Incentives · QC

Quebec
film incentives

QPSTC 25% all-spend, plus 16% on computer-aided effects and animation

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

Service production rate
25%

before bonuses · the rate a foreign production starts from

How it pays

Refundable tax credit

Fully refundable. Certified by SODEC, claimed through Revenu Québec.

Modelled on $12M USD
27.7%

net effective on total budget · ≈C$4.6M 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.

QPSTC

Quebec Production Services Tax Credit

Foreign / service production All-spend

Aimed at foreign, non-Québec-owned productions and at attracting technical services work. All-spend: qualified labour plus the cost of qualified properties incurred in Québec. No requirement that the corporation be Québec-controlled.

ComponentRateBase
Basic 25% All-spend production costs incurred in Québec
Raised from 20% by Budget 2024-2025
CG effects & animation +16% Qualified labour attributable to computer-aided special effects and animation, including chroma-key shooting
VFX service contracts effective 26.65% Only 65% of an admissible VFX/animation service contract counts as qualified labour
(25% + 16%) × 65%
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
  • No overall cap on the credit.
  • Where VFX or animation is supplied under a service contract, only 65% of the contract cost qualifies — for both the basic rate and the 16% improvement.
Corrections

Things secondary summaries routinely get wrong.

  • The 20% base rate is outdated. Budget 2024-2025 raised it to 25% for approval-certificate applications filed after 12 March 2024.
  • "VFX labour credited at 36%" is doubly wrong. The combined rate is 25% + 16% = 41% on VFX labour — but a contracted-out VFX spend yields only 26.65% effective, because the same budget capped service contracts at 65%. The full 41% applies only where the VFX labour is incurred directly.
  • Budget 2026-2027 adjusted eligible film-category criteria but did not change rates.
Sources

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

Crédit d’impôt — services de production cinématographique SODEC
Quebec budget highlights 2026 PwC Canada (secondary — used only for application dates)
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

Quebec against the markets it usually competes with.

QC vs BCQC vs ONQC vs ABQC vs MB
Permits & red tape

What it actually takes to shoot on the street here.

Montréal · friction 3/5
Recent changes
Other provinces
British ColumbiaOntarioAlbertaManitobaNova 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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