Pay Artist's Resale Right

Paying ARR through a collection society

By UK law, you have to pay ARR through a collecting society like DACS. You cannot pay the artist directly.

Qualifying sales

You only need to tell us about sales that qualify for ARR.

Search for an artist to check if ARR is due
Check types of work eligible for ARR

Search results are not exhaustive. You need to pay resale royalties if the artwork in question is in copyright, and if the artist is a national of the UK, Australia or a country in the European Economic Area (EEA).

Submitting sales details

You can submit sales details to us at any time but we send you a request for information in January, April, July and October. Your submission should always include:

• title of the work
• medium
• edition number, if applicable
• sale price, excluding VAT
• date the work was sold
  
• name of artist
• artist’s nationality (if known)
• artist’s year of birth (if known)
• artist’s year of death (if known)

Sales price

The sale price is the sum obtained for the work, excluding VAT.

For galleries, and dealers this is the sum paid by the buyer, excluding VAT. For auction houses, it's the hammer price excluding buyer’s premium.

Alternative ways to submit sales details

If you have a large number of sales to submit, fill out our sales data submissions template and return to us by email or post:

• Excel template
• Word template
• PDF template

Email

Email to: arrsubmission@dacs.org.uk

Post

Send by post to:

Artist's Resale Right Submissions
DACS
33 Old Bethnal Green Road,
London, E2 6AA

If you’re not sure which sales to submit

If you’re not sure which sales you should submit for ARR royalty payments, send us a copy of your catalogue plus your sales results.

Email DACS ARR submissions team or call 0845 410 3410 with any queries.

No qualifying sales

If you have no eligible sales for the period stated in our ARR information request, you can either:

• send us an email confirming that you have no qualifying sales, or,
• complete a nil declaration form and return it to us using the freepost envelope supplied (if you received the request in the post)

Paying the ARR royalties due

We check the sales details you’ve submitted and confirm whether a royalty is due. If we need any further information we will contact you.

Next, you’ll receive an invoice for the royalty amount due. We pay the artist or their estate within 30 days of receiving your royalty payment.

Cancelled sales

If a sale falls through, we may be able to refund the full royalty amount to you if you notify us immediately. Email DACS ARR submissions team or call 0845 410 3410.

If the royalty has already been distributed, we will repay the amount as soon as we receive it back from the artist or beneficiary. Because we distribute royalties monthly, get in touch with us as soon as possible if a sale is cancelled.

Consigned sales

ARR only applies to sales that are made after the first transfer of ownership by the artist and ARR will be due on each further transfer, provided the other qualifying criteria are met.

With consigned sales, where the art market professional acts as an agent for the seller and never owns the work, the consignment itself is not considered a sale; this means that if a work is consigned to an art market professional and then sold to a buyer, ARR will only apply on the sale to the buyer.

When an art market professional accepts a work on consignment from another dealer, this is not considered a resale, regardless of which dealer invoices the buyer. However, if the property or title of the work passes between the dealers before sale to a buyer, ARR will apply to both the transfer between dealers and the sale to the buyer.

Sales of work on behalf of an artist’s estate or beneficiary

The ARR Regulations state that ‘transfer of ownership by the author’ includes:

• an artist bequeathing a work in their Will
• inheritance of an artwork in accordance with the rules of intestate succession

So, disposal of the work by the artist's personal representatives for the purposes of the administration of the estate does not count as a resale but as a first transfer of ownership.

Any subsequent sales are then eligible for resale royalties, providing all the qualifying criteria are satisfied.

The ‘bought as stock’ exception

No ARR royalty is payable if the work was ‘bought as stock’. This applies if it was:

• bought directly from the artist
• resold within 3 years
• sold for £10,000 or less
  

You do not need to report sales where you are claiming the ‘bought as stock’ exception. However, it may be useful to report the transaction, because it helps avoid any misunderstandings about whether or not the sale was exempt.

Keep records of the purchase from the artist or estate and of the work’s resale, so that you can prove that the resale was exempt.

Confidentiality

We send a statement to artists and estates with their royalty payments. The statement tells them if the sale was made by an auction house, gallery, or dealer and provides details about the work sold, like the title.

Your details do not automatically appear on our statements. We only tell artists and estates where the art work sold if they specifically ask for this information.

Any personal information about an individual that you submit to us during a resale right enquiry is treated as confidential. It is also subject to protection under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Sales outside the UK

We cannot advise on these – but you can find information from our Sister Societies.

Over 100 countries have resale right laws.

Learn more about countries in Europe that operate the resale right through the European Visual Artists (EVA) website.

More information

Check Artist’s Resale Right eligibility
Artist’s Resale Right royalty calculator
Artist’s Resale Right Regulations 2006
What is Artist's Resale Right?