CDAP Alternatives in 2026: What to Apply for Now That It's Closed

The Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP) closed permanently in 2024 after distributing $4 billion in digital adoption grants and loans to Canadian businesses. As of this writing, no direct federal replacement has been announced. If you were planning around CDAP's $2,400–$15,000 digital adoption grants, here's what actually fills that gap in 2026 — and an honest read on how each option compares.

Federal alternatives

BDC LIFT program (new, April 2026)

BDC launched LIFT in April 2026: financing from $25,000 to $5,000,000 with advisory support attached. The key difference from CDAP: this is a loan, not a grant, and the AI-focused path requires at least $1 million in existing revenue. It fills a similar advisory role to CDAP but with a repayment obligation and a higher revenue bar than CDAP ever required.

SR&ED for software work

If your digital transformation project involves genuine technical uncertainty — building custom software, not deploying off-the-shelf tools — SR&ED can refund up to 35% of the qualifying development cost. This only applies to real R&D, not implementation or configuration of existing platforms.

IRAP

IRAP can fund digital technology R&D more broadly, if your "digital adoption" project is actually building new technical capability rather than adopting existing tools.

Provincial alternatives

Provincial programs are now the primary post-CDAP path for straightforward digital adoption (as opposed to R&D). Ontario's OCI Digital Commercialization Centre is currently the largest provincial digital grant, offering up to $165,000 combined. Availability and amounts vary significantly by province — this is exactly the kind of gap FundScout's matching engine is built to surface, since there's no single federal source to check anymore.

The honest reality check

None of the current alternatives replicate what CDAP actually offered. CDAP was accessible to almost any small business doing basic digital adoption — website, e-commerce, point-of-sale modernization — with a low bar to qualify. The 2026 alternatives are either more technically demanding (SR&ED, IRAP require genuine R&D), more geographically restricted (provincial programs vary by province), or require loan repayment (BDC LIFT, CSBFP). If your digital adoption need is genuinely basic — not R&D, not export-related — the honest answer is that the accessible federal option that existed for it is currently gone.

Next steps

Run FundScout's free eligibility check to see which federal and provincial alternatives actually fit your project. Check your matches.