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Jordan
A scalable 25–45% cash rebate, generous tax exemptions, and some of the most iconic desert landscapes on Earth make Jordan one of the Middle East’s most compelling production destinations.
Jordan Film Incentive Overview
- 25–45% cash rebate
- $250K minimum spend
- $5.25M cap per project
- 150-day payout window
The Jordan film incentive is administered by the Royal Film Commission – Jordan (RFC), the government body that has spent more than two decades building the Kingdom into a genuine international production hub. In May 2025, the Jordanian cabinet approved a substantially enhanced version of the program, unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival, which raised the ceiling of the cash rebate from 25% to 45% of qualifying in-country spend. That single change moved the Jordan film incentive from a solid regional offer into one of the most competitive rebate programs anywhere in the world.
Unlike a transferable tax credit, the Jordan film incentive is a straight cash rebate: the government pays the production directly, based on audited eligible expenditure, within 150 days of the audited reports being submitted. There is no credit to sell, no discount to a local buyer, and no dependence on a third-party taxpayer’s appetite. For producers comparing territories, that difference matters enormously for cash flow modelling, because the headline percentage of the Jordan film incentive translates far more directly into money in the production’s account than a credit-based scheme ever can.
The rebate sits on top of an established tax exemption framework. Qualifying productions also benefit from exemptions on Jordanian sales tax and customs fees, along with income tax relief for non-nationals, which stack with the Jordan film incentive to push the total effective saving even higher on many budgets. The RFC operates as a genuine one-stop shop, coordinating permits, location access, and government liaison, so the administrative side of claiming the Jordan film incentive is handled through a single, experienced institution rather than a patchwork of ministries.
How the cash rebate works
The Jordan film incentive uses a tiered structure keyed to the production’s eligible spend inside the Kingdom. The tiers are straightforward:
| Eligible Spend (USD) | Rebate |
|---|---|
| $250,000 – $1,000,000 | 25% |
| $1,000,000 – $10,000,000 | 30% |
| $10,000,000+ | 35% – 45% |
Productions spending above $10 million start at 35% and can climb as high as 45% through a points-based cultural relevance assessment. The RFC scores each project out of 120 points across six categories: Cultural and Regional Representation (35 points), Employment and Capacity Building (30 points), Economic Contribution (15 points), International and Strategic Promotion (10 points), Environmental and Social Responsibility (10 points), and Co-Production (20 points). A project must score at least 70 of those 120 points to unlock the additional percentages, which are then awarded on a sliding scale: 70–79 points earns +2%, 80–89 points earns +4%, 90–99 points earns +6%, 100–109 points earns +8%, and 110–120 points earns the full +10%, taking the Jordan film incentive to its 45% maximum.
A few structural features make the program unusually production-friendly:
- A 10% advanced payment, capped at $100,000, is available against a stand-by bank guarantee, giving productions early access to part of the rebate before wrap
- Up to 15% of post-production expenses qualify when the services are performed in Jordan, meaning the incentive follows the project into the edit suite rather than ending on the last shooting day
- The cash back is capped at USD 5.25 million per project, a generous ceiling that only very large studio productions will realistically approach
- Payment is due within 150 days of submitting the audited reports, one of the clearer payout commitments among rebate territories
For Jordanian films and series specifically, a separate track applies: local productions spending above $500,000 are eligible for a flat 30% rebate, raised from the previous 10% as part of the same 2025 reform to strengthen the domestic industry alongside the international-facing Jordan film incentive.
Eligibility and minimum spend
The Jordan film incentive is open to an unusually wide range of formats. Feature films, television series, commercials, documentaries, TV shows, and music videos are all eligible, which puts Jordan ahead of many territories that restrict their incentive to scripted features and high-end television only. Whatever the format, the entry threshold is the same: a minimum of $250,000 in eligible in-country spend, which is deliberately low by international standards and opens the program to mid-budget independent productions as well as studio tentpoles.
Eligible expenses under the Jordan film incentive cover the core of any production budget:
- Salaries for Jordanian crew and cast
- Travel tickets to and from the Kingdom, provided they are issued by a national Jordanian carrier
- Equipment and facility rentals
- Accommodation, catering, and transportation costs within Jordan
- Studio rental and set builds
- Up to 15% of post-production expenses for services performed in Jordan
- Other direct expenditures incurred locally
The applications must be submitted before filming begins, and they must be submitted by a local production services company registered in Jordan. This is where an experienced fixer becomes structurally necessary rather than merely convenient: the Jordan film incentive is claimed through the local partner, so the choice of production services company directly affects how smoothly the application, audit, and payout proceed. Productions are also expected to include the RFC logo in the end credits and to engage in promotional activities connected to Jordan, and larger projects have historically been asked to employ meaningful numbers of Jordanian crew and take on local interns, obligations that conveniently double as point-scorers under the Employment and Capacity Building category of the uplift assessment.
Application process
- Engage a local production services company. The Jordan film incentive application must come from a registered Jordanian production services entity, so this partnership is the foundation of the entire claim
- Submit the application before principal photography. The application package goes to the RFC ahead of the shoot, covering the project, budget, schedule, locations, and crew plan
- Approval and agreement. Once the RFC approves the project, a detailed rebate agreement is signed between the production and the Commission, locking in the applicable percentage and any uplift commitments
- Production and spending. The shoot proceeds, with every eligible expense documented to audit standard through the local partner
- Audit report submission. After wrap, audited reports of the qualifying expenditure are compiled and submitted to the RFC
- Payment of the rebate. The cash rebate is paid within 150 days of the audited reports being submitted, with the optional 10% advance (up to $100,000) available earlier against a bank guarantee
Alongside the rebate paperwork, the RFC issues general film permits with a turnaround of roughly seven days for straightforward shoots, and coordinates the additional approvals needed for sensitive locations, drones, and equipment importation. Jordan is not an ATA Carnet country, so equipment clearance runs on a full gear list with serial numbers and declared values, typically processed within a week, and drone work requires submissions roughly 30 days ahead of arrival with security deposits and a military escort on shooting days. None of this is unusual for the region, and all of it is precisely the territory an experienced local fixer in Jordan navigates daily.
Locations and infrastructure
The reason the Jordan film incentive attracts the projects it does is that the underlying product is extraordinary. The RFC describes the country as an open-air studio, and it is hard to argue: within a five-hour drive from north to south, productions move from forests and Roman cities to the rose-red carved facades of Petra, the Mars-like desert of Wadi Rum, and the Gulf of Aqaba. Wadi Rum alone has doubled for other worlds in some of the biggest science fiction productions ever made, and Amman’s varied urban fabric doubles convincingly for multiple regional capitals.
Infrastructure has caught up with the locations. Olivewood Studios in Amman offers world-class soundstage capacity, announced alongside the enhanced rebate as part of Jordan’s broader push to host more of the production pipeline in-country, and the post-production uplift in the Jordan film incentive is explicitly designed to keep editorial and finishing work in the Kingdom too. Crews are experienced and bilingual, with credits on some of the largest productions of the past decade, rates are competitive against European alternatives, and the country enjoys more than 300 sunny days a year with the kind of natural light cinematographers cross oceans for.
Practical logistics are equally strong. Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport is a regional hub, e-visas for most nationalities are processed in one to two working days at modest cost, and Jordan’s reputation as one of the safest and most stable countries in the Middle East is long established. Police liaison for road closures and crowd scenes is well practised, and private security firms experienced with film locations are available where productions want an additional layer.
Weighing the trade-offs
The headline numbers of the Jordan film incentive are genuinely strong, but a clear-eyed producer will factor in a few realities before committing:
- The 45% maximum applies only to productions spending above $10 million that also score at least 110 of 120 points on the cultural relevance assessment; most international projects will realistically land at 25–35%, which is still highly competitive but should be modelled honestly
- The uplift categories reward Jordanian cultural content, local employment, and co-production structures, so productions with no story connection to Jordan or the region will find the top percentages harder to reach
- The $5.25 million per-project cap means productions with enormous local spends will see their effective percentage taper at the very top end
- The requirement to apply before filming begins is absolute; there is no retroactive route into the Jordan film incentive for a production that shoots first and asks later
- Regional geopolitics can affect insurance conversations and studio risk assessments even though Jordan itself remains stable and safe; this is a perception issue more than an operational one, but it belongs in the planning conversation
Hoodlum’s team can model your realistic rebate position, including the points assessment, before you commit to the territory, so the number in your finance plan is the number you actually receive.
Who the Jordan film incentive is right for
The Jordan film incentive works across an unusually broad spread of production types because of its low entry threshold and wide format eligibility. A commercial or music video spending $250,000 in-country accesses the same 25% tier that a $900,000 independent feature does, while episodic television and studio features climb naturally into the 30% and 35%+ tiers as their local spend grows. That range is rare: most competing territories exclude commercials and music videos entirely.
Desert-driven stories are the most obvious match. Any production that needs otherworldly landscapes, biblical or ancient-world settings, or Middle Eastern urban environments will find that the Jordan film incentive pairs the right locations with the right economics in a single territory, avoiding the split-territory structures that these projects historically required. Productions with genuine Jordanian or regional cultural elements have a further advantage, because the points system converts that content directly into additional percentage.
Cash-flow-sensitive productions should also look closely at Jordan. Because the Jordan film incentive is a true cash rebate with a defined 150-day payout window and an optional advance payment mechanism, it converts to usable money faster and more predictably than transferable credit systems, and the finance plan can treat it accordingly. Co-productions deserve a special mention too: with 20 points available in the assessment purely for co-production structures, a well-built international partnership can meaningfully lift the final percentage of the Jordan film incentive on larger projects.
How the Jordan film incentive compares regionally
Producers weighing the Jordan film incentive against neighbouring options are usually comparing three or four territories at once, and the comparison is worth making carefully because the programs are structured very differently. Saudi Arabia now advertises a higher headline percentage, but its program routes through a newer administrative system, requires a registered Saudi entity or formal co-production agreement, and has a shorter track record of completed international claims. Morocco offers a 30% rebate with decades of production heritage, but without Jordan’s tiered climb to 45% or its points-based uplift mechanism. The Gulf states offer strong infrastructure but generally narrower format eligibility.
Where the Jordan film incentive consistently wins is on the combination of predictability and pedigree. The RFC has operated continuously since 2003, the rebate agreement locks the percentage before cameras roll, the payout window is defined in the program rules rather than left to administrative discretion, and the crew base has serviced multiple $100M+ productions without the territory ever missing a beat. For completion guarantors and financiers, that history is worth percentage points in itself: an incentive is only as valuable as the certainty that it pays, and Jordan’s record on that front is as clean as any territory in the region.
The format breadth is the other differentiator. Because commercials and music videos qualify alongside features and series, agencies and labels can access the Jordan film incentive for shoots that would receive nothing at all in most competing territories, which has quietly made Jordan a repeat destination for high-end commercial work that wants Wadi Rum or Petra behind the product.
Budgeting around the incentive
A finance plan built on the Jordan film incentive should be constructed from the eligible-spend definition upward rather than from the headline percentage downward. The eligible categories reward productions that localise aggressively: Jordanian crew and cast salaries qualify in full, so every department head who can be hired locally converts payroll into rebate-bearing spend, and every flight booked on a national Jordanian carrier does the same for travel. Accommodation, catering, transport, equipment rental, studio hire, and set construction all qualify, which means a production that procures thoroughly inside the Kingdom can push a very high proportion of its below-the-line budget into the eligible pool.
The post-production allowance deserves deliberate planning rather than treatment as an afterthought. Up to 15% of post expenses qualify when the services are performed in Jordan, so a production that books its sound work, its assembly edit, or its finishing locally extends the rebate into a phase of the budget that most territorial incentives never touch. On a project already shooting in Amman, routing even part of the post pipeline through Jordanian facilities is often the cheapest additional percentage available anywhere in the plan.
Two modelling disciplines keep the numbers honest. First, tier boundaries matter: a production projecting $9.6 million of eligible spend sits at 30%, while one projecting $10.2 million enters the 35%+ band, so spend that can be legitimately localised near a boundary has outsized value. Second, the points assessment should be scored realistically during prep, not optimistically during financing; the difference between a 70-point and a 110-point outcome is eight percentage points on a $10M+ spend, which is far too much money to leave to assumption. Hoodlum builds both analyses into every Jordan film incentive model it prepares, so producers see the conservative case and the achievable case side by side before committing.
Notable productions in Jordan
Jordan’s production history predates the modern Jordan film incentive by decades. David Lean shot Lawrence of Arabia in Wadi Rum in 1962, and Steven Spielberg staged the finale of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at Petra in 1989, cementing two of the country’s landscapes into cinema history long before any rebate existed.
The modern era has been even busier. Denis Villeneuve shot both Dune and Dune: Part Two in Wadi Rum, using the protected desert as the surface of Arrakis, and Ridley Scott filmed The Martian there for the same otherworldly reasons. J.J. Abrams brought Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker to the Kingdom, and Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin also filmed in the country. That run of tentpole credits, all completed before the rebate was raised to its current levels, is exactly why the enhanced Jordan film incentive is expected to accelerate the pipeline further: the territory had already proven it could service the biggest productions in the world, and now the economics match the locations.
Projects spending above $10 million that integrate Jordanian cultural elements can reach the maximum 45% rebate — with cash back of up to $5.25 million per project, paid within 150 days of audited reports.
— Royal Film Commission – Jordan
Frequently asked questions
It is a true cash rebate paid by the government through the RFC, not a credit that has to be sold or offset against tax liability. Payment is due within 150 days of the audited reports being submitted, and a 10% advance capped at $100,000 is available against a bank guarantee.
$250,000 in eligible in-country expenditure, one of the lowest thresholds among major rebate territories, with the percentage rising through 30% and 35–45% tiers as spend increases.
Yes. Feature films, series, commercials, documentaries, TV shows, and music videos are all eligible formats, which makes the program unusually broad.
Projects spending above $10 million are scored out of 120 points across six cultural, employment, economic, promotional, environmental, and co-production categories. Scoring 110 or more adds the full +10% to the 35% base, reaching 45%.
Yes. The cash rebate stacks with exemptions on sales tax and customs fees, and income tax relief for non-nationals, provided all requirements are met, which is how total savings on some budgets approach the widely quoted combined figures.
No. Jordan is not an ATA Carnet country, so equipment clears customs on a full gear list with serial numbers, declared values, and proof of ownership, typically processed within seven working days. Certain equipment categories are restricted, and drone importation follows a separate 30-day advance process with security deposits, storage fees, and a military escort on shooting days, all of which a local fixer arranges as standard.
For a straightforward shoot, allow at least six to eight weeks: the rebate application must be lodged and approved before filming begins, general film permits take around seven days, crew accreditation can take five to thirty days depending on the project, and drone paperwork needs thirty days. Complex shoots involving protected heritage sites such as Petra, road closures, or large crowd scenes should build in additional lead time for the extra approvals involved.
Talk to our incentives team about structuring your Jordan shoot around the Jordan film incentive.