Most Canadian actors earn less than $20K per year from screen work, survey finds
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TORONTO – Seven in 10 film and TV actors earn less than $20,000 per year from their on-screen work, according to a survey conducted on behalf of the Canada Media Fund.
The poll of nearly a thousand screen performers also found only six per cent earned more than $75,000 per year.
It found just 13 per cent of respondents earn all their income from performing, while two-thirds make less than half their money through acting.
The survey was conducted at the end of 2025 by Abacus Data, and asked performers to reflect on their earnings the year prior.
The respondents suggested much of the work comes from international productions shot in Canada, including the filming hubs of Toronto and Vancouver.
Asked to reflect on their 2024 earnings, 47 per cent of said they worked on international or U.S. productions filmed north of the border, while 40 per cent worked on Canadian scripted TV and 35 per cent worked in Canadian film.
The Canada Media Fund is a public-private partnership that finances Canadian content and promotes the country’s screen industry.
One possible solution the report presents is building up a more robust “star system” in Canada — one that promotes the visibility of Canadian actors.
The survey found only three per cent of English performers said there’s a “strong and consistent” star system in Canada, compared to 21 per cent of French-speaking performers.
The CMF survey was conducted online in the last two months of 2025, and results were not weighted to reflect the broader Canadian population.
The report notes that 2024 may have been an “atypical” year because the American actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, went on strike in 2023, pausing some U.S. productions.
The strike ended that same fall and production picked up soon after, but a report from production intelligence company ProdPro found that in 2024 the U.S. industry still lagged behind 2022’s pre-strike activity by about 11 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2026.