Film tax credit, rates down and caps on companies
The outline of the interministerial decree sent by the Mic to the Mef and Mimit follows the reduction of the Cinema and Audiovisual Fund and the stop to 'splaining'. The new Cinema Law awaited
The tax credit for cinema and audiovisuals changes skin and perimeter. The outline of the Mic-Mef interministerial decree, viewed by Sole 24 Ore, which rewrites Ministerial Decree 225/2024, already reworked in 2025, marks the transition from an essentially 'open' system to a closed budget model.
A change made necessary by the Budget Law 2026, which reduced the endowment of the Cinema and Audiovisual Fund (from 700 to 610 million for 2026 and to 500 million from 2027) and, above all, introduced for the first time a cap on tax credits for production, until now recognisable even beyond the spending limits with the so-called 'splafonamento' now outlawed and indicated as responsible for an imbalance that gave birth to two choices: the reduction of rates and the compression of ceilings.
'We arrived at this decree,' the undersecretary to the Mic, Lucia Borgonzoni, told the Sole 24 Ore, 'after a long process of consultation with the associations, which we met several times. The resource node has forced us to make certain choices. I am convinced that more funding will be recovered. Now the important thing was to do it quickly. The decree is necessary to avoid a stop now that the last window for the distribution of tax credit has closed'.
And this, after all, must also have been the logic of the Anica, Apa and Cna Cinema and Audiovisual Associations when, at the beginning of the week, they declared that they had 'learned with satisfaction' that the Mic had sent to the Mef and Mimit the 'text of the inter-ministerial decree modifying the provisions on production tax credit, prepared with great timeliness by the General Directorate'.
Satisfaction with the timing of an act considered essential. Certainly not for the tightening. According to the text viewed by the Sole 24 Ore on the subject of rates, the cut is generalised. For cinema it drops from 40% to 30% for independent producers and from 30% to 20% for non-independent producers. For television and web works the basic credit goes from 25% to 20%, while the increased credit goes from 35% to 30%. Reductions that become progressive for companies with greater production capacity, with reductions of up to 5 points per bracket. The squeeze also involves documentaries, animation, short films and video clips: from 40% to 30% in the former case, to 35% for animation and 30% for shorter formats.
