Lithuania once again proved to be very attractive to the international film industry in 2022. The smooth operation of the tax exemption, high quality of services provided in Lithuania, and attractive locations resulted in 13 foreign projects being produced in the country last year. Of these, 7 were Scandinavian projects – 2 Swedish, 2 Finnish and 3 Norwegian. Another 4 projects were filmed in Lithuania by UK teams and 2 more by Germans.
German science fiction project Paradise (€2.75 million) and Swedish project Ronja, based on Astrid Lindgren’s book Ronja (€2.1 million), which will be filmed in Lithuania this year, have raised the most investment in 2022. Both projects are planned to be released on Netflix. In 2022, foreign projects spent a total of €35.3 million in Lithuania, compared to €37.9 million in 2021, €26.96 million in 2020, €14.98 million in 2019, and €37.21 million in 2018.
According to the Lithuanian Film Centre, in 2022, film producers, benefiting from corporate tax exemption, raised more than €17.8 million in non-refundable funds from Lithuanian companies. Compared to the excellent results in 2021, this amount has increased by 18%, the highest amount received during the entire lifetime of the incentive.
In just one year, the number of films financed has increased significantly. Last year, a total of 85 new films benefiting from the corporate tax exemption were financed, of them 63 national, 13 foreign and 9 co-production projects.
The purpose of the corporate income tax exemption, which came into force in Lithuania in 2014, is to create favourable conditions for filmmakers to produce films in our country. It is available to businesses operating in Lithuania by providing a film producer with a free loan to reduce their taxable income and corporate income tax.
