Romania Intends to Restart Cash Rebate Scheme

11-05-2023

Romania Intends to Restart Cash Rebate Scheme

By FNE Staff

Alex Rider credit: Eleventh Hour Films UK, Sony Television, source: Alien Films Entertainment

BUCHAREST: The social Democratic Romanian leader Marcel Ciolacu, who will become Prime Minister at the end of May 2023, has promised that the new Government would re-launch the cash rebate scheme, which halted in 2020. Overdue sums will also be paid, Ciolacu said.

A debt of more than 35 m EUR is due to international productions shot in Romania since the scheme was launched in the autumn of 2018.

The cash rebate scheme started in October 2018, halted in 2019, re-launched in August 2020, but has been inoperative since then.

The local film industry has made several attempts through the Romanian Alliance of Film Producers (AFP), comprising most Romanian production companies, to persuade the authorities to continue the state aid scheme, but no results have been seen so far.

From the 50 m EUR allotted by the Romanian Government in 2018 for two years, only 494,000 EUR / 2.4 m RON have been returned to one single project - Alex Rider serviced in Romania by Alien Films Entertainment for Eleventh Hour/Sony Pictures.

Legally, the state aid scheme offers a 35% cash rebate on qualified expenditure for international productions shooting in Romania. Additionally, productions explicitly promoting Romania, with a minimum local spend of 20% of the total budget of the production can also apply for a rebate of 10%.

Published in Romania