Louisiana’s 40% tax credit
What Louisiana’s 40% Tax Credit Actually Means for Unscripted Television
Louisiana's Entertainment Incentive Program offers one of the most competitive production tax credits in North America: 40% on qualifying production expenditures.
As a New Orleans-based production company, Shot in the Dark Productions applies this credit to virtually every project we produce. For commissioning partners, that means budgets on your feature films, television series, animated productions, documentaries, and even commercials go significantly further with us than with any production company based outside Louisiana.
It also means we can tell you how it works: Qualified productions can receive up to a 40% tax credit on total qualified in-state production expenditures, covering both resident and non-resident labor.
A 25% base credit can be stacked with a 5% bonus for filming outside the New Orleans metro area, a 10% increase for Louisiana screenplay productions, and additional credits. Together those boost the effective return for productions that hire locally.
For unscripted specifically, this incentive structure can provide bigger benefits as these productions tend to skew heavily toward in-state spending with local crews, talent, locations and vendors. Every dollar spent on one of these Louisiana-based entities qualifies. So when your production is built here, you're naturally maximizing the incentive.
The annual statewide cap of $125 million provides a strategic allocation that reserves $15 million specifically for independent productions. That means mid-sized unscripted series aren't competing against blockbuster films for their slice of available credit.
In the end, the credits can be transferred back to the state for around 88 cents on the dollar (a 2% administrative transfer fee applies to the 90% face-value buyback). It’s a quick rebate for productions that don't carry Louisiana tax liability of their own.
Shot in the Dark has a proven, successful track record navigating this incentive program. We understand how to apply it and how to structure production spending to maximize the return, how to navigate the certification process efficiently, and how to work with Louisiana Economic Development to ensure projects qualify as intended. For commissioning partners, we use this experience to create budget certainty and production efficiency.
If you’re ready for a reliable, local partner to show you why smart money keeps betting on Louisiana, you’re in the right place.
