A new study shows that if the United States were to adopt a federal film tax incentive program, the benefits could be enormous. Production spend between 2027 and 2035 could rise an extra $125.3 billion. Nearly $250 billion in overall income for the economy could be generated. The U.S. could add an estimated 143,500 full time jobs. And America’s share of filming around the world could reach as high as 65 percent of all film and TV projects.
These are exciting numbers that have the attention and backing of lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle, the Motion Picture Association, President Trump’s “Hollywood Ambassador” Jon Voight, and every major guild in Hollywood. It’s why there’s real enthusiasm that all these factors finally seem to be getting through to President Trump amid his efforts to build a ballroom or put his name on the Kennedy Center.
But perhaps the real reason a federal film tax incentive is so urgent and critical is that the report also projects how the situation in Hollywood could get much worse if an incentive weren’t put in place.
On Tuesday, September 15, the MPA released the results of a commissioned study from Olsberg-SPI to determine the impacts if an incentive were put in place at the federal level compared to what would happen if incentives just remained at the state level. With an incentive, the Olsberg-SPI report projected that production spending could exponentially increase to a total $277 billion between 2027 to 2035 but that it year to year it would remain relatively flat if not decline if nothing changed.
It also looked at data via ProdPro that suggested that in 2025, about 34 percent of all film projects and 42 percent of all TV projects were produced in the U.S. An incentive on the federal level could boost those shares to 65 percent, with film production reaching that level as soon as 2030. If not, the report projects more and more production will leave our borders, declining to 25 percent for film and 29 percent for TV by 2035.
All of these numbers are based on a few assumptions. For one, there is no formal bill about how much a federal tax incentive would offer. But based on what’s been recommended by experts, it presumes a transferable tax credit of at least 20 percent, with an additional 5 percent for indies and 5 percent for labor costs incurred in a FEMA-declared disaster area. It also assumes that global production spend is only going to increase as time goes on, an estimated 3.7 percent per year, though that doesn’t necessarily factor in other major market changes like a COVID or strike-level event or industry consolidation.
It also presumes that the incentives the U.S. offers would ultimately be stackable on top of what the states offer, just as other international governments do with additional credits on the regional or local levels. The report says 39 states currently offer some form of tax incentive for filming. But there are also 121 different active national, state, and provincial level incentives offered around the globe as of 2025, up from just 86 as recently as 2017. Competition to win production jobs has grown rapidly, and it’s clear from this report the U.S. needs to find a way to keep pace.
“The entertainment industry that I love is in dire straits, with productions running to Canada and overseas due to the tax advantages offered to producers,” Voight said in a statement. “Along with Steven Paul and Scott Karol and our coalition, we have proposed a federal tax credit that would level the playing field and bring productions back to America immediately.”
“A federal incentive would be a gamechanger for our industry,” said Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO, Motion Picture Association. “This study tells us that we can bring more opportunities to life for people in all 50 states who bring great stories to life — the casts and crews, the set builders, construction workers, truck drivers, caterers, and more. That’s precisely what’s bringing President Trump, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, studios and unions and all of us together: the need to leave a positive and enduring imprint on American creativity and America’s economy.”
Read the full report as released by the MPA here.
