UK Orchestras to Lose Tax Relief for European Performances, Making Touring "Unviable"

A law change arriving on April 1, 2024, will mean that British orchestras cannot claim tax relief for European performances

British orchestras are now facing yet another financial hurdle that has come about as a direct result of the country's exit from the European Union (EU). From April 1, 2024, orchestras will lose the ability to claim tax relief on performances taking place in Europe — a practice that has made European tours financially viable in the past.

The law change has been enacted because of rules imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO), which states that countries cannot give special treatment to trade with another state without offering that treatment to all WTO members.

The news comes in the wake of an August 2023 report by the British-based Independent Society of Musicians (ISM) covering the impacts of Brexit on British musicians. The report found that almost half of respondents (47.4%) said that their work in the EU had declined after January 2021, and more than a quarter (27.8%) said they had not been able to take any work in the EU as a result of Brexit.

"The proposals to remove EEA costs from qualifying expenditure is another post-Brexit barrier to touring in the EEA, which risks making European touring financially unviable," Hanna Madalska-Gayer, head of policy at the Association of British Orchestras, told POLITICO.

"Foreign-earned income also allows UK orchestras to invest in and develop work on and off the concert platform here in the UK, so we will feel the impact domestically as well."

"We are supporting the UK’s brilliant artists to adapt to the new arrangements and we continue to work across the EU to support our musicians to tour," a government spokesperson said of the new policy.