exclusion threshold works:
What this means for your strategy:
For an AI engineer earning $120,000 a year:
For a senior machine learning specialist earning $150,000:
This new structure changes the economics of hiring. You get more value from hiring highly paid AI specialists than from spreading work among several junior developers. Removing the salary cap especially benefits companies competing for top technical talent in tight markets.
Hiring for CDAE-IA Eligibility
Focus on AI-Specialized Roles
With CDAE-IA, general software development roles no longer guarantee eligibility. Your hiring should focus on positions directly tied to AI integration:
High-value roles:
Supporting technical roles:
Roles with limited or no eligibility:
Write Job Descriptions for Certification Success
Investissement Québec looks at what employees actually do—not just their job titles. Your job descriptions, offer letters, and performance goals should clearly spell out AI-related responsibilities.
What to include in job descriptions:
Vague descriptions like “develop software solutions” make certification harder. Be specific: “design and implement neural network architectures for predictive analytics” clearly shows eligibility.
The 75% Rule: Managing Time Allocation
Eligible employees must spend at least 75% of their time on qualifying activities. This simple rule gets complicated in practice, especially for roles with mixed responsibilities.
What Counts as Eligible Time
Your project must create new knowledge that advances science or technology. It’s not about using existing tech—it’s about building something truly new or improving existing capabilities beyond what’s currently known.
Qualifying activities include:
Activities that don’t qualify:
Best Practices for Time Tracking
Accurate time tracking is a must. During audits or certification reviews, you need to prove that eligible employees really spend 75% or more of their time on qualifying work.
How to implement this:
For employees with mixed roles, consider restructuring so you have dedicated AI-focused positions. This can boost your credits and make documentation easier.
Certification Process: Navigating Investissement Québec
Organization Certification
Before any employee can qualify, your company needs an organizational eligibility certificate showing:
At least
75%
of gross revenue
from IT sector activities
At least
50%
of gross revenue
from eligible NAICS codes
75%
of gross revenue
from third-party services or applications used outside Quebec
This certificate proves your basic eligibility and must be renewed every tax year.
Employee Certification
Each eligible employee needs their own certificate from Investissement Québec. The application requires:
What you’ll need:
Timing to keep in mind:
Strategic tips:
Retention Strategy: Safeguarding Your Eligibility
Losing eligible employees creates two problems: it disrupts your operations and puts your funding at risk. If you drop below six eligible employees, you lose CDAE-IA eligibility until you rebuild your team.
Financial Incentives That Match Credit Value
Consider structuring pay to reflect the funding value employees bring:
If a senior AI specialist generates $40,000 in annual credits, their total value to your company includes both their technical skills and the funding they unlock. This supports offering competitive compensation that might otherwise seem high.
Career Growth Linked to AI Skills
Employees want to grow. Offering clear advancement paths tied to AI skill development helps you keep talent and maintain eligibility:
These investments boost retention and deepen your AI expertise, making CDAE-IA qualification stronger.
Succession Planning for Key Roles
Don’t run with exactly six eligible employees. That leaves no room for turnover, leaves, or shifting to non-eligible work. A safer approach is to keep 7-9 eligible employees, so temporary gaps don’t threaten your eligibility.
How to Steer Clear of Common Mistakes
The Contractor Pitfall
Many tech companies rely on contractors for specialized AI work. This is a major CDAE-IA risk: contractors don’t count toward the six-employee minimum and their costs aren’t eligible for credits.
Strategic response
The Maintenance Exclusion
CDAE-IA specifically excludes routine maintenance and evolutionary work. Employees who spend a lot of time on bug fixes, system monitoring, patches, and incremental updates may not qualify.
Risk mitigation
Documentation Gaps
The most frequent reason for certification denial is insufficient documentation of AI-related work. Vague project summaries, missing time logs, or unclear job duties make it difficult to get approved.
Prevention strategy
How CDAE-IA fits into your overall talent strategy
CDAE-IA requirements shouldn’t be treated separately from your broader talent approach. The most successful companies weave funding criteria into their overall people strategy.
Key ways to integrate:
Recruiting
Screen candidates for roles that are most likely to qualify for certification
Onboarding
Teach new hires about time tracking and which activities are eligible
Performance management
Make maintaining CDAE-IA eligibility part of employee goals
Organizational design
Organize teams to maximize both operational efficiency and funding opportunities
Compensation
Include the value of the credit in your total compensation planning
By integrating these elements, you can use funding requirements to strengthen—not limit—your talent strategy.
How Boast simplifies certification and tracking
Managing CDAE-IA employee eligibility means coordinating HR systems, time tracking, certification paperwork, and ongoing compliance. Boast’s platform automates these processes, and our experts guide you through Investissement Québec’s requirements.
Our system automatically tracks employee time against the 75% threshold, alerts you to certification renewal dates, and keeps audit-ready records. Most importantly, our Quebec tax credit specialists help you design your talent strategy to boost both operational performance and funding recovery.
Whether you’re building your first eligible team or fine-tuning your current structure, Boast helps you secure every available credit while staying fully compliant with changing rules.
