Five days of filming at Amber Palace costs a foreign feature ₹15,00,000 in monument fees alone. Under the current scheme, every rupee of that comes back. That single provision is the most valuable and least understood part of the Rajasthan film incentives framework, and it sits alongside a subsidy that pays up to 30 per cent of what a production spends inside the state.
The governing document is the Rajasthan Film Tourism Promotion Policy 2025, notified on 20 December 2025 and in force until 31 March 2029. It replaced the 2022 policy outright, and a great deal of advice still circulating online quotes the older figures. What follows is what the 2025 policy actually pays, what it demands in return, and the conditions that quietly disqualify claims long after the shoot has wrapped.
What the 2025 Policy Pays
Subsidy is not a flat rate. It is calculated on cost of production incurred inside Rajasthan, and it scales with how much of the finished film the state actually carries. Producers who assume a single headline number build the wrong budget.
| Rajasthan screen time | Subsidy on cost of production incurred in Rajasthan |
|---|---|
| 5% to 15% of screen time | 10% of qualifying spend |
| 16% to 30% of screen time | 20% of qualifying spend |
| More than 30% of screen time, or a minimum 50% of total shooting days in the state | 30% of qualifying spend |
Every tier sits under an overall ceiling, and the subsidy paid is always the lower of the percentage or the cap. A feature spending ₹20 crore in Rajasthan does not collect ₹6 crore. It collects ₹3 crore.
| Format | Overall cap | Minimum in-state spend |
|---|---|---|
| Feature film | ₹3.00 crore | ₹2.00 crore (₹1.00 crore for Rajasthani-language features) |
| Web series | ₹2.00 crore | ₹1.00 crore |
| Documentary | ₹2.00 crore | Minimum 50% of screen time on Rajasthan outdoor locations |
| TV serial | ₹1.50 crore | ₹1.00 crore |
The Additional Five Per Cent
A production that shoots the entire film in Rajasthan earns a further 5 per cent of its in-state cost of production, on top of the headline rate. That bonus carries its own sub-cap: ₹1 crore for a feature film, ₹50 lakh for a web series or documentary, and ₹25 lakh for a TV serial, all of it still contained within the overall ceiling above.
The practical reading is that a wholly Rajasthan schedule is worth modelling properly rather than assuming. For a mid-budget feature the extra 5 per cent can be the difference between a claim that covers the monument bill and one that covers the monument bill and the local crew.
A Worked Example
Take a feature that incurs ₹6 crore of cost of production inside Rajasthan, with more than 30 per cent of its screen time carried by the state. It sits in the top tier, so the headline subsidy is 30 per cent of ₹6 crore, or ₹1.8 crore, comfortably inside the ₹3 crore feature ceiling.
Shoot the same film entirely in Rajasthan and the additional 5 per cent adds ₹30 lakh, taking the claim to ₹2.1 crore and still leaving headroom under the cap. Now add the monument fees. If the schedule includes five days at Amber and five at Nahargarh, the reimbursement of those location fees is recovered on top of the subsidy, subject to the same overall ceiling.
Move ₹1 crore of that spend to a Mumbai post house and the base falls to ₹5 crore, the headline claim to ₹1.5 crore, and the wholly-in-state bonus disappears altogether. The arithmetic, not the pitch, is what decides where a Rajasthan shoot spends.
What Counts as Cost of Production
Because the subsidy is paid on spend incurred inside Rajasthan, the composition of that spend decides the size of the claim. The policy expressly includes line producer fees and crew fees, the remuneration of junior artists, dancers, fighters, models and extras, and accommodation and hospitality charges, alongside the location, facility and service costs a shoot genuinely generates in the state.
The calculation is statewide rather than city by city. A Jaipur base that extends to Jodhpur, Udaipur or Jaisalmer keeps accumulating qualifying spend across a single claim, which is why corridor schedules tend to improve both the film and the recovery at the same time.
What Does Not Qualify
Money that leaves Rajasthan leaves the claim. Heads of department flown in from Delhi or Mumbai, camera packages trucked from outside the state and post-production carried out elsewhere are all real costs that earn nothing back. There is no mandatory local hiring quota anywhere in the policy. Local engagement is rewarded through the arithmetic instead, because every rupee routed to a Rajasthan vendor, crew member or facility enlarges the base the percentage is applied to.
Note also what the policy does not require. Accommodation carries no condition that it be booked through any particular state corporation or approved property list. Nor must the applicant be an Indian company: the policy is expressly open to foreign films, and the applicant is defined simply as a film production company or producer. PAN and GST registration copies are application enclosures, not an entity test.
The Conditions That Disqualify a Claim
Rajasthan claims rarely fail on the arithmetic. They fail on conditions fixed long before the camera turned, and on a deadline that lands months after wrap.
- CBFC certificate: a feature film must carry a U or U/A certificate. An A certificate removes the subsidy entirely, with no discretion.
- Technical minimum: 4K resolution and Dolby digital sound.
- Theatrical release: a screen-count obligation scaled by language, broadly 200 screens for a Hindi feature, 100 for other languages and 25 for a Rajasthani-language feature.
- Audited spend: cost of production must be certified by a chartered accountant with a UDIN. Reconstructed accounts do not survive this.
- The six month window: the claim must be filed within six months of the film’s release. Miss it and the claim is forfeit, whatever the shoot achieved.
- Content: the film must present a positive image of India and Rajasthan, and the state must feature materially rather than incidentally.
The certificate is the condition that costs the most. A production that shoots a hard-edged feature across Rajasthan on the assumption of a ₹3 crore subsidy, then certifies A, loses the whole claim. Decide the certificate you are making for before you budget the subsidy into the film.
How the Application Actually Runs
The nodal body is the Film Facilitation Cell (FFC), headed by the Commissioner and Director of the Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan. Note the name carefully. It is a Facilitation Cell, not a commission, and material that names a state film commission, or attributes the scheme to the state tourism development corporation, is unreliable.
Applications are filed online through the state SSO portal. Shooting permission runs on one form, the subsidy claim on another, and registration comes before the camera rolls: a production lodges its script synopsis, schedule, budget and intended Rajasthan locations, and secures its qualifying position before principal photography rather than after it.
The Fifteen Day Rule and What Stops the Clock
The state commits to granting shooting permission within fifteen days of receiving a complete application, with participating departments expected to clear on the portal within seven days of referral. The operative word is complete.
An application missing a script synopsis, a crew list, proof of insurance or any required annexure does not start the clock. It is not rejected either. It simply sits, and the two weeks a producer had already budgeted for evaporate. Our Rajasthan line producer guide sets out the documentation a complete submission needs, district by district.
What the Policy Also Provides
Beyond the money, the Department of Tourism is building a directory of shooting locations across the state, recorded in video and photographs, and an online listing of Rajasthan artists, technicians, musicians, choreographers and line producers. Both should make sourcing and verification easier for an incoming production as they populate.
The policy also funds a film education scholarship for up to ten students annually, with tuition support to ₹50,000 a year and living support to ₹5,000 a month. It is a small provision, but it signals the direction: the state is trying to build a resident crew base rather than simply rent locations to visiting units.
The Credit You Must Give on Screen
This condition surprises international productions and is not negotiable. The policy makes it mandatory to give due credit to the State Government and the Department of Tourism in the film, and to display the name and logo of the Department of Tourism in the credit list at the start of the film, together with an acknowledgement of the department’s support.
Where feasible, the shooting location should also be named in the film. Build this into the titles conversation with the director and the distributor early, because a locked title sequence that omits the logo is an expensive thing to reopen.
Permits, Monuments and Where the Money Goes
Producers routinely conflate the subsidy with the permit. They are separate systems run by separate bodies, and a subsidy approval grants no right to stand anywhere in particular.
State-protected monuments such as Amber, Nahargarh, Jaigarh, Hawa Mahal and Jantar Mantar answer to the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Rajasthan, which publishes its own fee schedule. Centrally protected monuments answer to the Archaeological Survey of India on a separate track with its own lead time. The three most photogenic palaces in the state are held by private charitable trusts that negotiate independently of both.
Our guide to filming in Rajasthan’s royal and restricted locations maps the boundary between the archaeology regimes and the trusts, and for productions crossing state lines our film permits compliance services India desk handles the national layer, including DGCA clearance for aerial work.
The Hundred Per Cent Monument Fee Reimbursement
Here is the clause that changes Rajasthan budgets. A project approved for subsidy is eligible for one hundred per cent reimbursement of all fees and charges paid for filming at monuments and locations controlled by the state departments of Forest, Irrigation, PWD, local bodies, Police and Devasthan, and at locations under Government of India control. The reimbursement is capped at five days per location.
| Monument, per shooting day | Rajasthani production | Indian production | Foreign production |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amber Palace, full access | ₹1,50,000 | ₹3,00,000 | ₹3,00,000 |
| Hawa Mahal / Jantar Mantar / Nahargarh | ₹50,000 | ₹1,00,000 | ₹1,00,000 |
| Other state monuments | ₹25,000 | ₹50,000 | ₹50,000 |
Read the two together. Five days at Amber for a foreign feature is ₹15,00,000 in shooting fees, fully reimbursable if the project qualifies. Beyond five days at a given location the fee reverts to an ordinary cost of production line, where it still counts toward the subsidy base but is no longer separately refunded. Monument-heavy schedules should therefore be built in five day blocks per location wherever the story allows.
Stacking the State Subsidy with the Central Rebate
The state scheme is not the only money on the table. India’s central incentive is administered by India Cine Hub (ICH), rebranded from the Film Facilitation Office (FFO), and it operates independently of Rajasthan’s.
A qualifying foreign film or official co-production can claim up to 40 per cent of qualifying Indian spend: a 30 per cent base, plus up to 5 per cent for employing significant Indian manpower and up to 5 per cent for Significant Indian Content, against a cap of ₹30 crore and a minimum qualifying expenditure of ₹3 crore. Our tax benefits filming in India pillar sets out the central scheme in full; for how other countries offer comparable rebates, see the external E&Y Incentive Guide: Indian film productions abroad.
Model both before assuming either. The two schemes have different definitions of qualifying spend, different audit requirements and different deadlines, and a production optimised only for the state claim can quietly fall short of the central minimum.
How Rajasthan Compares to Other State Schemes
Rajasthan’s combination of a 30 per cent headline rate, a ₹3 crore feature ceiling, the additional 5 per cent for a wholly in-state shoot and full reimbursement of government location fees places it among the more competitive state schemes in India on both rate and cap.
The comparison that matters, though, is not the headline rate. It is what a state actually charges for the locations a production wants, and how much of that comes back. Rajasthan’s filming stock is concentrated in government-controlled heritage sites, which is precisely where the five day reimbursement does its work. A state with a nominally higher rate but privately held locations may return less in practice.
Rates, caps and eligibility conditions differ materially between states and are revised often. Our state-wise incentives reference for India sets the schemes side by side, and should be checked against the issuing state’s current notification before any budget relies on it.
Building the Claim File
Everything above resolves into one operational discipline. Register before principal photography. Split the budget into spend that lands inside Rajasthan and spend that does not, because only the first column earns. Book monument access in five day blocks. Capture vendor bills, crew attendance and receipts in the format a chartered accountant will certify with a UDIN, from the first day of prep rather than reconstructing them at wrap.
Then diarise the six month deadline from release, and put the Tourism Department logo in the opening titles. The state pays generously and permits slowly, and the productions that recover the most are simply the ones that treated the claim as a production task rather than an accounting one afterwards.
Documentation That Survives Audit
Claims fail on paperwork more often than on eligibility. Vendor invoices must be raised in the production entity’s name rather than an individual’s, and must show the service was rendered in Rajasthan. Cash payments to junior artists and daily crew need attendance records that reconcile to the amounts claimed. Accommodation and transport bills need to identify the shoot rather than read as generic travel.
A chartered accountant certifying cost of production with a UDIN is putting their registration behind the figures, and they will not certify what cannot be traced. That is the real reason the audit trail has to be built during the shoot: not because the state demands it early, but because no accountant can reconstruct a Rajasthan schedule six months after wrap from a folder of loose receipts.
Structuring a shoot to maximise qualifying spend, sequencing the single window against the monument calendar and carrying the claim through to disbursal is what a line producer Rajasthan engagement exists to do. Ask any prospective partner to show you a completed subsidy claim, not a location reel.
