July 9, 2026

Hawaii has made the following legislative changes to its motion picture, digital media, and film production tax credit:

  • for qualified productions with a workforce of at least 80% local hires, providing additional credit equal to 5% of the qualified production costs incurred;
  • requiring all taxpayers claiming the tax credit to submit an independent third-party certification verifying certain information to the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism;
  • increasing the per-production credit cap amount to $20 million and exempting qualified productions that incur at least $60 million of qualified production costs from the per-production credit cap;
  • increasing the aggregate cap amount to $60 million per year;
  • amending the definition of a qualified production to include certain streaming productions;
  • applicable retroactively for costs incurred after December 31, 2023, if the total amount of tax credits claimed in a year is less than the aggregate cap amount, allowing the cap for the subsequent year to be increased by the unclaimed amount; and
  • extending the sunset date of this version of the tax credit to January 1, 2038, at which point the version of the credit applicable to costs incurred before July 1, 2006, will be reenacted.

In addition, the legislation exempts from the general excise tax certain amounts received by a motion picture project employer from a client company that represents reimbursements for
costs paid or incurred by the client company for reasonable employment-related costs of motion picture project workers or loan-out companies.

Act. 185 (S.B. 2580), Laws 2026, effective July 6, 2026, and applicable to costs incurred after December 31, 2025, except as noted

 

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