Written by Shona Smith on May 6, 2020. Posted in Incentive News

Spain increases its filming incentive to 30%

As Spain draws closer to the end of its Covid-19 lockdown the Spanish government has increased the rate of filming incentive offered to incoming productions. The new rebate grants up to 30% on production spend and will gain interest from foreign productions who are gearing up to start shooting again.

The new scheme will see production expenditure rebated by 30% for the first EUR1 million of spend, followed by 25% for remaining Spanish spend. Crucially, the new rebate has a much higher cap on total tax rebate per shoot, now set at EUR10 million.

The previous incentive provided 25% on the first EUR1 million followed by 20% and had a cap of EUR3 million.

The Canary Islands, which have always had a higher rebate the rebate now stands at 50-45% direct deduction for foreign shoots, if spending at least EUR1 million in expenses in the Canary Islands.

The change comes as productions across the globe are on hiatus, with international productions looking at locations where shooting can begin again. The role incentives play in attracting international shoots is likely to even more crucial in coming years as production budgets tighten.

The increased incentive could see Spain catch the wave of post Covid-19 shoots as studios and broadcasters look to international territories with skills and infrastructure to contend with a large production backlog. Productions with tighter budgets, and working under new safe shooting guidelines will also looking for destinations where they can maximise these budgets with incentives.

Spain is already familiar with hosting international shoots. Not only is it a filming destination for productions such as Game of Thrones, Westworld, and Star Wars but Spanish productions, such as Casa de Papel (Money Heist) and Elite having been popular offerings on Netflix, and the streamer established a production hub in the capital Madrid.