Miami-Dade in Florida launches filming incentive

Miami-Dade lies on the south-east tip of Florida and encompasses the city of Miami. From August, producers will be able to claim a rebate of up to $100,000 in production support for using the county as a filming location.

Qualifying criteria includes spending at least $1m locally, filming 70% of a project’s content in Miami-Dade and hiring at least 50 local crew.

Florida borders US production hub Georgia and has Louisiana as a southern neighbour, so the state is risking an exodus of skilled film crew to Atlanta and New Orleans without doing more to appeal to high-end TV and film shoots.

Miami-Dade’s $100,000 rebate cap will mean the city is more likely to attract small-scale productions.

Films and TV series set in Florida usually use other parts of the US as stand-ins because of the lack of incentive support. Ben Affleck’s Prohibition-era gangster movie Live by Night has been a high-profile recent example, filming coastal Georgia as the Florida city of Tampa.

There are exceptions. Netflix’s production funding resources mean the streaming service is more able to make bold location filming decisions and so the company decided to remain in Florida for the locally-set family drama Bloodline despite the collapse of the local incentive support.

For more on filming in Florida see our production guide.

Image: iStock.com/ThePalmer