India’s film incentive is the number that has put it back on international producers’ shortlists, and it is also the number most often reported wrong. The web is full of guides quoting the original 2022 scheme, which capped reimbursement at ₹2.5 crore. That figure is obsolete. The current scheme is far larger, and understanding exactly what it gives, and what it does not, can swing a production budget by crores. This is the precise breakdown: the percentages, the caps, the bonuses, the co-production treaties, and how to apply. It is general information on current policy, not financial or legal advice, and the scheme is revised periodically, so confirm the live figures with the India Cine Hub before you bank on them.
The headline: up to 40%, capped at ₹30 crore
India reimburses up to 40% of your Qualifying Production Expenditure in India. The crucial word is “up to,” because the 40% is a stack, not a flat rate:
- 30% base on qualifying spend.
- plus 5% for employing 15% or more Indian crew on a live-shoot project.
- plus 5% for Significant Indian Content.
So the realistic figure for many productions is 30 to 35%, with the full 40% reserved for projects that both staff substantially with Indian crew and qualify as Significant Indian Content. The per-project cap is ₹30 crore, about 3.6 million US dollars, a roughly twelve-fold increase on the original 2022 cap of ₹2.5 crore. Qualifying spend means money spent on Indian goods and services; crew and cast fees count only for Indian citizens and residents, and overseas, travel and foreign-crew costs are excluded.
The thresholds and the fine print
Eligibility has a few hard edges worth knowing before you plan around the scheme. Minimum qualifying spend is ₹3 crore (about 361,000 US dollars) for a live-shoot feature, TV or web project, ₹1 crore for a pure animation, VFX or post-production project, and there is no minimum at all for documentaries, which makes India unusually friendly to factual work. Only projects granted permission after 1 April 2022 are eligible. One important asymmetry: the 5% Indian-labour bonus applies only to live-shoot foreign films, not to pure animation or post projects, so a post-only project tops out at 35%, while a live shoot can reach 40%. The annual scheme budget has been set at ₹150 crore in recent years and is disbursed first-come, first-served, so timing your application matters; that budget is set afresh each year, so check the current figure.
Significant Indian Content, the extra 5%
The Significant Indian Content bonus is worth understanding because it is achievable for more productions than they assume. A project qualifies by meeting any one of several criteria: spending at least 25% of total budget in India, casting an Indian national in one of the lead roles, including voice talent, having at least one Indian national as a creative head of department such as director, cinematographer, music director or writer, or presenting India and its tourism positively. A committee makes the determination and its decision is final. For a co-production or a story partly set in India, this bonus is often within reach, taking a project from 35% to the full 40%.
Co-production treaties: a different, sometimes better, door
If your project can be structured as an official co-production with an Indian partner, you enter through a different door with its own advantages. India has signed audio-visual co-production treaties with 17 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Korea, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom, Portugal and, since 2024, Colombia. Official co-production status, granted by the Ministry, treats the film as a national production in each partner country. That is powerful: it can unlock both countries’ domestic incentives, public funding, tax benefits and distribution access, not just India’s. The co-production route reimburses up to 30% of qualifying co-production expenditure, with the same ₹30 crore cap. The trade-off: you cannot claim both the co-production incentive and the foreign-film reimbursement on the same project, so the structure is a strategic choice. Co-productions must be applied for by an India-incorporated co-producer, not a letterbox company.
How to apply: the two stages
Everything runs through the India Cine Hub, formerly the Film Facilitation Office, in two stages. First, interim approval: applied for through your India-incorporated line producer or production-services company before principal photography begins, with the office aiming to process complete applications within about 20 working days, and the interim certificate valid for 12 months, or 24 months for larger projects. Second, final approval and disbursal: filed within 90 days of completing work in India, supported by a chartered-accountant-certified expenditure statement and invoices, and evaluated by a special committee whose decision is final. Disbursal comes in two parts: 90% on successful audit and approval, and the final 10% on submission of the finished film carrying the “Filmed in India” credit and the India Cine Hub logo, plus proof of public release.
What it means for your budget
The incentive genuinely changes the maths. On a qualifying live shoot spending, say, ₹10 crore in India, a 35% effective rate returns ₹3.5 crore, real money against a production that already cost 40 to 60% less than a Western equivalent, as we lay out in the cost-to-film-in-India guide. But the incentive is a back-end reimbursement, not a discount at point of sale: you spend first, document rigorously, and claim after, which means cash flow and clean accounting matter, and which is one more reason the local partner you choose is the most consequential decision you make. The whole edifice, the permissions, the incentive, the co-production status, rests on hiring an Indian team you can trust, which is the subject of hiring film crew in India as a foreign producer.
Build the shoot on people you can verify
The incentive is generous and the rules are knowable. The variable is trust: a back-end reimbursement only pays out on a shoot that actually delivered, documented by a partner who did what they said. TUAP is built to de-risk exactly that, a verified, India-native network where crew credits are confirmed by the people who were on set, so the team behind your incentive claim is one you chose on proof. Hire on confirmed credits and browse the directory. India will give you up to 40% of your spend back. Make sure the people you spent it on were real.