France is rolling out the red carpet for Hollywood, offering bigger tax breaks and perks to lure blockbuster movies and hit TV shows. From actors’ salaries to hotel stays, the new rules could make shooting in France too good to resist.
Representative Image
France is ready to play hardball in the international film game. The country that gave us baguettes, berets, and breathtaking chateaux is now sharpening its lure for Hollywood blockbusters with a bold new tweak to its tax incentives.
French officials are rolling out a reform that could make Paris, Saint-Tropez, and beyond irresistible to big-money productions. And this isn’t just talk. Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Paramount Skydance’s David Ellison have personally been pushing for it.
Advertisement
The headline? France will now allow “below-the-line” costs to qualify for its tax rebate for international movies and series.
Advertisement
That means non-European actors’ salaries, hotel stays, and other production costs can now earn a 30% rebate. And for films that spend over €2 million ($2.3 million) on French VFX work, the rebate rises to 40%.
There’s a ceiling of €30 million ($35 million) per project, but still, it’s a major cash-plus perk for producers weighing their next filming location.
Pending final approval from the European Commission, this measure could kick in within weeks, just in time to potentially woo the next big project through French doors.
The changes aren’t happening in a vacuum. Gaëtan Bruel, president of France’s National Film Board (CNC), made it clear at the Paris Images showcase this week: the industry was slipping.
“Global production volumes are down, and France’s appeal had reached a low point,” Bruel admitted. He spent a week in Los Angeles last fall, rubbing elbows with top studio execs during the American French Film Festival, only to report back that France was barely on the radar for major international shoots. The numbers tell the story: 55 TRIP-approved productions in 2024, down from 100 in 2022.
“This reinforcement corrects a loss of competitiveness with our neighbors and puts us back in the game,” Bruel said. “We can reclaim our spot as a top destination for ambitious, large-scale projects, generating jobs, hotel nights, and revenue for artisans and merchants alike.”
The lobbying behind this reform reads like a who’s who of Hollywood heavyweights. Sarandos and Ellison both personally flagged the issue to President Emmanuel Macron, making the case that actors’ salaries should count toward the rebate.
Ellison, in Paris for his high-profile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, and Sarandos, during the Choose France summit in May 2024, were persuasive.
Macron has been pumping hundreds of millions of euros into infrastructure, studio expansion, and training programs. All of this comes under the France 2030 plan. He reportedly realised that all that investment could go to waste if the rebate itself remained outdated.
“Nowhere else has production capacity doubled in five years. Yet without a modernised incentive, France 2030 could have been for nothing,” an industry insider told Variety.
Advertisement
