Artist's resale right: what a UK gallery has to do, and when
In December, a gallery in Bristol sells a large abstract canvas for £24,000. It came in over the summer from a collector who bought it from the artist's studio in 2011. Nobody flags it as a resale, so nobody thinks of the artist's resale right until a collecting society asks about the sale weeks later. The artist is alive, British, and owed 4% of the price: £960.
The arithmetic is rarely the problem. The hard part is knowing, at the moment you sell, where the work came from. This guide sets out what UK law asks of a gallery: which sales count, how the royalty is worked out, who pays it, and how.
In brief
- Check every sale of £1,000 or more: if the work has already left the artist's hands and an art dealer is involved, a royalty is probably due.
- The royalty is 4% on the first £50,000 of the price net of tax, falls in bands above that, and never exceeds £12,500 per sale.
- When you sell a consigned work, your gallery is liable for the royalty together with the seller.
- Pay through the artist's collecting society, DACS or ACS, never to the artist directly.
- A work you bought directly from the artist less than three years ago and sell for £10,000 or less owes nothing, so keep proof of both facts.
- Answer a request for information about a sale within 90 days.
What is the artist's resale right?
The Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/346) give the author of a work in which copyright subsists a royalty on each resale of the work after the artist first parted with it (regulation 3).
The right cannot be assigned, a waiver of it has no effect, and any agreement to share or repay royalties is void (regulations 7 and 8). An artist cannot sign it away to you, even willingly.
The right lasts as long as copyright. For an artistic work, that is 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist dies, so estates collect too.
The rules come from EU Directive 2001/84/EC of 27 September 2001. It set a common scale of rates and a cap of €12,500 per sale, and let each Member State choose its own minimum price, of no more than €3,000. The UK has since moved to pounds: under the Design Right, Artist's Resale Right and Copyright (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/1285), the amounts are in sterling for sales whose contract date is on or after 1 April 2024. Sales contracted before that date keep the old euro figures.
Which sales does the artist's resale right cover?
Three conditions must all be met.
- The work. Any work of graphic or plastic art, such as a picture, collage, painting, drawing, engraving, print, lithograph, sculpture, tapestry, ceramic, item of glassware or photograph (regulation 4). A copy counts only if it is one of a limited number made by the artist or under their authority.
- The sale. It must be a resale, so the artist's own first sale is outside the right. The buyer, the seller or an agent of either must be acting in the course of a business dealing in works of art, and the price must be at least £1,000 (regulation 12).
- The artist. UK nationals qualify, as do nationals of countries with reciprocal arrangements: the EEA countries, Australia since 31 March 2024 and New Zealand since 1 December 2024.
A sale between two private collectors, with no art market professional involved, does not give rise to a royalty.
When is a sale exempt as "bought as stock"?
Regulation 12(4) says a sale is not a resale if the seller acquired the work directly from the artist less than three years before the sale, and the price does not exceed £10,000. Both conditions apply together: a work bought from the artist two years ago and sold for £12,000 still owes a royalty.
The exception rests on two facts you must be able to prove: that you bought directly from the artist, and on what date. Keep the purchase invoice with the record of the work.
How do you calculate the royalty?
Schedule 1 applies rates to consecutive portions of the price, like income tax bands:
- 4% on the first £50,000;
- 3% from £50,000.01 to £200,000;
- 1% from £200,000.01 to £350,000;
- 0.5% from £350,000.01 to £500,000;
- 0.25% on anything above £500,000.
The total royalty on one sale can never exceed £12,500. The price used is the price obtained, net of the tax payable on the sale (regulation 3).
The Bristol canvas at £24,000 stays in the first band: £960. A work sold for £120,000 gives £2,000 on the first £50,000 and £2,100 on the next £70,000, so £4,100. The cap only applies from a price of £2 million.
Who pays the royalty: the seller or the gallery?
Regulation 13 makes two parties jointly and severally liable: the seller, and a "relevant person" who acts in the course of a business dealing in works of art. That person is, in this order:
- the seller's agent;
- if there is none, the buyer's agent;
- if there are neither, the buyer.
When your gallery sells a work a collector has consigned to you, you are the seller's agent. The royalty is then as much your debt as the consignor's.
Liability arises when the sale is completed. A person who is liable may withhold payment until evidence of who is entitled to the royalty is produced.
How do UK galleries pay the artist's resale right?
Under regulation 14, the right can be exercised only through a collecting society. If the artist has not joined one, the collecting society that manages copyright on behalf of artists is treated as mandated to manage the right for them. An artist cannot ask your gallery to pay them directly.
Two collecting societies manage the right in the UK: the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) and the Artists' Collecting Society (ACS). Check which one represents the artist first.
Regulation 15 adds a right to information. For three years after a sale, the holder of the right, or someone acting for them, can ask any art market professional involved for what is needed to secure payment:
- the amount of royalty due;
- if you are not the one paying, the name and address of whoever is liable.
You must do everything within your power to reply within 90 days of receiving the request. The request can be enforced through the county court, or in Scotland through the sheriff.
What MARMALADE actually does
MARMALADE does not calculate the royalty and does not file anything with DACS or ACS. What it does is keep the facts you rely on in one place.
- Each artwork record holds the artist, the provenance, the date the work came into the gallery and whether it was bought or taken on consignment. At the moment of sale, you see that a work has already left the artist's hands, or that you bought it from them less than three years ago.
- The inventory can be filtered to sold works and exported as a CSV file with the title, artist, medium and edition of each one. The price and date of each sale you still add yourself.
To compare gallery software on facts, see our comparison of gallery management software. If you are coming from Artlogic, MARMALADE or Artlogic explains how a move works. The simplest test is your own works: the trial lasts 30 days, with no card during the trial.
Published on 28 October 2026. It describes the law as it stands on that date and is not legal advice.