Texas vs. Georgia vs. New Mexico for a $3M show.
You have a $3 million show and three states on the whiteboard. Every vendor in each state will tell you their state wins. I work in one of them, so read the rest of this knowing that, and knowing I'll tell you when Texas is the wrong answer, because the site says I will and I mean it.
The numbers below are each state's own, checked on September 4, 2026 against the Texas Film Commission's TMIIIP page and one-sheet, the Georgia Department of Economic Development and Department of Revenue pages, and the New Mexico statute and Taxation and Revenue Department page. Programs change. I'll re-check this post by March 2027 and mark it if anything moved. If you're reading it later than that, verify before you budget.
The show.
A $3 million feature, roughly $2.4 million of which lands in the shooting state as qualifying spend. That's not a real production; real productions' qualifying spend isn't public and anyone who tells you what a named show "saved" is guessing. It's a model, and the point is the mechanics, not the decimal.
Texas: 25%, cash, later.
Base grant on $1.5 million or more of in-state spending is 25%, paid as a cash grant after completion and verification, per the Commission's page as of September 4, 2026. On $2.4 million that's $600,000. Not transferable, not financeable, paid after the Commission's review and the Governor's office's compliance review. Requirements: 60% of the production completed in Texas; two residency tests, 35% of paid crew and 35% of paid cast including extras, stepping to 40% for projects that begin principal photography on or after September 1, 2027, per Texas Government Code §485.023; the first $1 million of each Texas resident's wages counts. Additional grants for rural filming, veterans, heritage and the rest exist at 1% to 2.5% each; the statute and the Commission's current one-sheet cap the total at 31%, while the adopted administrative rule still reads as a single 2.5% grant. Confirm any uplift with the Commission at 512-463-9200 before it goes in a budget. The rebate post covers what "paid later" does to cash flow.
Georgia: 30%, transferable, audited.
A 20% transferable tax credit with a 10% uplift for the Georgia logo, on a $500,000 minimum spend, per the Department of Economic Development. On $2.4 million that's $720,000 in credits. The credit "can be sold or transferred to one or more Georgia taxpayers," which is why lenders advance against it and why the face value is not the cash value: a credit has to find a buyer. There is no per-project or annual cap, by the state's own description. Every project certified since January 1, 2023 goes through a mandatory audit by the Department of Revenue or an approved CPA firm before the credit can be used. Neither state page carries a crew or cast residency requirement.
New Mexico: 25% refundable, plus uplifts, behind a cap.
A 25% refundable credit on New Mexico production and post spend, per the statute: if the credit exceeds tax liability, "the excess shall be refunded." On $2.4 million, $600,000 at base. Uplifts in the statute: 10% for work at least 60 miles from the seats of the state's largest counties, and 5% for a television series with a six-episode order or for shooting in a qualified production facility. A fully uplifted show could reach 40% on qualifying spend, or $960,000 on this model. The catch is the cap: the statute limits total annual payouts, $150 million from the current fiscal year by the statute's schedule, with a queue for claims that exceed it, and the Taxation and Revenue page still shows last year's $140 million figure. Nonresident below-the-line crew is limited, for most productions, to 15% of below-the-line wages and a handful of positions scaled to budget. Credits over $5 million require a CPA audit. No minimum spend.
Side by side, at base.
Texas: $600,000. Cash. After review. Two residency tests to hit. Tier cliff at $1.5 million of Texas spend.
Georgia: $720,000 face. Transferable, so financeable, so less than face in hand. Mandatory audit. No residency test.
New Mexico: $600,000 to $960,000 depending on uplifts. Refundable. Subject to a statewide annual cap and queue. Nonresident crew limits.
On paper Georgia pays the most and New Mexico can pay the most. On a bank statement, Texas pays the number it says, in cash, and the other two pay something else: a discounted asset in one case and a place in line in the other.
What the paper doesn't say.
Here is what I've seen and what I hear from the people who've shot in both, and it's the part vendors leave out. New Mexico has a great deal to give and, in a lot of the places you'll end up shooting, lacks the supporting infrastructure of local businesses and restaurants to feed a cast and crew. In too many spots the hotels a crew ends up in are the kind you remember for the wrong reasons. Georgia is better on that front, and its top-tier stages are excellent, but the good ones are few and closely held, and the quality of what's available falls off hard once the top tier is booked. Both states tend to mean traveling crew, and traveling crew means per diem, housing and the slow tax of people who don't know the town.
Texas's version of that problem is different. The stage inventory is thinner than Georgia's, and honest about it; see stage space in Texas. The crew base is deep in some departments and thin in others. And the residency tests are real work: two percentages, counted by head count, that a production coming from Georgia has never had to think about.
When Texas is the wrong answer.
Your script needs mountains or snow. Texas has neither at scale. The Davis Mountains top out around 6,000 feet and get an occasional dusting. New Mexico has both. Go there.
Your financing closes only if the credit is monetized up front. Texas can't be sold or borrowed against. Georgia can. That's a structural fact, not a negotiation.
Your Texas spend lands under $1.5 million. At $1.4 million the Texas rate is 10%, not 25%. Georgia pays 30% on anything over $500,000. On a small show, Georgia wins on the math alone.
You can't hit two residency tests. A show that's bringing its whole crew and its whole cast will not pass 35% of each, and the Commission's page says both are required. Georgia asks for neither.
Your content might not survive a review. The Texas statute lets the Commission deny a project for content that portrays Texas or Texans negatively, and it reviews the final content before paying. If that's a risk for your script, it's a risk to the whole grant.
When Texas is the right answer.
When the show is financed to its full budget and the incentive is a back-end cushion, cash for the number beats a credit that needs a buyer or a refund that's waiting in a queue. When the locations are the reason: Texas has almost everything except mountains and snow, and where Texas doubles is the list. When the show is coming back: a series that hires Texas crew this year is building the residency percentage it will need at 40% in 2027. And when the crew wants to eat well and sleep somewhere decent, which is not a small thing over a nine-week shoot.
My honest position is that Texas isn't for everyone, and that almost every show should at least run the model. The landscape is diverse and it isn't alpine. The incentive is real and it's paid late. The crew is good and it's uneven by department. If those three sentences describe a show you can make, run the three columns above with your real Texas spend, and call the Commission, not me, with the program questions. Then call me with the production ones.
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