Digital Games Relief

Expenditure

'Qualifying expenditure' is expenditure incurred by a company on the design, production and testing of a digital game. It is limited to: 

  • employment costs
  • equipment costs
  • consumable items and intellectual property rights
  • and
  • subcontractor payments of up to €2,000,000.

It excludes:

  • expenditure in designing the initial concept for the digital game
  • expenditure in debugging a completed digital game or carrying out any maintenance on a completed digital game
  • and
  • expenditure on payments to sub-contractors exceeding €2,000,000. 

Expenditure for which the company claimed the Film Relief or the R&D Corporation Tax Credit is excluded from the credit. Any costs met, or to be met, by funding from another source such as a grant, are also excluded.

'Eligible expenditure' means the portion of the qualifying expenditure spent in Ireland or the European Economic Area (EEA). 

The credit per digital game is 32% of the lowest of:

  • eligible expenditure
  • 80% of total qualifying expenditure
  • or
  • €25 million. 

The qualifying expenditure amount must be at least €100,000.

Next: Claiming the tax credit