The Irish government has confirmed the 8% uplift in its Section 481 film tax incentive can now be claimed, aimed at supporting local feature films with Irish creative talent that are budgeted up to €20m (£16.7m).
The uplift was first announced in October 2024, however was subject to European Union state aid approval, and was signed into Irish legislation last week.
To qualify for the 40% tax relief, in addition to the existing Section 481 requirements, films must also have one of the key creative roles of film director, screenwriter, composer, editor, cinematographer and production designer (or art director, composer and production designer in case of animated feature films) be a national of, or ordinarily resident in Ireland or the European Economic Area.
The feature film must be intended for exhibition at a commercial cinema in Ireland for at least five days.
The 8% uplift has been introduced to address the significant challenges faced by smaller Irish feature film projects.
The standard Section 481 tax incentive allows film and TV productions to claim a 32% tax break on eligible expenditure up to €125m, providing the production company is an Irish resident or trading through an Irish branch or agency. The tax incentive applies to all eligible expenditure up to 80% of the total cost of production.
The uplift brings the Irish incentive broadly in line with the UK’s Independent Film Tax Credit (IFTC), which was introduced at a rate of 40% for films with a total core expenditure, or production budget, of up to £15m, on 80% of qualifying spend, and can be claimed as of April 1 of this year, on films that entered production after April 1 2024. (Productions with a total core expenditure of up to £23.5m can also qualify for the IFTC, however, they can only claim the IFTC up to a maximum of 80% of £15m of the UK qualifying spend.)
Films within this budget range to shoot in Ireland include Ita Fitzgerald’s UK-Ireland co-production West The Road, to shoot later this year and Grant Gee’s Everybody Digs Bill Evans, another UK-Ireland co-production, which commenced shooting this week.
Irish-language fund
Smaointe (which roughly translates to ‘thoughts’ in English) is the name of a €1m fund from Screen Ireland that is now open, to support Irish production companies as they develop a slate of projects in the Irish language, across film, TV and animation. It follows the international awards and box office successes of Irish-language features including The Quiet Girl and Kneecap.
“At Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, we are deeply proud to support Irish cinema – productions made possible by the creative talent that has brought our industry so much acclaim and success in recent years,” said Screen Ireland chief executive, Désirée Finnegan. ”We’d like to thank the Department of Arts, Culture, Communications, Media and Sport, and the Department of Finance for their support as the Scéal uplift is now available, creating a new opportunity for Irish filmmakers and screen artists.
“Working in partnership with these supports, Screen Ireland’s launch of Smaointe, an Irish-language slate development fund, offers a further opportunity for Irish storytelling on screen. Thanks to the incredible success of Irish-language cinema, we are committed to building on the growing ambition and artistic vision from Irish-language film and television.”
“The ‘Scéal’ Uplift provides an additional 8% tax relief to production companies producing small to medium sized feature films or animated feature films,” added minister for arts, media, communications, culture and sport Patrick O’Donovan. ”This is a positive change to the Section 481 film tax relief scheme which will benefit the Irish film industry, Irish film workers in senior creative roles and Irish cinemas. I look forward to seeing the productions that will be created in the coming years for the Irish film and animation sectors as a result of this new scheme”.
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