Every state film incentive program for 2027, in one book.

Forty-two jurisdictions in the United States will pay a production to shoot there in 2027. Eleven will not. Knowing which eleven saves as much time as knowing the other forty-two, and most of the comparisons published this year will not tell you either list.

We read all fifty-three, the fifty states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, off each program’s own pages and statutes. The report is out today in two editions. Here is what the reading turned up.

The floor closes the door before the rate matters.

Every comparison leads with the rate. For a film under a million dollars the rate is the second question. The first is whether the program opens at all.

Twenty-seven of the forty-two programs are open to a feature spending $250,000 in state. At a million in state, forty-one are. That gap is fourteen programs, and it holds names an independent producer would reach for first: California, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Washington are all shut at $250,000.

There is a second trap inside the first, which is what the floor gets measured against. Most states count in-state spend. New York and Alabama count total budget. A $400,000 picture that spends $250,000 in Texas clears the Texas floor. The same picture measured against budget somewhere else may clear nothing at all.

Texas pays 5% at the bottom of that range.

That is worth saying plainly and early. TMIIIP is tiered by spend, and the Texas Film Commission publishes 5% on $250,000 to under $1 million, 10% from $1 million to under $1.5 million, and 25% at $1.5 million and above. On a $250,000 in-state spend, 5% is $12,500.

New Mexico has no floor at all and pays 25%, which on the same spend is $62,500. Illinois opens at $100,000 and pays 35%. Puerto Rico opens at $50,000 and pays 40% on payments to residents and local companies.

If your picture is small and the incentive is the deciding factor, Texas is not the answer, and I would rather you read that here than work it out after you have moved. Texas gets competitive at $1.5 million, where the 25% tier opens and the additional grants can carry the total to 31% of eligible in-state spending. Those selections have to be made on the project application and are not awarded retroactively, so it is a decision made before production rather than after. Anything about whether a specific project qualifies goes to the Commission at 512-463-9200. They are the only source worth trusting on it.

The longer version of that math is in Texas vs. Georgia vs. New Mexico for a $3M show.

A 30% credit is not 30%.

Twenty-six of the operating programs return money as cash, whether that is a rebate, a grant or a refundable credit. Sixteen return a transferable credit, which the production then sells to somebody who owes that state tax.

Those are different instruments and they are not worth the same. A 30% transferable credit sold at 88 cents on the dollar is a 26.4% rebate with a broker in the middle and a wait attached. A 25% refundable credit is 25%, paid to you. Any table that sorts states by headline rate without saying which is which is telling you close to nothing.

Texas is a cash grant, paid after the work is finished and verified. It cannot be sold or financed against, which matters if you were counting on it to close a gap during production rather than after it. The mechanics are in the plain English version.

The cap is the question nobody asks until it is too late.

Ten programs have no annual cap. The rest allocate in order, and the popular ones are spoken for early in the fiscal year.

New York’s independent film pool for 2026 was exhausted in January. Pennsylvania is routinely oversubscribed. Wisconsin created a 30% credit and funded it at $5 million a year with $1 million per applicant, so the entire state program pays for five maximum awards. Nebraska’s new program has a $500,000 statewide pool, which is one award.

A generous rate against an empty fund pays nothing. Ask the office what is left before the number goes into a finance plan.

The official sources disagree with each other more than you would expect.

This was the surprise. Reading each statute against the agency’s own page turned up conflicts in several states, and the agency page was the stale one every time.

Louisiana Economic Development’s program page still shows $150 million a year in issuance and $180 million in claims. Act 5 of the 2024 third extraordinary session caps both at $125 million for credits certified after July 1, 2025.

Hawaii’s film office publishes a $20 million per-project cap. The statute text still reads $17 million.

The Arkansas Economic Development Commission gives its sunset as June 30, 2031. The statute says June 30, 2032.

Two more that are not conflicts but will catch somebody out. The District of Columbia is cutting its rates effective October 1, 2026. West Virginia’s credit terminates for expenditures after December 31, 2027 unless the legislature extends it.

Twenty-six programs changed in 2025 or 2026.

That is more than half the operating programs, inside two years. California doubled its cap to $750 million and raised the base to 35%. Illinois went to 35% and extended to 2038. Louisiana rebuilt its program in a special session. Delaware enacted its first one. Wisconsin created a program and underfunded it. Indiana capped its credit at $250,000 a project, which is low enough to change what the program is for. Nevada’s studio bills died twice.

An incentive comparison from 2024 is not slightly out of date. It is wrong about half the country. That is the argument for doing this every year, which is what we intend to do.

What the free edition is.

224 pages. Every jurisdiction gets two halves.

The program comes first: rate, instrument, floor, cap, labor rules, residency requirement, allocation method and sunset. Then the place, which is the half nobody else publishes. Where the airports are and what flies out of them. What the state looks like on camera. Soundstages, where there are any. Union locals. The five most recent films shot there and released, and the five best films ever shot there, which is a different list and the more useful one.

After the entries come the lists, sorted by published number, and a section on where a small feature actually qualifies at $250,000 and at $1 million.

It is free. It arrives by email along with the rest of the free library.

What the Executive Edition adds.

486 pages, and the difference is names and numbers you can act on.

Every jurisdiction gets the people to call, with titles, direct lines and email addresses, taken from the offices’ own staff pages. Production facilities. An honest read on how deep the crew runs and what you will have to import. Travel, with GSA lodging and per diem for the main production city. Seasons, including the weeks nobody local will work. Festivals and events that will take the hotel inventory out from under you. And where one exists on the record, a verbatim quote from a filmmaker who shot there.

It comes with an Excel budget planner. Enter a shoot and it costs out crew, travel, lodging, per diem, equipment, stage, permits and insurance for any jurisdiction in the book, with that jurisdiction’s published program terms printed beside your numbers. It deliberately does not estimate your rebate. Every program has conditions no spreadsheet can test, and the office that pays it is the one that decides.

$19.99 for the Executive Edition, both the screen and print editions, the easy to use planner,

One more thing about 2027.

Texas residency steps from 35% to 40% on September 1, 2027, and it is measured from the date the project begins principal photography rather than the date you applied. A show that starts in August and a show that starts in September are held to different standards. Film and television are tested twice, at 35% of paid crew and 35% of paid cast including extras, as two separate pools rather than one blend.

If you are planning a late 2027 shoot in Texas, that is the date to build the schedule around. Every figure above was read from each program’s own pages in September 2026, and every entry in the book ends with the office that administers it.

If the show is coming to Texas, the paperwork is the part we do.