What the verification file looks like when it's done right.
Updated: 1 day ago
You're shooting. The grant application was approved before the first day of production, the residency percentage is holding, and nobody has told you what the end of this looks like. That's the normal condition of a Texas production with a grant in play, and it's the one that costs money.
Here is the end. It's written down in the state's own rule, 13 Texas Administrative Code §121.11, and the Commission's forms page lists the templates by name. I've quoted the rule rather than paraphrasing it, because the difference between a paraphrase and the rule is where audits go wrong.
One thing before the end: the beginning. The application goes in no earlier than 180 days and no later than 5 p.m. Central on the fifth business day before the first day of production, per the Commission's FAQ and its FY26 one-sheet, with an itemized Texas budget and a content document attached. Nothing below applies to a show that missed that window, because there's no grant to verify.
The clock starts when your Texas spending stops.
The rule says the applicant "must collect, authenticate and assemble an Expended Budget and all final verifying documentation and submit it to the Texas Film Commission within 60 days of completing Texas expenditures." Sixty days from the last Texas dollar, not from wrap, not from picture lock. If post is happening in Texas, the clock hasn't started. If your last Texas invoice is a wrap-party caterer, that's day zero.
The eight things in the file.
The rule calls the package the Expended Budget and says it "must be in a format acceptable to the Commission and must contain all" of the following. I've kept the rule's order and its language.
A Verification Worksheet, the Commission's own form, "confirming that all program" requirements have been met and the supporting paperwork is attached.
Expenditure reports and worksheets "that document all eligible Texas spending." These are the Commission's Excel templates, not your accountant's format.
Copies of all invoices, receipts, pay orders, proof of payment, and anything else the Commission asks for. Proof of payment is its own item. An invoice without the cancelled check or the bank record is half a document.
Completed Declaration of Texas Residency forms for every Texas resident employee, contractor, crew member and cast member you're counting. Every one. The Commission's FAQ says only employees with a valid declaration are counted in the actual percentage, and residency is proved with a Texas driver's license or ID, a current Texas voter registration, or a Texas college ID.
Employee, crew and cast lists that indicate whether each person was paid. Leave someone unmarked and the rule reads them as paid, which means an unpaid intern on a list you didn't annotate just joined your denominator.
Call sheets, production reports or production calendars that document every filming day and production day. Your ADs are producing compliance documents every morning. Keep all of them.
A copy of final content, or online access to it. The statute says the Commission reviews final content before issuing payment and may deny a project for content that portrays Texas or Texans negatively, so this is not a formality.
Anything else the Commission requires, including financials with all expenditure reports.
Two things the rule says after the list matter as much as the list. "Once the Expended Budget is accepted by the Commission for review, the Applicant shall not be allowed to submit additional information unless requested to do so by the Commission." And: the Commission does the initial review, and "a compliance review shall be performed by the Office of the Governor." Two reviews, and the second one isn't the people you've been emailing.
Where it actually goes wrong.
In August I sat down with the Austin Film Commission team over coffee downtown. I asked what causes the most trouble. The answer wasn't a document. It was timing: filing late, or not starting the process early enough. A production that treats the file as a wrap task, instead of a day-one task, is the production that ends up reconstructing residency from memory in week eight.
That matches what I've seen. Residency paperwork collected at wrap instead of at hire, after the person has left and the percentage has quietly moved. A paid-versus-unpaid list nobody annotated. Call sheets that lived on a coordinator's laptop. Proof of payment that means a second round of vendor calls in month two. None of those are complicated. All of them are late.
There's also a number to watch while you shoot, not after. The residency requirement is two separate tests, 35% of paid crew and 35% of paid cast including extras, counted by head count of Texans hired to work in Texas, per the Commission's TMIIIP page and FAQ as of September 4, 2026. That percentage steps up to 40% for projects that begin principal photography on or after September 1, 2027, and the trigger is the principal photography start date, per Texas Government Code §485.023. If you're counting once at the end, you're finding out too late. The whole staircase gets its own post next month; how the Commission applies it to your dates is a question for the Commission at 512-463-9200.
What to do differently, starting Monday.
Be completely thorough, and have one person whose only job is this. Not the line producer, who has a show to run. Not the accountant alone, who has the numbers but not the set. One person who keeps meticulous track from the first hire, communicates with the Commission and the local film office early, and owns the file the way a script supervisor owns continuity. On a small show that's a role someone takes on. On a bigger one it's a hire. On a show I'm producing in Texas it's the producer of record, because the system that runs the show is the same system that produces this file, and doing it twice is how it gets done wrong.
Concretely: collect the Declaration of Texas Residency at onboarding, with the ID, before the first paycheck. Annotate paid and unpaid on the crew list the day the list changes. Archive every call sheet and production report to one place, by date. Attach proof of payment to the invoice when it's paid, not when the Commission asks. Read the Commission's Worksheet Instructions before the first expenditure report, so the coding matches theirs. Then the last 60 days are assembly, not archaeology.
The wage cap belongs in this list too: the Commission counts the first $1 million of each Texas resident's wages, per its TMIIIP page as of September 4, 2026, with a higher figure proposed in the February 2026 rules that I could not confirm was adopted. Confirm that with the Commission before any above-the-line resident deal is modeled against it.
If you want someone to own this.
If you’re earlier than this and the open question is still whether the Texas grant is worth chasing at all, start with the plain-English version of the program. This post assumes you already have one in play.
If you’re shooting here and nobody on the list owns this file yet, that’s the job I take on a Texas show. Tell me the dates, the Texas spend, and who’s holding the residency forms today. If the honest answer is that your coordinator can carry it on a show your size, that’s the answer you’ll get, and it costs nothing to hear it.
The rule is the rule, and the Commission is the only one who reads it. Call them at 512-463-9200 about the program. Call me about the production.
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