Budget

Contingency

What is contingency in film production?

Contingency is a percentage of the budget held in reserve against overruns rather than allocated to any specific cost. It typically runs at around ten percent, and on financed productions its size and the conditions for drawing on it are set by the financier or completion guarantor.

Contingency covers the unforeseeable, not the unbudgeted. A cost that was always going to be incurred and simply was not written down is an omission, and spending contingency on it means the reserve is gone before the weather turns.

Reviewed 2026-08-27

Related terms

Top sheet: A top sheet is the one-page summary at the front of a film budget, listing each account category with its total and showing the above-the-line, below-the-line and grand totals. The detail sits in the accounts behind it; the top sheet is what gets circulated.
Estimated Final Cost: Estimated Final Cost is the projected total spend on a production, calculated as costs already incurred plus open commitments plus the estimated cost of the work remaining. It is the number a cost report is read for, because it is the only one that says where the production ends up.
Above the line: Above the line refers to the budget section covering the creative principals whose deals are usually negotiated before production begins — story and rights, producers, director, and principal cast. It sits above a literal dividing line in the traditional budget top sheet.