The creative industries reliefs split into two families. Film, TV and video games now run through expenditure credits — AVEC at 34% or 39%, VGEC at 34%. Theatre, orchestra and museums keep the older relief mechanism, and their rates were made permanent at 40% and 45% from 1 April 2025 rather than tapering back to 20% and 25% as originally planned.
What exists now
Eight reliefs plus two expenditure credits. The five audio-visual reliefs — film, animation, high-end TV, children's TV and video games — are being replaced and close entirely on 1 April 2027. The three cultural reliefs — theatre, orchestra, and museums and galleries exhibitions — continue as reliefs with no expiry.
Video Games Expenditure Credit
VGEC gives an expenditure credit at 34% of qualifying expenditure. Qualifying expenditure is the lower of 80% of total core costs or the amount of UK core costs, with at least 10% of core costs relating to UK activities, and the game must be certified as British by the BFI.
Expenditure from 1 January 2024 qualifies. The CT600P supplementary page is required for returns submitted on or after 6 April 2026, and the claim window is two years after the end of the period of account.
The predecessor relief, VGTR, cannot be claimed for productions that start the production phase after 31 March 2025, and closes for all productions from 1 April 2027 — the same pattern as film tax relief. Our guide to the audio-visual expenditure credit covers the film and TV side in detail.
The cultural reliefs: 40% and 45%, permanently
This is the point most commentary gets wrong, so it is worth being explicit. During the pandemic the theatre, orchestra and museums reliefs were temporarily uplifted. They were due to taper to 30% and 35% in April 2025 and then, on the original plan, to revert to the pre-2021 rates of 20% non-touring and 25% touring. That taper never happened. The rates were instead set permanently from 1 April 2025:
- Theatre Tax Relief — 40% non-touring, 45% touring;
- Orchestra Tax Relief — 45%;
- Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief — 40% non-touring, 45% touring.
Anyone describing these reliefs as having dropped back to 20% or 25% is working from a superseded plan. The legislation amended CTA 2009 sections 1217K, 1217RG and 1218ZCH to fix the new rates.
The permanent rates are available to all exhibitions, including those that entered production before the temporary uplift began in October 2021 — so a long-running exhibition is not stuck on an older rate.
MGETR is now permanent
The museums and galleries relief had a sunset clause. It has been removed, so the relief has no expiry date. That changes the planning horizon for institutions that were treating it as a closing window.
The 2024 UK expenditure change
A change that caught out productions with European supply chains. From 1 April 2024, at least 10% of core expenditure must be on goods or services used or consumed in the UK. That replaced the previous requirement of at least 25% of core costs from the UK or EEA.
It applies to theatrical productions, orchestral concerts and museum and gallery exhibitions, with transitional protection for productions that entered production before that date. The threshold is lower but the geography is narrower — 10% UK rather than 25% UK-or-EEA — which helps most productions and hurts those whose spend was genuinely concentrated in Europe.
How the cultural reliefs work mechanically
They remain reliefs, not expenditure credits, and the difference matters for the accounts as well as the tax. The mechanism is an additional deduction, with the resulting loss surrendered for a payable credit — not an above-the-line credit taxed as income.
The 80% cap applies to all three: qualifying expenditure is the lower of 80% of total core costs or the qualifying expenditure figure.
On administration, for claims made on or after 1 April 2024 the tax return must be accompanied by an additional information form, with the claim entered at box 658 on the CT600. The CT600P supplementary page applies from 6 April 2026 here too. The claim window was one year after the filing date, extended to two years after the end of the period of account for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024.
Where claims go wrong
Three recurring problems, none of them about rates.
Core expenditure definition. The 80% cap and the 10% UK test both operate on core costs, and what counts as core differs by relief. A claim built on a loose definition of core expenditure fails at the first question.
Certification timing. For AVEC and VGEC the certificate must be valid and in force when it accompanies the claim. An interim certificate that has lapsed is not a certificate.
The additional information form. Since April 2024 a claim without one is not a valid claim. This is the single most common reason a creative industries claim is rejected outright rather than enquired into, and it is entirely procedural.
For companies claiming both creative reliefs and R&D relief — common in games studios — note that the two regimes have separate additional information forms and separate rules on the same expenditure, and expenditure cannot be counted twice.
What to do
If you are a theatre, orchestra or museum, the planning assumption should be 40% or 45% permanently, with no sunset on MGETR. That is a materially better position than the one most budgets built in 2023 assumed, and it is worth revisiting multi-year programming plans against it.
If you are in film, TV or games, the 1 April 2027 closure of the old reliefs is the hard date. Any production still relieving expenditure under the legacy schemes needs its transition mapped now.
Acumon advises creative businesses on claims and the compliance around them through corporation tax, business tax and R&D tax credits work, with charity audit for the many cultural organisations that are charities. If your production entered production before April 2024, the transitional protection on the UK expenditure test is worth confirming before the next claim.