VGTC: how a chartered accountant helps a video game studio

A video game chartered accountant secures the VGTC tax credit (30% of eligible spending), prepares the CNC approval, documents the base of development costs and arbitrates with the R&D tax credit. In a studio, the value is not in bookkeeping: it is in the financing that decides whether the game ships.

The video game tax credit (French Tax Code art. 220 terdecies) covers 30% of eligible creation and development spending, capped at 6 million euros per company and per financial year. Two conditions structure eligibility: a minimum development cost of 100,000 euros, and an approval issued by the CNC. The scheme applies to spending committed until 31 December 2031.

A technical point often poorly handled by studios: subcontracting entrusted to European companies is capped at 2 million euros per financial year within the base. When part of production goes to providers (art, audio, porting), this cap changes the real value of the aid. This is exactly the kind of parameter to anticipate in the budget, not to discover when filing.

The benefit of the VGTC requires an approval from the CNC, based on a cultural test: quality, originality or innovative character of the project, level of artistic spending assessed against a scale, and specific rules for adult games featuring violence. The mechanism runs in two stages: a provisional approval (before completion, the benefit runs from the date of the request) then a final approval after commercialisation.

The most costly operational trap: the final approval must be obtained within 36 months of the provisional approval, failing which the tax credit already received must be repaid. A studio that slips on its release schedule can therefore see collected aid turn back into a debt. Here the accountant's role is to keep the tax timeline in step with the production timeline.

The CNC's video game support fund (FAJV) opens selective subsidies across three phases: writing, pre-production, production. Support for intellectual property creation is conditional on the studio retaining the rights, a sensitive point when a publisher joins the cap table. Two caps frame the whole: FAJV production support is capped at 50% of production spending, and total public aid cannot exceed 50% of the final production cost.

In practice, stacking VGTC, FAJV and regional aid without modelling this overall cap exposes the studio to an overpayment. We rebuild what the profession calls a consolidated financing plan, line by line, to check that the sum of aid stays within the authorised envelope before any commitment.

The VGTC does not combine with the R&D tax credit (art. 244 quater B) on the same spending. A studio building a proprietary engine or genuinely new technical components may fall under both logics: it must then arbitrate, expense by expense, never counting the same cost twice.

This is a structuring decision, not a simple calculation. It depends on the nature of the work, the documentation available and the risk profile the director accepts in the face of a possible audit. Our role is to map the spending, separate what qualifies as R&D under the R&D credit from what qualifies as creation under the VGTC, then propose the safest allocation.

A studio developing its first PC title, production budget around 1.2 million euros, entrusts audio and part of the art to European providers. Three points decide the financing: crossing the 100,000 euro development-cost threshold (met here), watching the 2 million euro EU subcontracting cap (not reached, the base stays full), and timing the provisional approval request before the first heavy spending so as to open the benefit as early as possible. The real risk in this profile is not the rate: it is the schedule slip that pushes the final approval beyond the 36 months.

In studio files, the most frequent sticking point is not day-to-day bookkeeping but the traceability of the base: who worked on what, on which eligible item, and with what supporting documents. Analytical tracking by project set up from the first euro is far better than a painful reconstruction at year-end.

Two reflexes we recommend. First, file the provisional approval early, because the benefit runs from the date of the request. Second, treat the 36-month timeline as a management constraint and not a formality, because overshooting turns aid into a repayment. The rest, rates and caps, is known: the added value lies in the rigour of the file.

• Check the development-cost threshold (100,000 euros) from the initial budget.
• Set up analytical tracking by project to isolate the eligible base.
• File the provisional approval request with the CNC as early as possible.
• Watch the EU subcontracting cap (EUR 2m) within the VGTC base.
• Model the overall 50% public-aid cap before stacking VGTC, FAJV and regional aid.
• Settle the VGTC / R&D credit trade-off expense by expense, with no double counting.
• Secure the final-approval timeline within the 36 months.

This article informs about a framework in force as of 1 January 2026; a decision specific to your project requires reviewing your situation, your documents and the applicable law. To go further, our page dedicated to the accounting support for video game studios details our approach to financing, approval and steering. Let us discuss your current title to set the financing strategy best suited to you.