ACS represents over 1,500 artists and artists’ estates including painters, sculptors, photographers, designers, and artists working in glass and ceramics.  Our members range from well-known artists such as Frank Auerbach, Eileen Cooper, Cecily Brown and Michael Craig-Martin, to estates of major artists such as Lucian Freud, Stanley Spencer, Paula Rego and Barbara Hepworth. We are also proud to represent artists whose work has only recently started to sell regularly on the UK secondary market such as Bambi, Leonor Antunes and Pablo Bronstein. ACS never represents artists ‘by default’ and only collects ARR for artists or estates that have legally mandated the company. For a full list of our members please click here.

ACS is delighted to confirm that following its withdrawal from the European Union, the UK Government have published legislation which safeguards ARR for the thousands of artists and artists’ estates who rely upon the royalty.

You can report eligible sales and transactions online by clicking here. Alternatively, you can download a reporting form here. If you prefer, you can email or telephone us on  0345 112 2400 with the relevant information.

Furthermore, every quarter ACS sends AMPs throughout the UK a complete list of ACS member artists and a form for you to report any eligible sales and other eligible transactions. You can complete this form and return it to us by email, post or fax.

ACS works hard to offer a personal service for dealers as well as artists. To relieve you of as much of the administrative burden of ARR as possible, we provide a variety of methods for reporting sales and other eligible transactions and are always happy to help you with any queries.

ACS provides auction houses and dealers with a complete list of members together with our quarterly requests for information, making it as easy as possible for you to check for eligible sales and transactions.

Where an auction house or dealer would rather send us full transaction reports, ACS will check the reports for our member artists ourselves. ACS currently maintains contact with thousands of AMPs in the UK alone. We work hard to keep this information up to date so that we can keep track of all eligible sales and other eligible transactions of our member artists’ work.

What do you need to know?

Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) entitles an artist to a royalty every time their work is re-sold by an Art Market Professional (AMP). ARR is calculated in accordance with the UK Regulations on Artist’s Resale Right, using the prescribed sliding scale. To view the sliding scale or to use our ARR calculator click here.

What do you need to do?

Under the UK Regulations, AMPs should:

• Report any eligible sales as well as all eligible transactions to the relevant collecting society within 90 days of receiving a request for information from that collecting society.
• Pay the resale royalty due on any eligible sale.

What is an eligible sale?

Under the UK Regulations, ARR applies after the first transfer of ownership by the artist when:

• The work of art is sold on the secondary market and the artist is of UK or EEA nationality.
• The sale price is the sterling equivalent of €1,000 or more.
• An AMP is involved at some stage of the transaction.

Non-eligible sales

Sales and transactions which are not eligible for ARR include:

• Primary sales.
• Private sales (sales between private individuals, versus public individuals such as registered dealers)
• Sales of works of art by artists of non-qualifying nationalities eg. American artists.
• Sales which qualify for the ‘bought as stock’ exception.