On 18 February 2026 the Arts Council England published a review of the impact of the UK’s cultural tax reliefs. The cultural tax reliefs (CTR) are the theatre tax relief; orchestra tax relief; and the museums and galleries exhibition tax relief. The Arts Council England commissioned Nordicity, Ipsos and Saffery LLP to carry out an independent evaluation of the effect of the reliefs, which have already been in operation for more than a decade. The review looks at the relationship between CTR adoption and important economic and social outcomes, analysing available data. The review analyses the impact of the CTR on organisations claiming the relief, compared to those that did not.
The theatre tax relief (TTR), introduced in September 2014, was available for touring and non-touring theatre production companies and offered tax relief of 25% for qualifying core expenditure, with a 20% rate for non-touring theatre production companies. In October 2021 during the pandemic the rates were increased to 50% and 45% respectively. From 1 April 2025 the TTR rates were adjusted to 45% for touring productions and 40% for non-touring productions
The Orchestra Tax Relief (OTR) was introduced in April 2016, offering orchestras (with twelve or more instrumentalists) 25% tax relief on qualifying core expenditure. The relief was increased to 50% from October 2021. From 1 April 2025 the rate has been set at 45%.
The Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief (MGETR) introduced in April 2017 offered tax relief of 25% of qualifying core expenditure for touring exhibitions and 20% for non-touring exhibitions. These rates were increased to 50% and 45% respectively from October 2021, during the pandemic. From 1 April 2025 the MGETR rates were set at 45% for touring exhibitions and 40% for non-touring exhibitions.
The analysis indicates that organisations claiming the cultural tax relief experienced improvements in their financial performance and cultural output. The organisations claiming CTR earned 37% more income after adoption of the relief, compared to non-claimants. They also earned 162% more income from international activity than those that did not claim CTR. The organisations claiming CTR offered an additional 110 performances annually, on average, compared to the organisations not claiming CTR, and the results indicate that they were able to return to normal more quickly following the pandemic. This indicates that the organisations claiming CTR showed increased resilience to economic shocks and were able to improve their financial performance.
The organisations claiming CTR also increased their concessionary ticket offering by 3.8% (of total tickets offered). This increased the impact of the organisations on sociey. There were on average an additional 32 concessionary tickets per year for each organisation.
