Filming in Toronto: Permits, Studios & Production Logistics
From the Toronto Film Office's no-fee street permits and Pinewood Toronto Studios to NYC-double streetscapes and the OFTTC stack — everything international productions need to plan a shoot in Toronto
Filming in Toronto is one of the most efficient production operations in North America. The city earned its 'Hollywood North' nickname for a structural reason: the City of Toronto Film & Entertainment Industries Office (the Toronto Film Office) charges no fee for street, park or city-property filming permits and routinely turns standard requests in 3 to 10 business days. Pair that with the OPSTC + PSTC stack returning 30%+ effective on Canadian spend, the largest concentration of soundstage capacity in Canada (Pinewood Toronto Studios, Cinespace Studios, William F. White, Revival 629), Toronto Police Service paid-duty coordination that producers can book in days rather than weeks, and a downtown core that doubles seamlessly for New York, Chicago, Boston and Detroit — and you have the practical reasons The Boys, Suits, The Handmaid's Tale, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Mayor of Kingstown and dozens of other studio and streamer productions are based here. This guide walks through what international teams actually need to know to plan a production in Toronto: where to file permits, which studios match which formats, which neighborhoods deliver which looks, when to shoot, what the OFTTC/OPSTC stack brings to the budget, and how lead times shape your schedule. We work the Toronto film office, stages, and crew rosters every week, so the focus here is operational, not editorial. Use it as a hub — each section links out to a deep-dive guide for the area you need to plan around.
As Fixers in Canada, we bring local expertise to international productions filming in Canada. Our team's deep knowledge of local regulations, crew networks, and production infrastructure ensures your project runs smoothly from pre-production through delivery.
ACT 01
Why Toronto for Production
Industry Depth, Infrastructure, and the Looks Producers Come For
Toronto is the operational center of Canadian audiovisual production and one of the four or five largest production cities in North America. The reasons international teams keep choosing it for filming in Toronto go well beyond the OFTTC math — it is the rare city that combines a top-tier IATSE/DGC/ACTRA crew base, a dense studio belt, and visual signatures that double for half of urban America without the New York or Chicago day-rate premiums.
- Toronto and the GTA host 30+ soundstages totalling more than 600,000 sq ft of stage space
- OPSTC (21.5% on all Ontario spend) + PSTC federal (16% on Canadian labour) routinely deliver 30%+ effective recovery
- Crew base of 25,000+ IATSE Local 873 members plus DGC Ontario, ACTRA and Teamsters Local 847
- Downtown core, financial district, brownstone neighbourhoods and industrial waterfront all double for NYC, Chicago and Boston
Industry Depth and the Toronto Production Ecosystem
Toronto film production runs on an unusually mature ecosystem. The Toronto Film Office at City Hall coordinates permits and acts as the single municipal liaison for productions across the city's 25 wards. Ontario Creates administers the OPSTC and OFTTC at the provincial level. The major US streamers (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, Apple, Paramount+) and broadcasters (CBC, Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, Rogers Sports & Media) all maintain Toronto-based commissioning and production teams. Below the line, IATSE Local 873 represents the largest concentration of below-the-line film crew in Canada, with deep benches in every department. Equipment rental, post-production, VFX, casting, payroll services, customs brokerage and entertainment legal counsel all operate within the same downtown and waterfront geography. For inbound productions, this density translates into shorter pre-production cycles than in cities where the production stack is fragmented across multiple metro areas.
Studio and Stage Infrastructure
The Toronto studio belt — Pinewood Toronto Studios in the Port Lands, Cinespace Film Studios spread across Kipling Avenue, the Eastern Avenue corridor and Downsview, William F. White's stage and equipment campus, Revival 629 in Etobicoke, and several mid-size stages in the western GTA — gives Toronto more than 600,000 sq ft of soundstage capacity. That matters because international productions can base talent and creative leads in downtown hotels and still keep production trucks and stage builds inside the standard 30-to-45 minute travel-time radius. Backlot space, water tanks, motion-control rigs and an expanding roster of LED virtual production volumes are all available without leaving the GTA.
Crew, Talent, and Union Coverage
Toronto crews are deep across every department. Cinematographers, gaffers, key grips, sound mixers, art directors, costume designers, hair and makeup, VFX supervisors and stunt coordinators are available at IATSE Local 873 day rates published in the current master agreement. Directors and ADs work under DGC Ontario; performers under ACTRA (with negotiated terms with US guilds for cross-border productions). English fluency is a given — Toronto is North America's most linguistically diverse film city, and second-unit work in Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, Punjabi, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Tagalog and Arabic can be cast inside the Greater Toronto Area without flying talent in. Casting agencies in the downtown core handle US SAG-AFTRA and ACTRA negotiations as a matter of course on cross-border productions.
Signature Visual Looks
The visual reasons producers come to Toronto are well-established. The financial district around Bay Street and King delivers Manhattan-grade glass-and-steel canyon shots that double for NYC and Chicago. Cabbagetown's Victorian and Edwardian rowhouses double for Boston brownstones and old NYC neighbourhoods. The Distillery District's preserved 19th-century industrial brick gives period and steampunk registers within walking distance of downtown hotels. The Beaches and Roncesvalles deliver suburban Americana. The Port Lands and South Riverdale industrial corridor give grit and post-industrial texture for crime drama and dystopian work. Casa Loma is the city's go-to gothic mansion. Each of these is briefed in detail below, with guidance on how shoot in Toronto workflows actually clear them.
ACT 02
Filming Permits in Toronto
The Toronto Film Office, Toronto Police Service, and the Permit Landscape
Toronto's permit landscape is one of the most producer-friendly in North America. The City of Toronto Film & Entertainment Industries Office is the single municipal contact for street, park and city-property filming, and standard permits carry no fee. This section gives you the operational summary — for the full step-by-step on documentation, fees, and edge cases, see our Toronto permit deep-dive.
- Toronto Film Office at City Hall is the single contact for street, park and city-property filming permits — no fee for standard permits
- Toronto Police Service handles paid-duty officer assignments for traffic stops, road closures and security — booked through the Film Office or directly
- TTC (subway, streetcar, bus) requires its own permits with longer lead times and TTC-supplied transit personnel
- Heritage and provincial properties — Casa Loma, Old City Hall, Queen's Park, Distillery District buildings — are governed by their own administrations or trusts
The Toronto Film Office at City Hall
The Toronto Film Office is the single entry point for most public-domain filming in Toronto. They handle requests for streets, parks, public squares, the waterfront and city-owned buildings under one application. Standard street shoots with a small footprint (handheld, no truck, no crew base) are usually clearable in 3 to 5 business days. Larger setups — full lighting packages, generators, picture vehicles, base camp, equipment trucks — extend the lead time to 7 to 10 business days and trigger Toronto Police Service paid-duty coordination. The Film Office reviews shoot synopses, neighbourhood impact letters (residents within a defined radius are notified for shoots involving overnight work or significant footprint), and the production's local representative before issuing the permit. The no-fee structure for permits is genuinely no-fee — the costs you pay are for the paid-duty officers, traffic management plans and any specific city-property usage, not for the permit itself.
Toronto Police Service and Traffic Coordination
Anything that affects road traffic, requires a security perimeter, or involves stunts, weapons, pyrotechnics, drones or large crowd scenes routes through Toronto Police Service paid-duty officers. Booking is administered through the Film Office for most shoots and runs at currently about CAD 90/hour per officer for standard work, with three-hour minimums and overtime rates after standard shifts. Major intersection or arterial closures (King Street, Yonge Street, University Avenue, the Gardiner Expressway) require longer planning windows — 3 to 6 weeks is typical and some axes are simply not closable during morning or evening rush. Drone operations also require Transport Canada compliance (RPAS Basic or Advanced certification) and may need NAV Canada coordination for flights near Pearson, Billy Bishop or restricted airspace.
Heritage Sites, TTC, and Specialist Authorities
Filming inside or in the immediate perimeter of major heritage sites — Casa Loma, Old City Hall, Union Station, the Distillery District, Spadina Museum — is governed by each property's own filming office or trust, not the Toronto Film Office. Lead times here run 3 to 8 weeks, location fees are significant, and approvals are conditional on shot lists, equipment lists and sometimes script review. The TTC (subway, streetcar, bus) requires its own filming permits with 4 to 6 week lead times and TTC-supplied transit personnel for any work involving moving equipment. Provincial properties (Queen's Park legislative grounds) and federal properties (CN Tower base, Toronto Island airport apron) each operate under separate authorities. For a complete walkthrough of permit categories, fees, documentation and rejection-recovery tactics, see our Toronto permit deep-dive at /blog/film-permits-guide/.
ACT 03
Studios in Toronto
Pinewood Toronto, Cinespace, William F. White and the GTA Stage Belt
Toronto studios sit in a belt around the city core, all reachable from downtown hotels in under 45 minutes. The lineup below is a working summary — the full sourcing guide with stage dimensions, ceiling heights, water tank specs, and virtual production volumes lives in our dedicated studios article.
- Pinewood Toronto Studios (Port Lands) — flagship complex with the Megastage, the largest purpose-built sound stage in North America at 45,900 sq ft
- Cinespace Film Studios — multi-campus operation across Kipling Avenue, Eastern Avenue, Marine Terminal 28 and Downsview, totalling 30+ stages
- William F. White (Showline Studios) — equipment, lighting, grip, and a stage and lot complex in the eastern waterfront
- Revival 629 Studios — Etobicoke-based operation focused on episodic series and feature drama with full backlot
Pinewood Toronto Studios — The Port Lands Flagship
Pinewood Toronto Studios in the Port Lands is the largest single-site film studio in Canada and one of the largest in North America. Eight purpose-built sound stages totalling more than 250,000 sq ft of stage space, including the 45,900 sq ft Megastage and the 25,900 sq ft Stage 6, plus a backlot, water tank and on-site production offices, all sit on the campus a 15-minute drive from downtown Toronto hotels. Pinewood Toronto has hosted Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, The Boys, IT Chapter Two, Suicide Squad, Pacific Rim and a long list of major studio productions. For inbound productions running long-form drama or large-scale features, Pinewood remains the default first call when stage-to-downtown turnarounds need to stay under half an hour and the project needs the largest stages on the continent.
Cinespace Film Studios — The Multi-Campus Workhorse
Cinespace Film Studios is the largest stage operator by total footprint in the GTA. Its operations across Kipling Avenue (the original Toronto campus), the Eastern Avenue corridor, Marine Terminal 28 on the Port Lands and Downsview Park give producers more than 30 stages to choose from at a range of dimensions. Suits, The Handmaid's Tale, American Gods, Designated Survivor and a steady rotation of streamer series have based at Cinespace stages over the past decade. The multi-campus structure is particularly useful for productions that need to run multiple units in parallel — a main unit at Kipling, a second unit at Eastern Avenue and a VFX volume at Downsview, all under one operator with consistent rates and availability windows.
William F. White and the Equipment Side
William F. White (operating Showline Studios) bridges stage rental and the equipment side: lighting, grip, generators, picture vehicles and trucking. Their eastern waterfront complex includes stages and a flexible lot that suits commercial, music video and episodic work. For productions that need to combine a small stage build with a large equipment footprint without the overhead of a Pinewood or Cinespace booking, William F. White is often the most flexible partner — and as the dominant equipment house in the city, they're the default for anything that needs to scale up lighting and grip beyond standard packages.
Revival 629 and the Western GTA
Revival 629 in Etobicoke and several mid-size operators across the western GTA round out the stage belt. Revival has hosted episodic streaming work and feature drama with full backlot capability. The wider western GTA — Etobicoke, Mississauga, Brampton — also concentrates art-department workshops, prop houses and equipment rental, which keeps build-day logistics inside one tight geography for productions basing at western stages. For full stage matrices, daily rates, and the stages best suited to virtual production and LED-volume work, see our Toronto studios sourcing deep-dive at /blog/studio-soundstage-options/.
ACT 04
Locations in Toronto
The Visual Categories That Bring Producers to the City
Toronto's strength as a location city is the variety of distinct visual registers within a small radius — and especially the ability to double for major US cities. The categories below cover most of what international productions request — for the operational scout files (best times of day, light, foot traffic, permit difficulty), see our Toronto location scouting guide.
- Financial district — Bay Street, King Street West, Brookfield Place — for NYC, Chicago and Boston downtown doubling
- Cabbagetown and Riverdale Victorian rowhouses for Boston brownstone and old-NYC residential
- Distillery District 19th-century industrial brick for period, steampunk and atmospheric work
- The Beaches and Roncesvalles for suburban Americana and small-town US doubling
- Port Lands and South Riverdale industrial corridor for crime drama, dystopian and post-industrial
- Casa Loma for gothic mansion, period drama and supernatural
- Toronto waterfront and Toronto Islands for water-adjacent and skyline establishing shots
- Kensington Market and Queen Street West for street-level retail, music and youth culture
The Financial District and NYC/Chicago Doubling
The financial district around Bay Street, King Street West and Brookfield Place is the single most-requested look in Toronto for productions doubling for New York or Chicago. The geometry of the bank towers (TD Centre, RBC Centre, Brookfield Place's atrium, First Canadian Place), the canyon shots up Bay Street from the lake and the cleanly American visual register of King Street West make the district readable as Manhattan or the Chicago Loop on screen. Permits for sidewalk and curb-lane filming are routinely cleared by the Toronto Film Office; full street closures on Bay or King require longer lead times and rush-hour avoidance. Suits, Designated Survivor, Star Trek: Discovery, Mayor of Kingstown and dozens of US-set studio productions have used this corridor.
Period, Residential and Atmospheric Quartiers
Cabbagetown's Victorian and Edwardian rowhouses (particularly along Carlton, Winchester and Metcalfe Streets) double for Boston brownstones and old-NYC residential blocks with high reliability — the houses are well-preserved, parking is manageable for production trucks, and residents in this neighbourhood are unusually accustomed to filming impact. Riverdale's larger Victorian houses give the same register at slightly larger scale. The Distillery District — preserved 19th-century Gooderham & Worts industrial buildings — gives period (1880s–1920s) and steampunk registers within walking distance of downtown hotels. All three districts are tourist-active, which means early-morning shoot windows (5–9 AM weekdays) are usually the operational answer for clean plates.
The Waterfront, Industrial Corridors and the Modern Skyline
Toronto's waterfront — the Harbourfront, Sugar Beach, the Port Lands and the Toronto Islands ferry — gives some of the city's most reliably cinematic establishing geometry, particularly the CN Tower and downtown skyline framed from the islands. The Port Lands and South Riverdale industrial corridor (Polson Street, Cherry Street, Eastern Avenue) deliver the post-industrial grit and abandoned-warehouse register that crime drama, dystopian and music video work consistently request — the geography is also adjacent to Pinewood Toronto and the Cinespace Marine Terminal 28 stages, which keeps stage-to-location turnarounds inside 15 minutes. Casa Loma at the top of the Davenport escarpment is the city's go-to gothic mansion and has appeared in The Boys, X-Men franchises and dozens of period and supernatural productions. For the full taxonomy with permit difficulty ratings and shoot-window guidance, see /blog/location-scouting-tips/ and our /services/pre-production/location-scouting-services/ page.
ACT 05
Seasonal Considerations for Filming in Toronto
Best Months, Winter Logistics, and the TIFF Blackout
When you shoot in Toronto matters almost as much as where. The city has clear shoulder windows, real winter logistics challenges between October and March, a major festival blackout in September, and a summer construction season that compresses location availability. Plan against this calendar from the first scout.
- Best operational months: late April–June and late September–late October (after TIFF)
- Summer (July–August) brings long daylight (sunrise 5:40 AM, sunset 9:00 PM) and humidity; festival season locks down some downtown locations
- Winter (December–March) brings snow, sub-zero temperatures and short daylight (sunset 4:45 PM in December)
- TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) — early-to-mid September — saturates downtown hotels and locks much of the King Street West entertainment district
Weather, Light, and the Production Calendar
Toronto's seasons run wider than most North American production cities. Late April through June gives the longest practical shoot days — 14+ hours of usable daylight — with manageable rain risk and the year's most pleasant working temperatures (15–25°C). Late September through late October gives slightly shorter days but the cleanest light quality of the year and stable weather, making it the preferred window for high-end fashion, automotive and feature drama. Mid-November through March compresses shoot days to 8–9 hours of usable light, brings snow events that complicate continuity (and require dedicated snow-removal scheduling for exterior locations), and can deliver wind-chill temperatures below -20°C that affect crew, talent, equipment and battery life. Productions shooting through Toronto winter plan for heated tents, snow-cleared base camps, generator placement that accounts for diesel gelling, and warm-up rotations for crew on extended exterior calls.
TIFF and the September Blackout
Toronto International Film Festival — the second weekend of September through the following Friday — effectively removes much of downtown Toronto from the production pipeline for 10 to 12 days. Hotel inventory in the downtown core and along King Street West is fully booked for industry, premieres and press, room rates double or triple, and significant portions of the entertainment district (King Street West between Spadina and University, the TIFF Bell Lightbox apron, the Roy Thomson Hall plaza, the Princess of Wales and Royal Alexandra theatre frontages) are programmed for festival use under street closures. Productions schedule around TIFF — either wrapping principal photography by the end of August or planning post-festival starts in late September. Crew members in the IATSE Local 873 and DGC Ontario rosters are also in heavy demand from the festival's own production team during the blackout window.
Summer Construction and the Always-On Cone Season
Toronto's summer (May through October) is also the city's construction season. Major arterials, downtown streets and waterfront access points run rolling construction projects that can compress lane availability, change permit-feasibility on specific blocks at short notice, and require traffic management plans that account for active sites. The Toronto Film Office maintains visibility on major construction impacts and coordinates with the Transportation Services division on conflicts, but the pre-shoot scout should always include a current construction overlay — what was a clean Bay Street block in May may be down to one lane by July. The Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Ontario Line construction and various Gardiner Expressway rehabilitation projects are the persistent multi-year impacts producers should track in particular. See our /locations/toronto/ landing page for an overview of how we structure scouting around these constraints.
ACT 06
Crew Availability and Costs in Toronto
Lead Times, Day Rates, and the OFTTC/OPSTC Stack
Toronto offers some of North America's deepest crew availability outside Los Angeles and one of the continent's most competitive incentive structures. Plan crew bookings against the city's calendar and price the OPSTC + PSTC stack into the budget from day one.
- DOPs, key grips, gaffers, and sound mixers: 4–8 weeks lead time for top tier, 2–3 weeks for mid-tier
- Production designers and costume designers: 6–10 weeks for prep-heavy productions
- Stunt coordinators, SFX supervisors, and underwater units: 6–12 weeks for full-scale work
- OPSTC (Ontario foreign service) returns 21.5% on all qualifying Ontario spend; PSTC federal returns 16% on Canadian labour — combined effective recovery 30%+
Lead Times for Booking Key Roles
For a typical inbound feature or eight-episode streamer series shooting in Toronto, plan eight weeks minimum from script lock to first day of principal photography just for crew booking. Director of photography, production designer and 1st AD are usually the binding constraints — top-tier Toronto talent is booked across multiple competing productions year-round, and the streaming boom has put particular pressure on senior episodic crew. Mid-tier department heads and the bulk of crew (camera assistants, electricians, grips, sound utilities, costume team, hair and makeup) are typically available with two to three weeks notice outside the TIFF blackout and major streamer overlap windows. Commercials run on tighter schedules — typical lead time for a five-day Toronto commercial is two to three weeks for crew, one week if the production company has standing relationships with the agency's preferred crew.
Day Rates and Budget Anchors
Toronto crew day rates follow the IATSE Local 873 master agreement, which sets minima by department and seniority. In practice, expect roughly CAD 600–900/day for camera assistants and electricians, CAD 1,000–1,500/day for gaffers and key grips, CAD 1,500–2,500/day for directors of photography, and CAD 2,200–3,800/day for production designers — all per the current Local 873 agreement, with overtime and weekend differentials on top. Add IATSE pension and health (currently around 17% combined on union earnings) and Canadian payroll burdens (CPP, EI, EHT, WSIB — typically 12–14% combined) on every Canadian payroll line. Equipment rental, location fees and base-camp logistics are competitive with US comparables and meaningfully cheaper than New York or Los Angeles for equivalent specifications. The CAD/USD exchange (historically running CAD 1.30–1.40 to USD 1.00) adds a structural advantage for US-funded productions that goes on top of the OPSTC + PSTC math.
OFTTC, OPSTC and the Federal Stack
For foreign-owned productions, the standard Toronto stack is PSTC (16% federal on Canadian labour) plus OPSTC (21.5% on all qualifying Ontario spend, including labour, equipment, transportation, locations and base camp). On a CAD 10M shoot with CAD 8M of qualifying Ontario spend (CAD 4.5M of which is Canadian labour), the combined gross credit is approximately CAD 2.44M — about 30% of the Canadian-spend base. For Canadian-content productions that pass the CAVCO points test, OFTTC at 35% on Ontario labour stacks with CPTC at 25% on Canadian labour for a higher combined recovery. Both credits are fully refundable and bankable with Canadian lenders (Bell Canada Productions, RBC, BMO, National Bank). The full mechanics, application timeline and documentation requirements are covered in our /blog/film-tax-incentives-guide/ — and our team can run the OPSTC vs Quebec CSPEC vs FIBC numbers for your project before you commit to a Toronto production base. To start a Toronto production conversation, contact us at /contact/ with your script status, shoot window and budget envelope.
ACT 07
Common Questions
How long do filming permits take in Toronto?
The Toronto Film Office typically processes standard street filming permits in 3 to 5 business days. Larger setups with lighting, generators, picture vehicles or base camp extend to 7 to 10 business days because they require Toronto Police Service paid-duty coordination. Major arterial closures (Bay Street, King Street, Yonge Street, the Gardiner Expressway) require 3 to 6 weeks of lead time and rush-hour avoidance. TTC permits run on 4 to 6 week timelines. Heritage sites — Casa Loma, the Distillery District buildings, Old City Hall — operate under their own filming offices with 3 to 8 week lead times. Standard street, park and city-property permits carry no fee from the Film Office; you pay only for paid-duty officers, traffic management plans and any specific city-property usage.
Can I shoot in public spaces in Toronto?
Yes, with a permit from the Toronto Film Office at City Hall. Streets, parks, public squares, the waterfront and city-owned buildings are all accessible to filming with the right permit, an insurance certificate (typically CAD 5 million general liability with the City of Toronto named as additional insured), a local production contact and a neighbourhood notification plan for residents within the impact radius. Anything affecting road traffic, requiring crowd control or involving stunts, weapons, pyrotechnics or drones also needs Toronto Police Service paid-duty officer coverage and Transport Canada compliance for drones. Handheld shoots with a small crew and no equipment footprint can sometimes proceed under simplified declarations — confirm with your fixer before relying on that route.
What is the best season to shoot in Toronto?
Late April through June and late September through late October are the two reliable windows. They give the longest practical daylight, the most stable weather, and the cleanest light quality of the year, with comfortable working temperatures and minimal precipitation risk. Avoid the second weekend of September through the following Friday — TIFF locks down downtown Toronto, hotel inventory and significant portions of the King Street West entertainment district. Winter (December through March) offers fast permit access and snow as a creative asset but only 8–9 hours of usable daylight in December and January, sub-zero working conditions that require crew warm-up rotations and equipment cold-weather prep, and snow events that complicate continuity. Summer (July–August) is workable but humid, with active construction season impacts on downtown locations.
Do I need a fixer to shoot in Toronto?
For practical purposes, yes. The Toronto Film Office and most location authorities require a local production representative who can respond to on-set issues, file Canadian-language paperwork and act as the named contact on the permit. International productions also need Canadian payroll for any local crew (CPP, EI, EHT, WSIB source deductions plus IATSE pension and health on union work), Canadian insurance recognised by the Film Office, ATA Carnet handling for equipment imports if you are bringing camera and lighting from the US, and union liaison with IATSE Local 873, DGC Ontario, ACTRA and Teamsters Local 847. A Toronto fixer or local production services company holds these relationships and is generally faster, cheaper and lower-risk than building them from scratch for a single production. The service company is also the legal claimant for the OPSTC and PSTC tax credits, which is reason enough on its own.
What are typical day rates for Toronto crew?
Toronto crew day rates run roughly CAD 600–900 for camera assistants and electricians, CAD 1,000–1,500 for gaffers and key grips, CAD 1,500–2,500 for directors of photography, and CAD 2,200–3,800 for production designers — all per the current IATSE Local 873 master agreement, with overtime and weekend differentials on top. Add IATSE pension and health (around 17% combined on union earnings) and Canadian payroll burdens (CPP, EI, EHT, WSIB at 12–14% combined) on every Canadian payroll line. Equipment rental, location fees and base-camp logistics are competitive with US comparables and meaningfully cheaper than New York or Los Angeles. The CAD/USD exchange and the OPSTC + PSTC stack (30%+ effective recovery) offset a substantial share of total Toronto spend for qualifying foreign-owned productions.
Ready to Roll
Planning a Production in Toronto?
Whether you are scouting Bay Street for a NYC-double feature, locking a Pinewood Megastage for a streamer series, or scheduling a 12-day commercial around TIFF and the construction season, our Toronto team has the permits, crews, studio relationships and Ontario Creates incentive expertise ready to go. Filming in Toronto is what we do every week — and we run the operational side so directors and producers can focus on the work. Contact Fixers in Canada to discuss your next project.