Form 8826: The Disabled Access Credit for Small Businesses
Published November 8, 2026
Form 8826 is used by an eligible small business to claim the disabled access credit. The credit covers part of the cost of making a business accessible to people with disabilities. It is part of the general business credit.
This post is general information from the IRS form. It does not say whether a particular business or expense qualifies, and it does not give tax advice for a particular taxpayer.
Who can claim it
An eligible small business is one that, for the preceding tax year, had gross receipts of no more than $1 million or had no more than 30 full-time employees. The business must also elect the credit by filing Form 8826. Gross receipts are reduced by returns and allowances.
The form counts an employee as full time if the employee works at least 30 hours per week for 20 or more calendar weeks in the tax year. Members of a controlled group, and businesses under common control, are treated as one taxpayer for this test.
Which expenses count
Eligible access expenditures are amounts paid or incurred to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as in effect on November 5, 1990. The form gives four kinds of expenses: removing barriers; providing qualified interpreters or other ways of making audio materials available; providing qualified readers, taped texts, and other ways of making visual materials available; and acquiring or modifying equipment or devices for people with disabilities.
The expenditures must be reasonable and necessary. The form says eligible expenditures do not include amounts for a facility first placed in service after November 5, 1990.
How the form figures the credit
Line 1 is the total eligible access expenditures for the year. Line 2 is a minimum amount of $250. Line 3 subtracts line 2 from line 1, and zero or less enters zero. Line 4 is a maximum amount of $10,000. Line 5 is the smaller of line 3 or line 4. Line 6 is 50 percent of line 5.
Line 7 is the credit passed through from partnerships and S corporations. Line 8 adds lines 6 and 7, but cannot be more than $5,000. Partnerships and S corporations report line 8 on Schedule K. Other filers report it on Form 3800, Part III, line 1e.
A taxpayer, other than a partnership or S corporation, whose only source of this credit is one of those entities does not file Form 8826. It reports the credit directly on Form 3800.
Records
The form's paperwork notice says that books and records relating to the form must be kept for as long as their contents may become material in the administration of any internal revenue law. For this credit, that means keeping invoices, contracts, and notes that show the date, amount, and purpose of each access expense, and the ADA requirement it met.
No double benefit
To the extent the credit is claimed, the same expenses cannot be deducted, capitalized, or used in figuring another credit. Keep records that show which amounts were used for the credit.
Edition note
The form in the IRS PDF is marked Rev. September 2017. The separate instructions PDF was not found at the IRS URL pattern tried, so the general instructions printed on the form are the source for this post. Recheck the form before each filing season.
Mistakes to avoid
- Claiming expenses for a facility first placed in service after November 5, 1990.
- Forgetting that lines 2 and 4 set the minimum and the maximum before the 50 percent step.
- Filing Form 8826 when the only source is a partnership or S corporation. Report on Form 3800 instead.
- Deducting an expense that also supports the credit.
For the form that collects the general business credits, see Form 3800: How Business Credits Are Combined.
Sources: Sources: IRS, Form 8826, Disabled Access Credit (Rev. September 2017) (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8826.pdf); general instructions printed on the form. The separate instructions PDF was not found at the IRS URL pattern tried. This is general information, not advice about your specific return.
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