SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio City Council on Thursday approved major updates to its existing film incentives program, months after Texas passed a new law aimed at growing the state’s role in securing productions.
The updated program offers a 45% rebate package that can be combined with statewide incentives, providing a maximum of $250,000 for prospective projects filming in the San Antonio metropolitan area.
The updated program establishes San Antonio as “the most financially competitive destination in Texas for film projects, according to a Thursday news release.
Updated program encourages local hires to include veterans
The base rebate increases from 7.5% to 10% and contains two potential uplifts of 2% each for meeting local and veteran hire thresholds.
The uplifts specify that a production must have 35%-50% of the crew/cast comprised of local hires, or 5% of the crew/cast hired who are veterans, to ensure the uplifts are retained.
Senate Bill 22, the state law increasing funding for the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program (TMIIIP) from $200 million to $300 million per biennium, includes language enshrining that cast, or crew jobs be available to veterans.
“The large contingent of talented veterans in Military City, USA, will offer additional incentive, thanks to the Texas Veterans Grant portion of the bill,” Paul Ardoin, the film program director at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said in a June statement to KSAT.
The law, an early legislative priority from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, garnered continued interest from Texas media figures and federal lawmakers as the legislative session pushed on.
Expanded eligibility for commercials is also included in the updated program; however, the release does not detail the guidelines for their eligibility.
Part of the update also changes the name of the program from the Supplemental San Antonio Incentive to San Antonio Film Incentive.
‘One of the most attractive in the nation’
San Antonio’s Film Commission, a division of San Antonio’s Arts and Culture Department and active since 1985, administers the city’s local film incentive program.
A 2017 city ordinance created the film incentive program, which is used to help attract prospective film, television and media productions to work in San Antonio, according to city documents.
San Antonio’s incentives are the most competitive in Texas and “one of the most attractive in the nation,” said a city news release in June discussing the passing of SB 22.
During an Oct. 23 briefing with San Antonio’s Community Health Committee, Krystal Jones, director of the Arts and Culture Department, provided details about the existing program ahead of the proposed updates.
The current program is funded at $250,000 a year from the city’s hotel occupancy tax. Rebates cover production needs such as catering, wages and location assistance.
So far this year, eight projects have utilized the incentives program, and there have been an estimated 216 local hires for the respective production crews, Jones said last month.
The program, which was restarted following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, experienced a 165% increase in film permits — growing from 221 in 2022 to 586 in 2025, the release said.
Program is ‘nothing less than transformative’ for SA’s creative economy
Perhaps the city’s most significant production to benefit from incentives was the “Yellowstone” prequel, “1923.”
Filming for the show shut down several parts of Broadway Street in downtown San Antonio in 2024.
>> 📸 PHOTOS: ‘1923′ filming takes over downtown San Antonio
The proposed updates could also spur economic development opportunities for university students in San Antonio.
The workforce angle is noted in the city’s release as a key update.
The new program requires productions vying for incentives to include learning experiences, workshops, or professional training opportunities for students in partnership with local colleges and universities, further enhancing the industry’s workforce pipeline.
“With expanded eligibility and new workforce development opportunities, we’re empowering local artists, crew members, and emerging talent—including students—to take part in and benefit from the remarkable growth of our film industry right here in San Antonio,” Krystal Jones, director of the Department of Arts & Culture, said in the release.
Ardoin, who spoke during Thursday’s council meeting as a private citizen with knowledge of film education and career preparation, emphasized the importance of on-set experience for prospective university film graduates.
“The proposed updates to the San Antonio Film Incentive Program, as I understand them, would be enormously beneficial to opportunities for hands-on training, network-building, and the irreplaceable opportunity of on-set experience for students,” Ardoin said in a text to KSAT on Thursday afternoon. “Local educational programs can provide classroom experience and can help connect students to local opportunities, but they can’t create those opportunities, which these updates seek to do.”
Ardoin pointed to institutions, such as UTSA’s program, acting as “mobilizers” to push hungry students to productions visiting the Alamo City.
“I see the proposed local incentive expansion as nothing less than transformative for the creative economy of San Antonio. Talented young artists and craftspeople will no longer have to choose between giving up their dreams or moving out of town.
You can read Ardoin’s full statement in the embed below.
Good morning,My name is Paul Ardoin. I work in and help steer a Film & Media program at a local tertiary institution, where we currently have more than 325 majors and an increasing number of graduates each semester. I do not and cannot speak here as a representative of that institution. I speak today as a private citizen with a particular knowledge of local film education and career preparation. The proposed updates to the San Antonio Film Incentive Program, as I understand them, would be enormously beneficial to opportunities for hands-on training, network-building, and the irreplaceable opportunity of on-set experience for students. Local educational programs can provide classroom experience and can help connect students to local opportunities, but they can’t create those opportunities, which these updates seek to do. Local educational programs can also, however, quickly mobilize large numbers of students to participate in workforce training opportunities when they arise, so the Commission can safely assure visiting productions that there won’t be any difficulties meeting the program needs on that end.
So, added to state incentives, a growing local educational base in this industry, and the work of the SA Film Commission to highlight and uplift local talent, crew, and locations, I see the proposed local incentive expansion as nothing less than transformative for the creative economy of San Antonio. Talented young artists and craftspeople will no longer have to choose between giving up their dreams or moving out of town. Local institutions are working hard to help draw national attention to the skilled artistic labor coming through our programs, just as city offices are working hard to spread the word nationally about what should be a major film and television production destination in Texas, San Antonio.
Thank you
Paul Ardoin, film program director and professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio
Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.
