# The Artist's Resale Right: Rates, Caps and Effects > Droit de suite is capped at 12,500, a ceiling that binds at a sale price of exactly two million. It is a rounding error at the top, and the Commission found no diversion of trade. > The Study - 2026-08-02 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/the-artists-resale-right/ ## Key points - The EU rate scale is 4, 3, 1, 0.5 and 0.25 per cent across bands, with a hard cap of 12,500, which means the cap binds at a sale price of exactly 2,000,000. - The Directive makes the seller liable, but the salerooms' own conditions pass the charge to the buyer, and it sits outside the published estimate. - The right does not exist federally in the United States: Close v. Sotheby's held the California statute preempted for sales after 1 January 1978. - The European Commission found no clear pattern of trade diversion attributable to the right, and estimated administration cost at up to 50 per transaction, which exceeds the royalty on a sale at the UK threshold. ## What the right is, stated in the terms of the instrument ## The arithmetic, and the precise point at which the cap bites ## Who is liable in law, and who actually pays ## Where the right does not exist, and what that means for venue ## The measured effect on where works are sold The resale right is one of the few costs in an auction that can be calculated exactly in advance, and it is routinely discussed as though it could not. The scale is published, the cap is absolute, and the point at which the cap binds is a sale price of two million in whatever currency the national implementation uses. Above that figure the charge is fixed and its effective rate falls away to nothing, which is why the argument that droit de suite drives major consignments out of Europe has never survived contact with the Commission's own data. The right that costs a serious seller 12,500 on a two-million picture is not the reason a picture goes to New York. Model it, disclose it to the buyer, and argue about the threshold at the bottom of the scale, where the administrative cost of collection can genuinely exceed the royalty collected. ## Questions **Is the royalty calculated on the hammer price or the premium-inclusive total?** On the hammer price. Christie's states that the royalty applies where the hammer price exceeds the national threshold and works the calculation on the hammer price, converting at the European Central Bank rate on the day of the sale. Any figure quoted in a different currency is therefore derived and depends on the date used. **Can an artist waive or assign the right in a contract with a gallery?** No. The Directive makes the right inalienable and provides that it cannot be waived, even in advance. That is a deliberate structural choice: a waivable right would be waived as a condition of representation, which is precisely what the drafters were guarding against. **Does the right apply to a work bought directly from the artist and resold quickly?** It can, but member states may set a higher threshold for that case. The Directive permits a minimum sale price of up to 10,000 where the seller acquired the work directly from the artist less than three years before the resale, against a general ceiling of 3,000. The United Kingdom applies GBP 10,000 in that situation against a general threshold of GBP 1,000. **How should a buyer model the charge before bidding?** Look for the lambda symbol, apply the national threshold and band scale to the anticipated hammer, cap the result at 12,500 in the relevant currency, and add it to the buyer's premium and any tax. The estimate printed in the catalogue excludes all of these, so the number a bidder must actually commit is materially above the top estimate before any of them is counted. ## Sources - [1] Directive 2001/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 September 2001 on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art, Articles 1, 3, 4, 8 and 10. - [2] European Commission, 'Report on the Implementation and Effect of the Resale Right Directive (2001/84/EC)', COM(2011) 878 final, 14 December 2011. - [3] UK Intellectual Property Office, 'Artist's resale right', gov.uk guidance, giving the GBP 1,000 threshold from 1 April 2024, the band rates and the GBP 12,500 cap. - [4] The Design Right, Artist's Resale Right and Copyright (Amendment) Regulations 2023, SI 2023/1285, substituting sterling bands and thresholds. - [5] Christie's Hong Kong Limited, 'Conditions of Sale', 8 February 2022, paragraph D3 (artist's resale royalty), paragraph A4 (estimates exclude premium, taxes and resale royalty), and the lambda symbol in 'Symbols used in Sale Particulars'. - [6] Sotheby's, 'Conditions of Business for Buyers, New York', definition of Purchase Price and Condition 8(a)(iii) on collection of artist's resale right royalty. - [7] Center for Art Law, 'Case Review: Droit de suite... not so sweet', on Close v. Sotheby's, Inc., No. 16-56234 (9th Cir., 6 July 2018). - [8] Art Basel and UBS, 'Global sales rise 4% to $59.6 billion in 2025', on the Art Market Report 2026 by Arts Economics, for United Kingdom market share. - [9] Anna Brady, 'Auction houses made significant recoveries in 2026, ArtTactic report finds', The Art Newspaper, 10 July 2026, for London first-half figures.