Currency for Artist’s Resale Right to change from EUR to GBP from April 2024
The UK Government has announced that the currency operating in the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) Regulations will change from EUR to GBP. This change will come into effect on 1st April 2024.
The amendment means that all references in the ARR Regulations to Euros (€) will be replaced by references to Pound Sterling (£) and will apply to all sales concluded from 1st April 2024. The key changes to the ARR Regulations are:
- The minimum sale price for a work to qualify for ARR changes from €1000 to £1000
- The maximum sale price of a work that meets the conditions of the exemption relating to works recently acquired from the artist (known as the ‘bought as stock’ exemption) will change from €10,000 to £10,000
- The calculation of ARR royalty in Schedule 1 of the ARR Regulations will change currency from Euros to Pound Sterling. For example, “0 to 50,000 euro” will be substituted by “£0 to £50,000” and so forth.
- The maximum royalty an artist or their heir can receive per transaction will change from €12,500 to £12,500.
The amendment has been tabled to address the variation of the ARR Regulations that required the sale to be calculated in Euros (€) before being converted into Pound Sterling (£) to administer the right.
The change from Euros (€) to Pound Sterling (£) will simplify the royalty collection process. For sales concluded from 1st April 2024, the sale price will no longer need to be converted to Pound Sterling (£) before calculating the royalty due to the artist or legal beneficiary.
The proposed amendments directly replace references to euros in ARR royalty calculations to pounds sterling and are intended to reduce regulatory burdens and costs on UK businesses. These changes reflect the UK market better and provide greater business certainty by removing exchange rate fluctuations when calculating whether artwork is eligible for ARR and the royalty payment due. A transitional provision has been included, so this change will apply from 1st April 2024. This will allow industry time to prepare and adapt to the changes in line with advice from the collective management organisations that administer ARR payment schedules.
Minister for AI and Intellectual Property
This change, which follows the retention of ARR in the Retained EU Law bill, signals that ARR is secure within UK law.
ARR plays an important role in supporting artists and the wider UK art market, and has been in operation in the UK for 17 years. In this time, DACS has paid over £120 million in royalties to artists and their heirs. Artists of all ages and stages of their career can benefit from the right. Artists overwhelmingly reinvest their ARR royalties back into their practice, and heirs use the royalties to store, restore and archive the artists’ work.
