Our office coordinates and issues Master Film Permits for productions working on public City of Seattle property. This coordination leadership is across all City departments, and with multiple county and state agencies.
Film production is big business in Seattle. We offer a $25 a day, one-stop-shop concierge film permit coordination – productions make one call to us and we coordinate all the details for them. On top of making it easy to film in Seattle, we created policies and initiatives that support film industry job growth and film production attraction and retention. When you factor in our natural and urban location beauty, Seattle is the premier film permitting program in the country.
Film productions working with our office are just one part of Seattle’s vibrant film industry. Film permit data offers us valuable insight of our local film scene.
By the numbers
In 2025:
- We coordinated 360 Master Film Permits for 621 filming days for film productions, an increase of 6% from 2024
- These productions reported hiring 4,096 local cast and crew
- 46% of productions were produced by Seattle-based companies, and 34% were produced by companies from outside Washington state
- 54% of all productions were commercial, while 9% of productions were feature film and television series
- 56% of productions filmed in Seattle’s parks, and 65% filmed on streets and sidewalks or reserved street parking spaces
- 82 SPD officers were hired to staff productions
- Neighborhoods in District 7 (Downtown, Queen Anne, Magnolia) were the most frequent filming neighborhoods with over 200 productions filming there
- The M5 Creative building hosted 28 productions in 2025, including one Paramount Pictures feature film that used the building for six months
What people are saying
Seattle’s film permitting program continues to be the premier municipal coordination function and easiest to navigate in the country. We received positive feedback daily for our customer service. Here are some client highlights from 2025:
- “The whole team are amazing and go above and beyond to help out. Of all the states I’ve worked in, this is definitely my favorite without question.” – Abdul Kassamali, Reed Art Department Productions, Tuckahoe, New York.
- “The City of Seattle permitting folks were able to handle all the requests and take it in stride. All around great service. I will push to shoot future projects in Seattle.”- Matt Pittman, Concrete Jungle Inc, Missoula, Montana
- “The film office does an outstanding job in often difficult situations in a very timely and can-do attitude. I really cannot say enough good things about everyone I have ever dealt with in the office.” William Rugen, Motofish Images LLC, Redmond, Washington
- “A stellar example of good government!”– Sidney Beaumont, Rooted Media, Seattle, Washington
For more information about our premier, one-stop-shop film permitting program, visit http://www.seattle.gov/film.