How ARR payments are calculated
Sale price of £1,000 or more
Payments are based on the resale price of a work of art. This is the sale price for galleries and dealers, and the hammer price for auction houses. VAT is not included in the sale price used to calculate the payment.
Sales concluded prior to 1 April 2024 will be subject to the Euros currency calculation. Use our calculator to work out if a sale came to €1,000 or more, based on the exchange rate for that particular day.
ARR royalty rates
Royalty rates for ARR work like a little like income tax bands or stamp duty – the artist gets the specified royalty rate for each portion of the resale price.
The payment is calculated using a scale of 4% to 0.25%. The higher the price the work sells for, the lower the royalty percentage that applies for the last portion of the sale price.
Example
For example, if a work was resold for £210,000 excluding VAT, then the total royalty would be £6,600, calculated like this:
- 4% of first £50,000 = £2,000
- 3% of next £150,000 = £4,500
- 1% of final £10,000 = £100
Percentage bands
The following table shows examples of the royalty rate percentage bands.
| Resale price bands | Royalty rate |
|---|---|
| From 0 to £50,000 | 4% |
| From £50,000.01 to £200,000 | 3% |
| From £200,000.01 to £350,000 | 1% |
| From £350,000.01 to £500,000 | 0.5% |
| Exceeding £500,000 | 0.25% |
Maximum and minimum payment
The maximum an artist or beneficiary can receive for the resale of 1 work is £12,500. This means that works sold for £2 million or more will receive a royalty payout of the maximum £12,500.
The lowest royalty payment on a work is 4% of £1000, which is £40.
Work created by more than 1 person
For work created by more than 1 artist, the resale royalty is divided equally, unless you have agreed different shares.
For example, 2 artists working in collaboration may each receive 50% of any royalties from the resale of their work.
Our fee
DACS retains a percentage of the royalties we collect on your behalf, to cover our costs – we’re a not-for-profit organisation, and it’s free to become a DACS ARR member. For royalties collected in the UK we deduct 15%, and for royalties collected from overseas we deduct 5%.
We strive to keep our costs low, so that more money reaches artists and their beneficiaries.