Claiming Theatre Tax Relief for Corporation Tax

Watch a video about how creative industry tax reliefs work.

What are creative industry tax reliefs and how do they work?

Who can claim

Your company must:

• be actively engaged in planning and decision-making
• directly negotiate, contract and pay for rights, goods and services
• be responsible for putting on the production from start to finish, including either:
  • employing
  • engaging the performers

Check if your company qualifies as the production company before claiming the relief.

Check if the production qualifies for the tax relief

Your company can claim the relief if:

• it puts on one of the following qualifying theatrical productions:
  • a play, opera, musical or other dramatic piece that tells a story, where the performances are live and the performers give their performances through the playing of roles
  • a ballet
• the main purpose of the audience members is to observe the performance
• all or a high proportion of the performances are for paying members of the general public or provided for educational purposes
• at least 25% of the ‘core costs’ are spent on goods or services provided from within the UK or the EU, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein known as the European Economic Area (EEA) — from 1 April 2024 at least 10% of the ‘core costs’ must relate to activities in the UK

Core costs are what’s spent on producing and closing the theatrical production. This does not include any of the costs which happen while the production is running.

Your company cannot claim the relief for the production if:

• the main purpose, or one of the main purposes, is to advertise or promote any goods or services
• the performances include a competition or contest
• a wild animal is used in any performance
• the production is of a sexual nature
• the main object, or one of the main objects, is to make a relevant recording
• the production has been produced for training purposes

You can check if the production qualifies for the relief.

What you can claim

You can claim an additional deduction to reduce your profits or to increase a loss. This will reduce the amount of Corporation Tax you will need to pay.

The additional deduction will be the lower of:

• 80% of total core costs
• the amount of core costs on goods or services that are provided from the UK or EEA — from 1 April 2024, it is the amount of core costs relating to activities in the UK

If you make a loss, some or all of this loss can be surrendered for a payable tax credit.

The current rate for surrendering losses is 40%. You can surrender losses at a higher rate of 45% if your production is touring.

For your production to be considered as touring at least one of the following must apply:

• at the start of the production phase, you must intend to have performances at 6 or more separate premises
• there will be at least 14 performances and these will be in at least 2 separate premises

Work out how much creative industry tax relief you can claim for your production.

When you can claim

You can make, amend or withdraw a claim for Theatre Tax Relief up to one year after the company’s filing date.

For accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024, you may make, amend or withdraw a claim for Theatre Tax Relief up to 2 years after the end of the period of account the claim relates to.

HMRC may agree to accept late claims in some circumstances.

How to claim

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You will need to calculate the amount of:

• additional deduction due to your company
• any payable credit due

You must submit an additional information form as evidence for your claim for creative industry tax reliefs.

For each production you must provide:

• the title of the production
• start date of the production
• statements of the amount of core costs, split by:
  • UK or EEA
  • non-UK or non-EEA
• a breakdown of costs by category

If you’re claiming the touring rate of relief, then you also need to provide the dates and number of performances at each premises.

Get more information

You can find more information, including examples of how the relief is calculated,calculated:

• by watching videos and webinars about creative industries tax relief
• in the Theatre Tax Relief Manual.