Museums and galleries tax relief

The Museums Tax Relief allows museums and exhibitors to recoup expenses on exhibitions, based on their status.

Please ensure that if you’re applying for the relief that you contact a tax accountant to talk about your specific situation.

All museums with a public function who hold exhibitions.

For any museum when developing exhibitions – be they touring, temporary or permanent.

The relief covers all costs involved in producing the exhibition, including curator fees, cost of deinstalling, and closing.

It doesn’t include indirect costs like marketing, raising of finance, legal services, advertising, and security.  Some more detailed areas of exclusion are –

• Running costs from day of opening
• Invigilation costs
• Storage if not in 6 month touring period

This can be applied for in your company tax return, some pointers are:

• You need to claim through a company
• You can apply if don’t pay corporation tax
• You may want to use a trading subsidiary

There are already some sources out there with more information.

HMRC guidance for the tax relief can be found on their website.

HMRC has also produced a useful paper on responses to the consultation. We found this paper helpful to understand the shape of the tax relief and why certain decisions had been made.