The Rebate Got Bigger on September 1
Texas’s film incentive program quietly became one of the most competitive in the country over the past year. Senate Bill 22 took effect September 1, 2025, converting the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program (TMIIIP) from a discretionary, appropriations-dependent grant into a program with a statutorily guaranteed $300 million every two years, running through a sunset date of August 31, 2035. The base rebate is now tiered by budget — 5% for projects under $1 million, 10% for $1–5 million, 22.5% for $5–10 million, and 25% above that — with stackable bonus awards for underutilized economic development areas, veteran hiring, and post-production work that can push the effective rebate to roughly 31% of qualified in-state spend. For a production penciling out a Texas shoot, that’s real money on top of a state with no corporate income tax.
The Rebate Comes With Homework
The incentive isn’t a check that shows up automatically. Productions need at least $250,000 in qualified in-state spending to access the program at all, and to actually collect the rebate, at least 60% of filming days have to happen in Texas and at least 35% of paid cast and crew — extras included — have to be Texas residents. Those thresholds shape scheduling and hiring decisions well before a single shot is planned, and they’re worth building into a budget conversation with a line producer before a Texas location gets locked in, not after.
Austin, Dallas, and Houston Each Run Their Own Permit Desk
Texas’s production hubs don’t share a single aerial permitting process, and Austin is the clearest example of how much local detail matters. Any commercial drone flight touching City of Austin property — including a park, or a crew setup on a public sidewalk or roadway — needs a permit through the Austin Film Commission, and every commercial UAS flight has to clear an Austin Police Department Special Events Unmanned Aerial Operations request before that permit gets issued. The Texas Capitol Complex downtown is a state-designated no-fly zone regardless of city permitting. Dallas and Houston each run comparable but separately administered processes through their own film offices, so a crew moving between cities on the same production needs to build in separate lead time for each stop, not one blanket clearance.
The Terrain Is Still the Understated Advantage
Once a flight is cleared, Texas offers something LA and Vegas can’t: airspace with far less competing traffic. Hill Country ranchland, wide interstate corridors, and less congested airspace around Dallas and Houston mean fewer conflicting authorizations and more flexibility on flight paths once a waiver is in hand. Combined with the rebate, it’s a genuine two-part budget case — lower production costs and fewer flight-day surprises than a producer would get running the same aerial coverage in a denser market.
Get In Touch
CineDrones handles the city-by-city permit work — Austin, Dallas, and Houston alike — as part of booking a Texas aerial unit, so a production chasing the new rebate doesn’t lose the schedule to a permit desk it didn’t know it needed. Get in touch with CineDrones to line up permits and airspace clearance before your Texas shoot dates are set.
