Incentives · AB

Alberta
film incentives

FTTC 22% all-spend, or 30% for Alberta-owned, treaty co-pro or rural/remote

Primary-sourced 2026-07-29 · full statutes, quotes and legislative history in docs/tax/province-ab.md · estimates only, never tax advice.

Service production rate
22%

before bonuses · the rate a foreign production starts from

How it pays

Refundable tax credit

Refundable Alberta corporate income tax credit. Option of multiple certificates (one per taxation year) or a single certificate at completion.

Modelled on $12M USD
25.4%

net effective on total budget · ≈C$4.2M stacked with federal

Model your own →

Programmes

Where a province runs more than one, they are usually mutually exclusive — a production claims one, not both. Getting this fork wrong is the most expensive mistake available at this stage.

FTTC

Film & Television Tax Credit

Either All-spend

All-spend credit on eligible Alberta production costs. An applicant qualifies for exactly one rate — 22% or 30%. The rates are alternatives, not additive.

ComponentRateBase
Base 22% Eligible Alberta production costs
Alberta-owned 30% Same base
≥50% Alberta ownership, an Alberta producer with single-card credit, copyright held ≥10 years, plus spend/labour tests
Treaty co-production 30% Same base
Alberta producer with single-card credit, plus spend/labour tests
Rural/remote 30% Same base
≥75% of Alberta principal-photography days in defined rural/remote areas
Stacking with Ottawa

Federal Production Services Tax Credit (PSTC) — 16%

Provincial production-services credits can be stacked with the federal PSTC — but under ITA s. 125.5(1) they count as "assistance" and reduce the federal qualified-labour base dollar for dollar. So the provincial credit is computed first, and the federal applies to what is left. This is the interaction that breaks spreadsheets.

ITA s. 125.5 · Income Tax Regulations s. 9300 · Cannot be combined with the federal CPTC on the same production (ITA s. 125.5(4)).

Caps, floors and thresholds
  • The former $10M per-project cap was removed on 26 March 2021.
  • Minimum total production costs of $499,999 CAD, excluding GST.
  • Applications must be submitted within 120 days of commencing Alberta principal photography.
  • Issuance of Authorization Letters is subject to available programme budget — continuous intake, but not guaranteed.
Corrections

Things secondary summaries routinely get wrong.

  • The 30% rate is a rate substitution, not a bonus added to 22%. A production gets one or the other.
  • A project cannot hold both FTTC and the Alberta Made Production Grant — the spend thresholds do not overlap.
  • Approved federal PSTC or CPTC applications can count toward the 50% confirmed-financing requirement; producer deferrals cannot.
Sources

Primary only. Secondary aggregators are used as cross-checks, never as a source of record.

Film and Television Tax Credit Government of Alberta
Film production resources Government of Alberta
The handoff

Rates are the easy part.

Whether your production actually qualifies — and which stream to elect — depends on ownership, content points, labour share and where you shoot. That is the conversation worth having before you lock a budget.

Model your budget → Production fit check
Head to head

Alberta against the markets it usually competes with.

AB vs BCAB vs ONAB vs QCAB vs MB
Permits & red tape

What it actually takes to shoot on the street here.

Calgary · friction 3/5
Recent changes
Other provinces
British ColumbiaOntarioQuebecManitobaNova ScotiaSaskatchewan Compare →

The federal grind, worked through

Under ITA s. 125.5(1), "assistance" reduces the federal qualified Canadian labour expenditure dollar for dollar. The definition is broad: grants, subsidies, forgivable loans, and provincial and territorial film tax credits, from Canadian or foreign sources, received or reasonably expected to be received.

provincial credit = provincial rate × provincial base

federal base    = qualified Canadian labour − provincial credit
federal PSTC    = 16% × federal base

total = provincial credit + federal PSTC

There is one carve-out: the PSTC is not assistance to itself (CRA RC4385). But under s. 125.5(5) it is government assistance for all other purposes of the Act — it goes into income, or reduces the capital cost of the production for CCA.

Why this matters more than the headline rate

A province advertising a high labour-based rate takes a bigger bite out of the federal base than a province with a lower all-spend rate. Comparing provincial headline rates without applying the grind systematically overstates the high-rate provinces.

Estimates only — not tax advice. Confirm with a Canadian production accountant.

Modelling this province for a real show?

Rates are the easy part. Whether the crew and stage space exist in your window is the part that decides it.

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