Disability Tax Credit
If a severe, long-term condition affects your daily life, the Disability Tax Credit can be worth real money every year, back-dated up to a decade. We prepare your application, guide you through every step, and you pay nothing unless your claim is approved.
Free 3-minute assessment, no payment information required.
The upside
Once approved, the Disability Tax Credit lowers your taxes every year, and you can claim it retroactively up to 10 years. Refunds commonly run from $2,000 to $40,000 or more, depending on your situation and the tax you’ve paid. It can also open the door to the Registered Disability Savings Plan and other benefits. CRA makes the final decision — our free 3-minute check gives you a personalized estimate.
One reason not to wait: the 10-year window only reaches back so far — each year that passes can cost you the oldest year you could have claimed.
The problem
The same work, structured around your refund instead of around our fee.
| Contingency-based services | UnlockDTC | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee structure | 15–40% of your refund | $0 upfront — capped, only if approved |
| Fee on a $30,000 refund | $4,500 – $12,000 | Up to $1,100, only if approved |
| What you keep from $30K refund | $18,000 – $25,500 | Your full refund, minus at most $1,100 |
| If application denied | Often no fee — but no refund either | Free objection — a denial costs you nothing |
| Doctor coordination | Sometimes | Always — with your doctor, or virtual if you don’t have one |
| CRA representative status | Varies | Yes |
These figures are retroactive refunds of income tax you’ve already paid — so they depend on tax having been paid.
Industry pricing based on CBC News reporting and disability advocacy data.
How it works
No paperwork mailed back and forth, no chasing forms.
Free 3-minute quiz tells you whether you likely qualify and gives a credit-value estimate.
Guided 45-minute questionnaire covering your impairments, daily impact, and history.
Your T2201, doctor brief, and CRA-ready supporting documents, prepared and reviewed before you file.
We prepare everything and guide you through every step. The application is filed in your own CRA account, under your name, the way the CRA requires.
Who qualifies
CRA looks at how an impairment affects daily life — not at the condition itself. These are the categories that count.
Mental functions
Memory, attention, problem-solving, learning, or managing emotions and behaviour.
Walking
Significant difficulty with walking — even with mobility aids — over typical distances.
Vision
Vision loss that cannot be fully corrected with glasses, contacts, or surgery.
Hearing
Difficulty hearing in quiet settings even with hearing aids or cochlear implants.
Speaking
Difficulty being understood, even with speech therapy or assistive devices.
Dressing
Significant difficulty dressing without assistance.
Feeding
Difficulty chewing, swallowing, or bringing food to the mouth.
Bowel or bladder
Difficulty with bowel or bladder control — including incontinence, catheters, or ostomies.
Life-sustaining therapy
Significant ongoing therapy required to support a vital body function — for example dialysis, insulin therapy, or chest physiotherapy.
A case can also qualify under the cumulative effect of significant limitations — two or more significant limitations in the categories above whose combined impact is equivalent to a marked restriction. The CRA introduced this pathway specifically for people who don’t clearly meet the bar in any single category but whose combined functional limitations clearly do. Only the CRA can approve a Disability Tax Credit application; our role is to give you a clear-eyed read on whether your case fits the published criteria.
Why UnlockDTC
Contingency-based DTC services typically charge 15% to 40% of your refund. We charge $0 today and a capped fee only if CRA approves, never a percentage, the same whether your refund is $5,000 or $50,000, so more of it stays with your family.
Industry pricing based on CBC News reporting and disability advocacy data.
Our service is built specifically for the Disability Tax Credit. We guide you through a 45-minute questionnaire, then prepare a personalized application package — including a concise brief for your doctor that uses CRA’s exact terminology. Every application is reviewed before you file. Most are ready in under 24 hours.
We handle everything around your application: eligibility assessment, application preparation, doctor coordination, step-by-step guidance through every CRA step, and ongoing status tracking until decision. The application itself is filed under your name in your own CRA account, the way the CRA requires, with us guiding each step. If CRA denies, we handle a formal objection at no additional cost, and since you are billed only on approval, a denial costs you nothing.
If CRA denies your application, we prepare and handle a formal objection — the CRA's official appeal process — on your behalf, at no extra cost. Since you're billed only if CRA approves, a denial costs you nothing. We're confident in our work because we're confident in our process.
The practice
Unlock Benefits is a Vancouver practice where every Disability Tax Credit application gets the time and attention it deserves — and someone personally accountable for getting it right.
Dilani Sanmugathas
President & CRA Authorized Representative
Dilani reviews and stands behind every Disability Tax Credit application that goes through our practice. As the practice's CRA Authorized Representative, she manages the ongoing relationship with CRA for clients who bring us on — correspondence, adjustments, and follow-up. We use modern tools to organize information and check our work against CRA's published criteria, but the work itself stays in human hands.
Jay Namas
Operations & Client Care
Jay keeps every case organized and moving. He handles your communication, physician coordination, and the day-to-day work behind your application. If you call or email, there's a good chance Jay picks up first.
You get the same people on your file from start to finish — call or email, and you’ll reach one of us directly, no call centre, no chatbot.
Vancouver, BC. Serving Canadians across Canada (Quebec coming later).
$0 today — never a percentage
If approved: a one-time capped fee — $100 + $100 per retroactive year, up to $1,100. Same fee whether your refund is $5,000 or $50,000.
Free 3-minute assessment, no payment information required.
Beyond the DTC
UnlockDTC is the first service in a family from unlock.benefits. Once your DTC is approved, several federal and provincial programs become available — and we’re building services around each of them.
unlock.rdsp
When you're approved for the DTC, the federal government will match your RDSP savings — up to $70,000 in grants and $20,000 in bonds over your lifetime. We make sure you claim every dollar you're entitled to, including the years of carry-forward most families leave on the table, and guide you through opening the plan with the issuer you choose.
After approval
unlock.cdb
A tax-free monthly top-up — up to $3,411 a year — for families with a DTC-approved child. CRA adds it automatically going forward, but the retroactive years, back to a decade, only come if they're claimed correctly. We recover the back-payments most families never knew they were owed.
After approval
unlock.tax
Approval is only worth what gets claimed. If you would like, we can prepare your return each year, claiming the disability amount, the credits it unlocks, and any transfers to family, so your DTC status stays current and fully claimed. Entirely optional, priced separately, and yours to start or stop any time.
Ongoing service
Questions
The eligibility check is free and takes about three minutes.
Free 3-minute assessment, no payment information required.