fr en
Contact us
Home Our offer Artistic Crafts Tax Credit (CIMA)

Artistic Crafts Tax Credit (CIMA)

The Artistic Crafts Tax Credit (CIMA, for Crédit d'Impôt Métiers d'Art) is a French fiscal measure designed to financially support artisanal businesses in their creative and innovative endeavors. Its goal is to encourage the development and creation of original works in the artistic crafts, thereby strengthening French craftsmanship and excellence.

Artistic Crafts Tax Credit (CIMA): What is it?

Artistic crafts are manual artisanal professions that utilize traditional, highly technical, and often exceptional skills, and that can receive recognition from the state through the EPV label (Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant) created in 2005. This label is awarded for five years following a rigorous selection process.

In this context, the Artistic Crafts Tax Credit, or CIMA, is a French fiscal measure established to support businesses in the artistic crafts sector that incur expenses for designing new products and undertaking restoration work.

CIMA allows to recover 10% of the incurred expenses.This can be increased to 15% for holders of the EPV label.

Eligibility criteria

There are three ways to access this scheme:

  • Companies whose staff expenses related to employees engaged in a profession listed among the “artistic crafts”* comprise at least 30% of the total payroll.
  • Industrial enterprises within sectors such as watchmaking, jewelry, goldsmithing, eyewear, tableware, toys, musical instruments, and furniture**
  • Companies holding the EVP label.

* Decree of 12 December 2003: list of craft and art trades (217 trades, classified into 19 areas).

**Decree of 14 June 2006: Nomenclature of activities and products concerned.

Companies that exclusively provide services are not eligible for CIMA, with the exception (Finance Law 2017) of companies operating in the field of heritage restoration.

What expenses are eligible for the CIMA scheme?

The eligible expenses that can be considered for the CIMA calculation are:

  • Staff expenses directly related to the creation of unique or small series works (new products) and/or heritage restoration.
  • Depreciation allowances for fixed assets used in the design of new products and the creation of prototypes.
  • Industrial property expenses (such as registration and defense fees for designs and models).
  • Expenses incurred for the development of new products outsourced to external stylists or design offices.

From the total expenditure figure, all public grants received for eligible projects must be substracted. This especially includes de minimis aid grants (capped at 200,000 over 3 years), as CIMA is classified as such aid.

The CIMA scheme is capped at €30,000 per year per company.

 

Our range of services

1_ Audit and selection of eligible scope

We schedule a meeting to discuss your ongoing projects and assess their eligibility based on the presented criteria.

2_Valuation

Once the eligible projects have been selected, we calculate all associated expenses according to the items presented.

3_ Technical justification

Following the submission of the CIMA amount, we compile the technical and financial justification file presenting the selected projects for year N along with the valued expenses.

4_ Assistance

In the event of a request for additional information or a tax audit, we will assist you until you obtain your CIMA.