Texas Film Production Incentives: How to Get 5-10% Back on Your Shoot

Texas passed SB 22 in June 2025. Governor Abbott signed it June 22. It went into effect September 1, 2025.

The result is a $300 million per biennium cash grant program for productions that shoot in Texas, running through 2035. That is $1.5 billion committed over ten years.

For commercial production, the math starts to matter at $100,000 in qualified Texas spend.

This is not a tax credit. It is a cash grant. The distinction matters more than people realize.

The Cash Advantage: What Texas Has That Georgia and Louisiana Do Not

Every production person knows about Georgia's 30% tax credit. Some know about Louisiana's 25%. What most people do not fully grasp is that tax credits and cash grants are structurally different instruments with different effective values.

A Georgia tax credit is worth 30% of qualifying spend, but only if you have enough Georgia tax liability to absorb it. Most productions do not have Georgia operations. So you sell the credit to a broker.

Those brokers buy at 85 to 90 cents on the dollar. That 30% credit becomes 25.5% to 27% in actual cash, with a time delay and transaction friction baked in.

Texas pays you. Directly.

After the production wraps, you submit documentation, the Texas Film Commission audits it, and the state deposits money into your account. The 5% or 10% you qualify for is 5% or 10%. Not some discounted paper instrument you have to sell on a secondary market.

At higher budget levels, Texas still trails the maximum percentages available in New Mexico or Louisiana. But for mid-market commercial production in the $100,000 to $1,000,000 spend range, the cash certainty of the Texas program is a real advantage over credit-based systems.

There is a reason the Coen Brothers brought No Country for Old Men to West Texas, with Roger Deakins shooting those vast Chihuahuan Desert landscapes outside Marfa and Las Vegas, New Mexico doubling for the border region. Terrence Malick has built an entire body of work around the Texas light, from Days of Heaven through Tree of Life, both shot by some of the greatest DPs alive. Robert Rodriguez turned Austin into an entire production ecosystem from a $7,000 budget. The state has always drawn serious filmmakers. Now it pays them back.

The Program: What It Is Called and Who Runs It

The program is called TMIIIP: the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program. It is administered by the Texas Film Commission, which operates under the Office of the Governor.

The contact is through their inquiry form at gov.texas.gov/film/page/tmiiip. Phone: (512) 463-9200.

SB 22 did not create TMIIIP from scratch. It expanded an existing program that had been running with inconsistent funding since the 2000s.

The previous program peaked at $200 million per biennium in the 2024-2025 cycle. SB 22 locks in $300 million per biennium, removes the historical volatility, and increases the maximum grant percentage from 22.5% to 31%.

The Tiers: Grant Rates for Commercial Production

For commercials, including series of commercials, the grant rates from the enrolled bill text are straightforward.

A commercial production with $100,000 to $999,999 in qualified Texas spend qualifies for a 5% grant. That is the commercial floor.

Hit $1,000,000 in qualified Texas spend and the rate doubles to 10%.

There is no per-project cap. The only cap is the statewide biennium funding pool, allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Stack: Bonus Grants That Compound

On top of the base rate, bonus grants are available. They stack up to a hard ceiling of 31% of total in-state spending.

The relevant bonus categories for commercial production:

The Rural Bonus adds 2.5% if at least 35% of filming days occur in counties with populations under 300,000. Many counties within reach of DFW qualify: Ellis, Johnson, Parker, Kaufman, Rockwall. Shoot a commercial in Waxahachie or Weatherford, and that 2.5% stacks. This is exactly the kind of terrain the Coens used for those desolate gas station sequences in No Country. The Texas landscape outside the metro cores is a production asset, and now it carries a financial bonus.

The Post Bonus adds 1% if at least 25% of total in-state spending occurs during post: editing, color, sound, music, visual effects. If you are doing all your post in Texas, which you should be, this is achievable on most productions.

The Veterans Bonus adds 2.5% if at least 5% of crew and cast are Texas-resident honorably discharged veterans or reservists.

Run those numbers on a $500,000 qualified spend. The 5% base at that level is $25,000. Add the rural bonus: now you are at 7.5%, or $37,500. Add the post-production bonus: 8.5%, $42,500.

The administrative cost of filing is a flat overhead. That return scales up fast.

The Floor: Where Most Productions Fall Short

The program has a hard floor for commercials: $100,000 in qualified Texas spend. This is in-state spending only.

That means crew wages for Texas residents, equipment rentals from Texas vendors, location fees, permits, hotel stays in Texas, and qualifying production expenses paid to Texas businesses.

This threshold matters in practice. A $100,000 total budget commercial almost certainly has some spend that does not qualify: non-resident talent, out-of-state vendor costs, pre-production work done outside Texas.

Realistically, a project needs a total budget of $130,000 to $150,000 to confidently hit $100,000 in qualified Texas spend.

At the 5% tier, a $100,000 qualified spend returns $5,000. That is meaningful, but the paperwork overhead is real. The program requires an itemized budget, receipts, invoices, pay orders, and documentation for every qualifying expense.

The decision about whether to apply at the $100,000 level is a judgment call about your administrative capacity and time.

The Sweet Spot: $500K and Above

The number that justifies the effort without question is $500,000 in qualified Texas spend. That returns $25,000 to $42,500 depending on bonus stacking.

At a large-scale commercial budget with $400,000 in qualified Texas spend, the grant is $20,000 minimum. That is found money that comes from documentation discipline already built into a well-run production.

The Filing Window: How to Actually Apply

Three steps, none of which you can skip.

Step 1. Submit the Incentives Inquiry Form at gov.texas.gov/apps/film/filmIncentivesInquiry.aspx. The Commission reviews it and sends an application link if they determine the project likely qualifies. This is not a rubber stamp. They review proposed content for anything on the ineligibility list.

Step 2. Submit the formal application with a completed online application, an itemized budget showing only Texas expenditures, and a content document. For a commercial, that means a treatment or outline. The Commission reviews the content before principal photography begins.

Step 3. This is the critical part. The application must be submitted between 180 days and 5 business days before principal photography begins. There is no retroactive application. If you start shooting without a filed application, the project does not qualify. Period.

After production wraps, you submit the documented expenditure package. The Commission audits it. Then they issue the grant payment.

No statutory timeline exists for how quickly they must pay, and the program is new enough that the track record under SB 22 is not yet established. Industry expectation based on pre-SB22 history is six to twelve months from final documentation to payment.

The Content Gate: What Does Not Qualify

Several project types are explicitly excluded. News, political advertising, sports events, awards shows, telethons, local events, and religious services do not qualify. Neither do productions commissioned by Texas state agencies or made for gambling devices.

The content review is real, and it is unusual compared to other state programs.

The Texas Film Commission can deny applications for content that "portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion" or fails the office's "general standards of decency." This discretion is written into the statute.

For commercial production selling consumer products, the risk is essentially zero. The clause is aimed at scripted entertainment. But it exists, and it requires submitting your treatment for review before you commit to the application.

The Pitch: Why This Matters for Out-of-State Clients

The most direct use of the Texas incentive program for a Dallas-based production company is in the pitch to out-of-state brands.

A brand in California or New York hiring a Texas production company for a national commercial gets a simple framing: Texas returns 5% to 10% of your production budget as a cash grant.

On a $300,000 commercial budget with $250,000 in qualified Texas spend, that is $12,500 to $25,000 back. Texas also doubles for nearly any American location aesthetic. No state income tax means crew keeps more of their wages. Production costs run 20% to 30% below LA and New York rates.

DFW alone has stood in for everything from suburban America to industrial corridors in national spots for brands like AT&T, Toyota, and Dr Pepper. The production infrastructure here is deep, and the look is versatile.

The incentive is not the only reason to shoot in Texas. But it gives the pitch a concrete financial hook that justifies the decision internally to a CFO or marketing VP who needs to show they spent the budget wisely.

For a DFW production company, positioning as the Texas incentive expert is a differentiation play. Most production companies operating here know the program exists but cannot walk a client through the application process, the spend thresholds, and the timeline with confidence and specifics. That conversation is a trust-builder with any sophisticated out-of-state client.

The Rental Multiplier: Equipment Spend That Counts

One aspect of the program that most production companies do not think through: equipment rentals from Texas-based vendors count as qualified spending.

When a production rents from a Texas rental house, those costs count toward the $100,000 floor and the 5% base calculation.

This creates a useful dynamic for a company that operates both a production division and an equipment rental business. When GLM produces a commercial and rents its own gear to the production at market rate, that rental spend counts as qualified Texas expenditure.

The gear costs are going to be spent regardless. The incentive application turns those costs into grant-eligible spend, and the rental margin stays on the books.

The Only Rule That Matters

The single thing that causes productions to miss out on the incentive is starting principal photography without a filed application. It happens regularly because the program requires advance filing in a window that coincides with the most hectic part of pre-production.

Build the inquiry submission into the pre-production schedule. The week you lock location and schedule is the week you file the TMIIIP inquiry. Not after the first day of shooting. Not after the wrap party. Before camera rolls.

The cash comes later. The paperwork starts now.

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