Incentives · Canada vs. the world

Canada
vs. Georgia, USA

Modelled on a $12M USD limited series. Canada's best province against Georgia, USA's realistic effective rate — not its headline.

🇨🇦 Canada — best province (Manitoba)
31.5%
≈ C$5.2M · refundable

Cash timing: filed with the corporate return, assessed and paid 12–24 months after wrap. Borrowable against, not sellable.

🇺🇸 Georgia, USA
27.0%
≈ C$4.5M · 30% headline

Cash timing: Sell the credit — cash in weeks, at a broker discount. No annual cap and no sunset clause. US$500,000 minimum annual spend, which may be aggregated across several projects by the same company in one tax year. Transferable, not refundable..

Where Georgia, USA is strong
  • Transferable credit converts to cash in weeks, not years
  • No annual programme cap and no per-project cap
  • Deep crew base and stage inventory concentrated around Atlanta
  • No language, content or cultural test of any kind
  • Same time zone and no border for a US-based production office
Where it costs you
  • The broker discount on transfer is a real haircut on the headline 30%
  • The final 10% requires an embedded Georgia logo and link to georgia.org/film on promotional material, or pre-approved marketing of equal value
  • Crew saturation at peak pushes rates well above scale
  • No federal layer to stack on top
The verdict

Canada is ahead by 4.5 points on rate — and the rate is the smaller half of it.

Canada wins when

Your labour share is high, you can wait for a refundable credit that arrives whole, and the currency advantage is working in your favour.

Georgia, USA wins when

You need cash quickly and can absorb the broker discount — a transferable credit closes a financing gap that a refundable one cannot. Also when your production office and cast are already US-based and the border adds real cost.

Model your budget → Compare provinces
Other jurisdictions
🇬🇧 United Kingdom🇮🇪 Ireland🇭🇺 Hungary🇦🇺 Australia🇳🇿 New Zealand

Deciding between these two?

We will run both against your actual budget and say which wins, including when it is not Canada.

One email, a real reply, no list. Want to say more? Use the full form.