The New Jersey Studio Partner program has a separate, designated funding allocation of $150,000,000 per fiscal year and its own approval queue.

To be eligible to apply for the Studio Partner designation, the applicant must be a production company that has site control of a production facility that is at least 250,000 sqft for at least 10 years.

Prior to approval, the production facility site would need to have at least preliminary site plan approval, an executed redevelopment agreement, or an adopted redevelopment plan that contemplates the construction of the production facility and following designation approval, be able to provide temporary or permeant certificate of occupancy for the facility within 48 months.

Depending on the amount of qualified film production expenses involved in each submitted project, a Studio Partner is able to capture additional Above-the-line(ATL) wage and salary expenses in its award calculation as follows:

For a studio partner that incurs less than $25 million in qualified film production expenses, they can include up to $18 million in ATL wage and salary expenses as qualified per project.
For a studio partner that incurs $25 million or more in qualified film production expenses, they can include up to $72 million in ATL wage and salary expenses as qualified per project.

No more than 3 designations can be made for studio partners. As of October 2025, 3 companies have been designated New Jersey Studio Partners: Lionsgate, Netflix, and Paramount.

Hiring Bonus: a 4% bump on all qualified expenses if applicants submit an approved hiring plan outlining goals, including the intention to prioritize the hiring no less than 25% of employees (excluding independent contractors) working in New Jersey who are residents of an economically disadvantaged area in the State, a distressed municipality as that term is defined in N.J.S.A. 34:1B-323, or land owned by the federal government on or before December 31, 2005.

Promote NJ Bonus: a 4% bump on all qualified expenses for productions that submit and satisfy a plan outlining specific goals to promote or invest in New Jersey.

Note: Bonuses are capped at 5%. If a production satisfies the eligibility criteria for both bonuses, the maximum bonus for which they can qualify is 5%.

As of October 2025, all three Studio Partner designations have been awarded by the New Jersey Film Office and NJEDA. 

New Jersey Studio Partners are any film production company that has made a commitment to produce films in NJ and has developed, purchased, or executed a 10-year contract to lease a production facility of at least 250,000 square feet as a “transformative project.” Additionally, prior to approval, the production facility site would need to have at least preliminary site plan approval, an executed redevelopment agreement, or an adopted redevelopment plan that contemplates the construction of the production facility and, following designation approval, be able to provide temporary or permanent certificate of occupancy for the facility within 36 months. The major perk of this program is that compensation for writers, directors, including music directors, producers, and performers are allowed to constitute qualified film production expenditures: up to $15,000,000 in the aggregate when production incurs between $15,000,000 and $50,000,000 in qualified production expenses; up to $25,000,000 in the aggregate when production incurs between $50,000,000 and $100,000,000 in qualified production expenses; up to $40,000,000 in the aggregate when production incurs between $100,000,000 and $150,000,000; and up to $60,000,000 in the aggregate when production incurs more than $150,000,000 in qualified production expenses. The state only allows for three such partners at a time on a first-come-first served basis. 

New Jersey Film-Lease Partners are any company that has made a commitment to lease or acquire a New Jersey production facility with an aggregate square footage of at least 50,000 square feet for a period of 5 or more successive years and agrees to spend an annual average of $50,000,000 in qualified production expenditures over 5-10 years.