Locations
Lanzarote is an incredibly attractive location for shooting films: it has a great diversity of attractive landscapes:: exotic beaches(Black and white); deserts and volcanic landscapes, towns, cliffs, roads, architecture, marinas, all within a short distance
Air connections
There are daily flights to Madrid, only two and half hours away, and other major European cities, which are reached in four hours.
Clime
The bright and cloudless skies and the small amount of rainfall mean that there are sunny days with many hours of sunlight. In summer there is hardly any rainfall and in winter it only rains on an average of three days a month.
In Lanzarote there are over 3.000 hours of sunshine a year with over 4,800 daylight hours a year, which means that the Canary Islands have the most daylight hours of anywhere in Europe. This phenomenon of long sunny days is due to their geographical situation and to the favourable influence of the trade winds and the Azores anticyclone.
Hotel Supply
An excellent hotel and service infrastructure: more than 50,000 beds in local three, four and five star hotels considered among the best in Europe.
Incentives and subsidies
Twenty points above the rest of Spain
The Canary Islands enjoy a special tax regime due to their geographical distance from the rest of Spain. In order to encourage economic and social development, the islands offer a set of tax allowances which are successfully applied to film production.
The approval of the new Canarian Economic and Tax Regime (REF) (1) , which came into force on 1st January 2015, has an impact on the tax advantages for audiovisual productions made in the Archipielago.
Canarian (REF) increases 20 percentage points the allowance of the Corporate Income Tax (2) for film productions and the limits 80%. Therefore, the tax credit for Spanish productions goes from the 18-20%, capped at 3 million euros deduction in Spain to 38-40% tax credit, limited to 5.4 million euros. And for foreign productions, the 15% tax rebate with a limit of 2.5 million euros changes to a 35% tax rebate with a limit of 4.5 million euros.
(1) RDL 15/2014, 19th December, ammending the Canary Islands Economic and Fiscal Regime.
(2) Law 27/2014, 27th November, Corporate Income Tax.
The Canary Islands Investment Reserve
The Reserve for Investments in the Canary Islands (RIC in Spanish) is along with the Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC) one of the main incentives of the Canary Islands Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF in Spanish). The RIC is a tax advantage for companies located in the Canary Islands that enables considerably reductions on the direct taxation, with the overall aim to encourage investment, job creation and the diversification of the economy.
This tax incentive enables to have a reduction in the taxable base of the Corporate Tax of up to 90% of undistributed profit, through a special Reserve for Investments (RIC). The undistributed profit must come from establishments located in the Canary Islands, without it being possible, under any circumstances, for the application of the reduction to lead to a negative taxable base.
Since 2007, RIC funds can be invested in carrying out audiovisual productions in the Canary Islands that obtain the stamp of "Canarian work", a denomination granted by the Canarian Government subject to the prior compliance with a series of requirements that aim to guarantee such a condition.
The reserve must be materialized, among others, in one of the following investments:
- Acquisition of fixed assets
- Subscription of stocks or shares in the capital of companies that invest in the Canary Islands.
- Investment in venture capital investment funds and companies that reinvest in the Canary Island economy.
- Technological research and development
- Subscription of securities bonds or annotations on account of the Canary Islands.
This maximum period for this materialization of the investment is 3 years, from the date of the accrual of the tax corresponding to the financial year of the provision.
more info: www.gobiernodecanarias.org
Reserve Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC)
Lanzarote has a low tax regime namely the “Zona Especial Canaria”(ZEC – Canary Islands Special Zone). This fiscal incentive was authorised by the European Commission in the year 2000, in order to promote the social and economic development of the archipelago.
The most attractive advantage is the low corporate tax rate of 4%, instead of the 30%, applied in the rest of Spain. There are other benefits and exemptions in the Canary Islands General Indirect Tax (IGIC – the local equivalent of the Value Added Tax), in the Transfer Tax and Stamp Duty and in the Income Tax on Nonresident (IRNR).
The requirements to join the ZEC are:
- Create a new company.
- Minimum investment of 100,000 € (50,000 in the non capital islands) in fixed assets related to the activity, within the first two years from the time of its registration in the ZEC.
- Create at least five jobs (three in the non capital islands) within the six months following the time of the registration, and maintain this average during the time that the benefits are enjoyed.
- At least one of the directors must reside in the Canary Islands.
- Operate in any one of the sectors listed in the authorized activities (the audiovisual sector is included).
For more information visit www.zec.org, or call the telephone number +34 928 490 505