Resources · QRE worksheet · Updated July 2026
Qualified research expenses worksheet
Your credit is a percentage of your qualified research expenses, so the QRE total is the number that matters most. This worksheet adds it up the way Form 6765 wants it: wages, contract research at 65%, supplies, and cloud costs.
The short answer
QREs are the sum of four things: qualified wages, 65% of US contractor costs, supplies consumed in research, and development cloud compute. The worksheet computes each subtotal and the total that flows to Form 6765.
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Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers. Formulas included, so the subtotals, the 65% contractor rule, and the grand total fill in as you type.
How to fill in each section
1. Wages
One row per person. Enter W-2 Box 1 wages and the share of their year spent on qualified work, as a decimal. The sheet multiplies the two. People at 80% or more qualified time may count in full under the substantially-all rule; ask your CPA before rounding anyone up to 100%.
2. Contract research
US-based contractors only. Enter what you paid and how much of it was qualified work. The sheet applies the 65% rule for you on the subtotal line, so enter the full qualified amount, not a pre-discounted one.
3. Supplies
Tangible items used and consumed in the research: prototype parts, test materials, dev boards. Not laptops, not office supplies, not anything you capitalize.
4. Cloud and computer rental
Compute for development and test environments. Enter the annual cost and the share attributable to development, and note the allocation method. Tagged accounts or separate dev environments make this defensible.
From worksheet to credit
The grand total flows to the QRE lines on Form 6765. From there, most startups use the alternative simplified credit. With no QREs in the prior three years, the credit is 6% of this year's total. With prior-year QREs, it is 14% of the amount above half your three-year average. A startup with $1,000,000 of first-year QREs is looking at roughly $60,000. The calculator runs both cases in 60 seconds, and the Form 6765 walkthrough shows where each subtotal lands on the form.
One warning: a spreadsheet total is a claim, not support. If the IRS asks, you need records connecting each number to real work. Pair this worksheet with the documentation template, or read the R&D tax credit, explained for founders for the full picture. Claimship builds both the numbers and the evidence automatically from your GitHub, Linear, and payroll history.