Lithuania's 30% Film Tax Incentive
The structural change that turned Lithuanian cinema from a fragile post-Soviet remnant into a working European production hub. Introduced in 2014, raised to 30% in 2018, and the single most important industrial event in modern Baltic film. Without it, neither HBO's Chernobyl nor Vėlyvis's Redirected would exist in the form they do.
How the scheme works
Lithuania's film tax incentive is a private-investor cash-rebate mechanism rather than a direct grant. Productions that meet qualifying-spend criteria can offset a portion of their costs against the Lithuanian tax obligations of local corporate investors who fund the production. The investor receives a tax reduction; the production receives capital that does not need to be repaid; the country receives the inward economic activity of the shoot itself.
The mechanism is administered by the Lithuanian Film Centre (Lietuvos kino centras) and operates within a clear set of eligibility requirements: minimum local spend, qualifying production categories (feature, TV series, documentary, animation), and a Lithuanian co-producer or production-services provider attached to the project. International productions can fully participate so long as the structural requirements are met.
The numbers — 20% in 2014, 30% in 2018
The scheme launched in 2014 at a 20% rate on qualifying spend. Emilis Vėlyvis's Redirected was one of the early Lithuanian-led productions to use it that year — part of why the project was able to reach an English-language production scale that would have been unimaginable in the 2000s. The original rate was already competitive against neighbouring Baltic and Central European jurisdictions.
In 2018, the rate was raised to 30%. This put Lithuania at the top of the European incentive league for productions that could meet the qualifying-spend thresholds. The 30% rate continued in that form through the end of 2023, with successor frameworks subsequently maintaining broadly comparable levels.
What the incentive actually built
The growth curve
Non-Lithuanian capital spent on filming in Lithuania rose from approximately €1.25 million in 2014 — the launch year — to €45.5 million in 2018. That is approximately a 35x increase across four years. By 2020, producers received €11.3 million via the incentive scheme, while local spend from international productions reached close to €27 million. The acceleration was sustained and continued through the 2020s.
Infrastructure side effects
The scheme's secondary effect was on infrastructure. The Lithuanian crew base — substantially depleted by 1990s industry collapse — was rebuilt by the cadence of productions arriving each year. Equipment rental capacity expanded. Post-production facilities in Vilnius matured. Local production companies built relationships with international partners that outlasted any single film. The infrastructure improvements that arrived because of the incentive then became reasons for the next productions to choose Lithuania, regardless of incentive value.
HBO's Chernobyl — the scheme's defining production
HBO/Sky Atlantic's miniseries Chernobyl (2019), directed by Johan Renck, became the international showcase for what the Lithuanian incentive could deliver. The production received over €3 million via the tax-incentive scheme. The bulk of the series was shot in Lithuania. The cumulative production volume — 40+ locations, nearly 5,000 extras, almost 1,000 production hours — was the largest international production Lithuania had hosted.
The key location was the Fabijoniškės neighbourhood of Vilnius, a residential district built in the late 1980s around the time of the actual Chernobyl disaster. The Soviet-era apartment blocks, the layout of streets and courtyards, and the overall visual texture of the neighbourhood matched the period requirements of the series so precisely that Renck reportedly described it as "the closest thing to Pripyat that still looks lived in".
Chernobyl won 10 Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and remains one of the highest-rated television productions in IMDb history. Its visible Lithuanian footprint — every European-block exterior, every Vilnius street that doubled for the 1986 Ukraine — became, simultaneously, an extended commercial for the country's incentive scheme. The bookings curve accelerated after Chernobyl's release.
Netflix and the streaming-era productions
Through the late 2010s and into the 2020s, Lithuanian-shot Netflix originals — Polish-language productions, regional crime dramas, and various continental European projects — built on the Chernobyl precedent. Netflix's willingness to commission productions in Lithuanian and Latvian-speaking markets, combined with the tax-incentive cost structure, made the Baltic region competitive against more established Western European hubs for productions of mid-budget scale.
The pattern repeats across other streaming platforms. Amazon, Apple, and various regional European platforms have all commissioned or supported productions that used Lithuanian crew, locations and incentive money in some combination.
What this means for Redirected
Without the 2014 incentive, Redirected would either not have been made or would have been a substantially different film. The $2.7 million budget that allowed Vėlyvis to hire Vinnie Jones, shoot in both London and Lithuania, and finish a fully professional English-language production was financially viable only because the Lithuanian funding stack used the incentive as one of its load-bearing components.
This is part of why the film matters as an industrial event rather than just as a commercial title. Redirected was one of the first Lithuanian-led English-language productions at scale. It demonstrated, before Chernobyl, that the incentive scheme could deliver more than just inward-investment shoots for foreign productions — it could enable Lithuanian creative leadership to operate internationally. The films and series that followed across the rest of the 2010s and 2020s built on that demonstration.
Where the scheme sits in 2026
The 30% rate operated through the end of 2023. Successor schemes have continued the basic mechanism with adjusted parameters; the precise rate and qualifying-spend thresholds have varied year-to-year as the Lithuanian government calibrates the incentive against budget pressure and against competing schemes in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Czech Republic.
As of 2026, Lithuania remains one of the more competitive European production destinations for mid-budget international productions. The crew base, equipment infrastructure, and post-production capacity built over the 2014-2023 cycle have not contracted with any incentive rate fluctuation. The structural change made between 2014 and 2018 was the durable one.
For further reading
- Lithuanian cinema guide — full historical context
- Lithuanian film industry primer — LFS to tax-incentive arc
- Baltic cinema's 2010s renaissance
- Redirected (2014) — synopsis
- Redirected production history — how the financing worked
- External: Cineuropa — Lithuania's tax incentive coverage
- External: Variety — With 30% Tax Credit, Lithuania's Burgeoning Biz Gets a Boost
Frequently asked
When did Lithuania introduce its film tax incentive?
Lithuania introduced its film tax incentive scheme in 2014, initially covering up to 20% of qualifying production budget. The rate was raised to 30% in 2018 and continued in that form through the end of 2023, with successor schemes operating after.
What productions used Lithuania's tax incentive?
HBO's Chernobyl (2019) received over €3 million from the scheme; the production was largely shot in Vilnius and the surrounding region. Other beneficiaries include Netflix dramas, multiple international features, and Lithuanian-led productions including Emilis Vėlyvis's Redirected (2014).
How much did Lithuania's tax incentive boost the local industry?
Non-Lithuanian capital spent on filming in Lithuania rose from €1.25 million in 2014 to €45.5 million in 2018 — an approximately 35x increase in four years. In 2020 producers received €11.3 million via the incentive, while local spend from international productions reached close to €27 million.
Where in Lithuania was HBO's Chernobyl filmed?
Primarily in the Fabijoniškės neighbourhood of Vilnius — a district built around the time of the actual 1986 Chernobyl disaster, whose architecture matched the Soviet-era settings the series required. The production used approximately 40 locations across Lithuania with nearly 5,000 local extras.