On June 30, 2025, New Jersey amended its film and digital media tax credit. The law is P.L. 2025, c.81. It applies to applications submitted after June 30, 2025.
The amendment raised a studio partner’s rate inside the thirty-mile radius around Columbus Circle from thirty-five percent to forty. A studio partner now earns forty percent on every qualified film production expense. The base rates for an independent production stayed where they were.
Who Earns Forty Percent
Forty percent belongs to studio partners and film-lease production companies. New Jersey has three studio partners: Lionsgate, Netflix, and Paramount. NJEDA’s rules allow no more than three.
A film-lease production company is a producer committed to a film-lease partner facility. Before the facility opens, NJEDA’s test is a lease there of at least 36,000 square feet for at least three years. New Jersey has one film-lease partner facility, 1888 Studios in Bayonne. It is still under construction. NJEDA has paused new applications for the facility designation. Its program page lists no film-lease production company.
For now, an independent picture has no route to forty percent.
What an Independent Picture Earns
An independent production earns thirty-five percent on its qualified New Jersey wages, wherever the crew works. Goods and services bought for use outside the radius also earn thirty-five percent. Inside the radius, goods and services earn thirty percent.
What Changed for Every Production
The program now runs until July 1, 2049. The old end date was July 1, 2039.
The hiring bonus rose from two percent to four. It used to reward a diversity plan. It now rewards a plan for hiring residents of an economically disadvantaged area, a distressed municipality, or land the federal government owned on or before December 31, 2005.
The Division of Taxation and NJEDA must approve the plan. They must also confirm that the production met its goals or made good faith efforts toward them. Under NJEDA’s rules, the plan has to aim for at least twenty-five percent of the production’s New Jersey employees from those areas. Independent contractors do not count.
For a reality series, the required network or streaming order dropped from six episodes to four.
An application submitted on or before June 30, 2025 stays under the old law. Those applications keep the old two percent diversity bonus.
What Changed Mainly for the Studios
A studio partner or a film-lease production company can add a Promote New Jersey bonus of four percent. Its plan must meet at least four of eight criteria. One is a video of at least three minutes on the New Jersey locations used in the film. Another is five public social media posts about filming in the state. A third is a New Jersey logo, shown for two seconds before the below-the-line crew crawl. A film set at least in part in New Jersey, with the state named in it, also counts.
The hiring bonus and the Promote New Jersey bonus together cannot exceed five percent. The total credit cannot exceed forty-five percent.
The state will also buy certificates first issued to a studio partner, at ninety-five percent of face value. NJEDA must have approved the original application on or after January 1, 2026. The certificate must be at least a year old when the holder applies to sell it. The statute caps these purchases at $80 million in fiscal 2026, $160 million in 2027, and $240 million in 2028. The cap is $200 million a year after that.
The state pays nothing in a fiscal year unless its budget fully funds the schools and the pension contributions. The budget must also keep a surplus of at least twelve percent of appropriations. Certificates issued to an independent production do not qualify for the buyback.
What Never Became Law
The bill as introduced gave studio partners and film-lease production companies another four and one-half percent for a television series that moved to New Jersey. The committee struck that bonus before the bill passed.
One piece of it survived in the definition of a film. For a studio partner, a news or current events program that relocates to its New Jersey facility counts as a film.
The introduced bill also set the Promote New Jersey bonus at four and one-half percent with two criteria. The enacted law set it at four percent with four criteria.
Selling the Credit
An independent production with little New Jersey tax to pay can sell its certificate. The statute sets the minimum price at seventy-five percent of the credit transferred. The buyer can be any taxpayer that owes corporation business tax, gross income tax, or insurance premiums tax. NJEDA’s guidance allows one transfer per certificate.
Before You Budget
Start with the taxpayer category. An independent picture should budget thirty-five percent on wages and on goods and services outside the radius. It should budget thirty percent on goods and services inside the radius.
Count the four percent hiring bonus only if the production can meet the plan or show good faith efforts toward it.
Read the enacted law, P.L. 2025, c.81, before relying on any figure from a summary of the bill.
The production’s CPA should see the budget before it locks. NJEDA issues the credit certificate only after an independent CPA reports on the production’s costs.
New Jersey Now
Productions outside the studio categories share a pool of $100 million a year. Studio partners draw on a separate pool of $150 million. NJEDA can add up to $400 million more for them each year. Lionsgate Studios Newark expects completion in 2027. Netflix targets summer 2027 for the first phase at Fort Monmouth. In Bayonne, 1888 Studios targets late 2028.
Alex Aldea is a Partner at Weiner Law Group LLP and Chair of the firm’s Entertainment Law Division. He serves as production counsel to independent film and media companies in New Jersey. This article is general information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. His direct line is 973-503-1881, and his email is [email protected].