Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief

To be eligible, an exhibition must meet the following criteria:

• it must be a public display of an organised collection of objects or works 
• it must be organised by a charitable company or a company owned by a charitable company
• it must be considered to be scientific, historic, artistic or cultural
• with 10% of the core expenses spent on goods or services provided within the UK
• it must not an excluded exhibition (this includes competitions, exhibitions of objects for sale, live performances, and displays of anything alive).

The exhibitions may be either touring or non-touring, permanent or temporary. A touring exhibition must:

• be intended as a touring exhibition from the outset
• be located in two or more venues
• have 25% of objects or works from the first venue displayed at the subsequent venues
• not have a gap of more than six months between deinstallation and installation at the next location.

However, each exhibition there can only have one primary production company for each exhibition. If the exhibition is held at multiple or more venues, then there may also be a secondary production company may also be involved, provided it is. The secondary production company must be responsible for producing and running the exhibition at a venue and it must be actively engaged in the decision making.

Tax relief benefits

The main benefit of claiming MGETR is the ability to claim an additional deduction of qualifying production costs, which can reduce taxable profits or create a loss which can be surrendered for a payable tax credit. Specifically: 

• companies can deduct an additional 80% of qualifying production costs from their taxable profits, to reduce the company’s profits subject to tax or create a loss to be surrendered for tax credits
• the amount that can be surrendered is limited to the lower of:
  • 80% of the total core expenditure, or
  • the amount of core expenditure on UK-provided goods and services.

From 1 April 2025, the tax credit rate on the surrendered amount is 40% for non-touring exhibitions and a higher rate of 45% for touring exhibitions. The total credit is capped at a total per exhibition of £80,000 per non-touring exhibition and £100,000 per touring exhibition.

Making a claim

To claim MGETR, the company must:

• prepare a computation for each production, including a breakdown of expenditure and any connected party transactions
• submit an additional information form on or before the date of the claim
• include the claim in the CT600 company tax return for the accounting period*.

*Please note that charitable companies which may not be required to file a company tax return every year must still file a return in order to submit a MGETR claim.

For more information or to discuss this topic further, please contact Jon Daley or your usual Crowe contact.