Auction House Buyer's Premium Comparison: What Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips Now Charge

Between September 2025 and April 2026, Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips each rewrote the schedule of fees a winning bidder pays on top of the hammer price, and the season now opening runs entirely on the new rate cards. Any useful auction house buyer's premium comparison starts with a plain statement of where the three houses sit today. Christie's charges 27 percent at its lower tier, Sotheby's 28 percent, and Phillips 29 percent, with a discounted 25 percent available at Phillips to bidders who commit early. Every one of those changes raised either the rate or the threshold at the lower end of the market, which is the band where most collections are actually built. What follows sets the published rates side by side, then accounts for the charges that sit outside the premium entirely.

Key takeaways:

• Sotheby's raised its lower tier buyer's premium to 28 percent on 13 February 2026 and lifted the threshold from 1 million to 2 million dollars in the United States and from 800,000 to 1.5 million pounds in the United Kingdom, as reported by Antiques Trade Gazette.
• Christie's has charged 27 percent up to 1.5 million dollars, 22 percent to 8 million dollars and 15 percent above since September 2025, and a spokesperson said in February 2026, as reported by Antiques Trade Gazette, that the house had no plans to change its rates currently.
• Phillips publishes a standard lower tier of 29 percent and a Priority Bidding rate of 25 percent on the rate card effective 12 April 2026, and Priority Bidding is restricted to live auctions.
• The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, authored by Dr. Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics, put global sales at 59.6 billion dollars in 2025, a rise of 4 percent led by renewed activity at the high end.
• An auction house buyer's premium comparison stops short of the real total. Value added tax, the artist's resale right, shipping and import charges all sit outside the rate card.

What changed in the auction house buyer's premium comparison, and when

The buyer's premium is the non negotiable percentage a winning bidder pays the house on top of the hammer price. It is the principal revenue line of every auction business, and three houses moved it inside eight months.

Christie's went first. In September 2025 it raised its premium to 27 percent on each lot up to 1.5 million dollars or 1 million pounds, 22 percent on the portion between 1.5 million and 8 million dollars, and 15 percent above that, according to The Art Newspaper. The house had previously charged 26 percent on the first 1 million dollars, 21 percent up to 6 million dollars, and 15 percent above.

Sotheby's followed on 13 February 2026, days after its New York Old Master sales closed. Antiques Trade Gazette reported that the new rates apply across every Sotheby's saleroom worldwide and across all categories other than wine and spirits, which carry a flat 24 percent. Phillips instated its own structure in September 2025 and published a consolidated rate card effective 12 April 2026.

Rates as published by each house and reported by The Art Newspaper and Antiques Trade Gazette. Fee tables still circulating online carry pre reset figures of 26 percent and below, which no longer match any of the three cards. That is the first hazard of any secondhand auction house buyer's premium comparison: the rates age faster than the pages that publish them.

Where the tier boundaries sit now, and why they moved

The threshold matters as much as the headline percentage in an auction house buyer's premium comparison, because these are marginal tiers. Sotheby's doubled the span over which its top rate applies, from 1 million to 2 million dollars in the United States and from 800,000 to 1.5 million pounds in the United Kingdom, while leaving the middle tier at 22 percent and the top tier at 15 percent on hammer prices above 8 million dollars.

Antiques Trade Gazette put a figure on the effect. On a work hammering at 1.5 million pounds, the fee charged to the buyer rose 13.5 percent, from 370,000 pounds to 420,000 pounds. The percentage on the card moved by one point, and the amount invoiced moved by 50,000 pounds.

The revision completed a retreat that had begun the previous year. Sotheby's simplified its structure in May 2024, cutting buyer's premiums to a flat 20 percent on almost all lots and imposing a 10 percent fee on works hammering above 6 million dollars, which shifted revenue onto consignors of valuable property. Antiques Trade Gazette reports that the house abandoned that structure the following February, and it raised the lower tier a year after that. Chief executive Charles Stewart described the original simplification as an effort to make the client experience more "transparent, simple and fair". When the house reversed course, Stewart said the shift "proved less attractive to potential sellers". Sotheby's declined to comment to The Art Newspaper on the February 2026 revision.

Priority Bidding: what a binding early bid buys at Phillips

Phillips took the opposite route at the lower tier, publishing the highest standard rate of the three and then discounting it for bidders who commit in advance. Priority Bidding is a written, binding bid placed no less than 48 hours before an auction opens, at or above the lot's published low estimate, submitted through the house's absentee bid forms. It is the one variable in an auction house buyer's premium comparison that the bidder controls.

The rate card effective 12 April 2026 sets the arithmetic out plainly. In New York the standard premium is 29 percent up to and including 2 million dollars, 22 percent on the portion to 8 million dollars, and 15 percent above. The Priority Bidding equivalents are 25 percent, 20 percent and 14 percent. London runs the same percentages against thresholds of 1.5 million and 6 million pounds, Paris against 1.75 million and 7 million euros.

Three conditions govern the discount, and each one costs the bidder something. The bid must be binding and cannot be cancelled. It must meet the low estimate, so the bidder gives up the option of opening below it. And the scheme is restricted to live auctions: Phillips states that timed online only auctions are subject to the standard rates and are not currently eligible for Priority Bidding. The benefit does survive competitive bidding, since a qualifying bidder keeps the lower rate even if the winning bid is placed live at a higher level.

Martin Wilson, chief executive of Phillips, described the mechanism as a strategic adjustment when it was announced, saying the aim was "encouraging early engagement in order to generate spirited bidding while also providing greater certainty for sellers".

Why an auction house buyer's premium comparison matters most below six figures

Read against the market data, the direction of these changes is uncomfortable for anyone buying at ordinary prices. The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026 recorded global sales of 59.6 billion dollars in 2025, up 4 percent, with combined public and private sales at auction houses rising 6 percent to 24.8 billion dollars and public auction sales alone rising 9 percent to 20.7 billion dollars. That recovery was concentrated at the top. All ten of the year's highest priced lots sold in New York, led by Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which reached 236 million dollars at Sotheby's. Those totals sit at the far end of the market from an ordinary lot, and what a record price actually tells you about the band beneath it is very little.

Growth at the high end did not translate into growth at the bottom. The report found that sales by contemporary art dealers were stagnant in 2025 while dealers in Old Masters grew 9 percent and those in Modern art 11 percent. The law firm Grossman LLP, reviewing the spring 2026 season, observed that segments below 250,000 dollars remained stagnant while the 1 million dollar and above segments grew, and read the tier adjustments as a way of raising revenue against that pattern.

The Art Newspaper reached the same conclusion in plainer terms: across the board, more buyers will be paying higher fees at the lower end of the houses' sales. Online sales moved in the same direction. Art Basel and UBS put online only sales at 9.2 billion dollars in 2025, their lowest level since 2019, with their share falling three points to 15 percent of the total market, and noted that auction house online only sales stayed concentrated at mid to lower price levels. Online only sales contracted in 2025 while the fees charged in that price band rose.

Beyond the premium: the charges that sit outside the rate card

Every rate card carries a line stating that the published percentages exclude local taxes. That line does a great deal of work, and it marks the point where a rate by rate auction house buyer's premium comparison stops being sufficient. Four charges routinely sit outside the premium, and none of them appears in a headline comparison.

1. Value added tax on the premium. Where VAT applies it is charged on the premium, and sometimes on the hammer, depending on the lot's tax status and the buyer's status. Phillips publishes the effect directly for London: where VAT is payable on the buyer's premium, the VAT inclusive standard rates are 34.8 percent, 26.4 percent and 18 percent, and the Priority Bidding equivalents are 30 percent, 24 percent and 16.8 percent.
2. The artist's resale right. Harmonised across the European Union by Directive 2001/84 of 27 September 2001, the resale right entitles an artist or their estate to a royalty on any resale of an original work involving an art market professional, for 70 years after the artist's death. The Max Planck Encyclopedia of European Private Law sets out the regressive scale: 4 percent on the portion of the price up to 50,000 euros, falling to 0.25 percent on the portion above 500,000 euros, with the total capped at 12,500 euros. The seller is the principal debtor under Article 1(4), and Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom have all legislated joint liability, so the charge can reach the buyer through the conditions of sale. The Design and Artists Copyright Society, which administers the right in the United Kingdom, states that it applies from 1,000 pounds and produces payments of 40 pounds to 12,500 pounds, and reports having helped artists and estates claim more than 144 million pounds since 2006.
3. Shipping, packing and insured transit. Rates depend on the medium, the crate and the route, and they are quoted separately from the sale.
4. Import duty and customs formalities. A cross border purchase can attract import VAT and duty on arrival, and the applicable treatment is set by the destination, not by the saleroom.

The lesson for a buyer is procedural. The conditions of sale, not the rate card, are the document that determines the invoice, and they are where the treatment of tax and the resale right is actually specified. The related question of how to pay for art after auction and read the results is settled in the same paperwork.

A worked example at a 20,000 euro hammer

The arithmetic below turns an auction house buyer's premium comparison into an invoice. Take a single contemporary work bought at 20,000 on the hammer in the sale's own currency, at the lower tier percentage of each published card, with tax and transport set aside for the moment.

At Christie's 27 percent, the premium is 5,400 and the invoice before tax is 25,400. At Sotheby's 28 percent, the premium is 5,600 and the invoice is 25,600. At the Phillips standard 29 percent, the premium is 5,800 and the invoice is 25,800. A qualifying Priority Bid at Phillips takes the rate to 25 percent, the premium to 5,000 and the invoice to 25,000. The spread across the four outcomes is 800 on a 20,000 hammer, or 4 percent of the bid.

Now add the London tax treatment. On a 20,000 pound hammer where VAT is payable on the premium, the Phillips VAT inclusive standard rate of 34.8 percent produces 6,960 pounds of premium, against 6,000 pounds at the Priority Bidding rate of 30 percent. The gap widens to 960 pounds, and the buyer who did not commit 48 hours early pays it. If the same lot were offered in a timed online only sale, the Priority Bidding rate would not be available at all, because the scheme is restricted to live auctions.

Four variables move the total independently: the rate, the tier, the tax treatment and the bidding channel. An auction house buyer's premium comparison that stops at the headline rate leaves a collector wrong by a fifth or more before the work has left the building.

Seven checks to run before you set a ceiling

An auction house buyer's premium comparison is only useful if it ends in a number you are willing to pay. These seven checks convert a rate card into that number.

1. Locate the tier boundary in the sale's currency. Thresholds differ by saleroom. The Phillips lower tier runs to 2 million dollars in New York, 1.5 million pounds in London and 1.75 million euros in Paris.
2. Confirm the premium is marginal rather than flat. All three houses apply each rate to the portion of the hammer within its band, so a lot near a boundary blends two rates.
3. Check whether the quoted rate includes tax. A London card quoting 34.8 percent and a New York card quoting 29 percent can describe the same underlying premium.
4. Read the bidding channel. Phillips applies standard rates to timed online only auctions and reserves Priority Bidding for live sales.
5. Establish the lot's tax status. VAT treatment differs between business and private buyers and between lots, and the conditions of sale state which applies.
6. Ask who is charged the artist's resale right. The right is owed on qualifying resales, and the conditions of sale specify how it is collected.
7. Price the transit before bidding. Packing, insured shipping and any import duty are quoted separately and land after the hammer.

Run those seven, then set the ceiling. The discipline of reading a catalogue before the sale to find the lots that matter is worth very little if the figure was built on the hammer alone.

FAQ: auction house buyer's premium comparison

How do I use an auction house buyer's premium comparison before I bid?

Start from the published rate card for the specific saleroom and sale format rather than from an aggregated table. Confirm the lower tier percentage, the currency threshold, whether tax is included in the quoted figure, and whether the sale is live or timed online. Then add the resale right and transit costs from the conditions of sale. The result is a total you can divide back into a maximum hammer bid.

Is the buyer's premium negotiable?

No. The buyer's premium is fixed and applies identically to every winning bidder in a given sale. Seller's commission is a separate matter and is frequently negotiated. The only published mechanism that changes what a buyer pays at a major house is Priority Bidding at Phillips, which lowers the rate by up to four points for binding bids placed at least 48 hours ahead of a live auction.

Does Priority Bidding apply to timed online sales at Phillips?

No. Phillips states that timed online only auctions are subject to the standard buyer's premium rates and are not currently eligible for Priority Bidding, which applies to live auctions across all categories excluding watches. A bidder in a timed online sale therefore pays the standard 29 percent lower tier rate, with no early commitment discount available.

Why did Sotheby's abandon its simplified 20 percent structure?

Sotheby's introduced a flat 20 percent premium in 2024 and recovered the lost revenue from consignors of high value works. Chief executive Charles Stewart said that shift "proved less attractive to potential sellers", and the house reversed course within a year. The February 2026 revision moved in the opposite direction, raising the lower tier rate to 28 percent and widening the band it covers.

What is the artist's resale right and who pays it?

The artist's resale right gives an artist or their estate a royalty when a qualifying work is resold through an art market professional, under Directive 2001/84 of 27 September 2001. The seller is the principal debtor, though the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Austria all provide for joint liability. The Design and Artists Copyright Society reports that in the United Kingdom the right applies from 1,000 pounds and produces payments of 40 pounds to 12,500 pounds.

How LLB Auction states its own fees

Set against the auction house buyer's premium comparison above, the LLB Auction position is a single rate. The house publishes one buyer's premium of 20 percent and one seller's commission of 10 percent, disclosed before the sale opens, with no further costs introduced at checkout. It runs timed online auctions of 7 to 14 days on its own platform, with lots typically between 800 and 50,000 euros, which is the band the 2025 and 2026 rate cards made more expensive elsewhere.

Intake. Roughly 40 percent of submissions are rejected. The threshold is applied to individual works, at the level of the object itself.

Due diligence. Every lot carries certificate verification, ownership history and conservation records, and a three page professional condition report accompanies the work. The condition report is the governing description.

Settlement. Fees are stated before bidding opens, shipping is coordinated worldwide, and post sale support runs through to delivery. Reading the art market without mistaking price for value is easier when the invoice holds no surprises.

To follow the sale calendar and see lots before they open, register at llb-auction.com.

Conclusion

The reset of 2025 and 2026 did not change what a buyer's premium is. It changed where the money is collected, and it collected more of it at the lower tier, in the same year the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026 recorded a recovery driven by the high end. For a collector working between 800 and 50,000 euros, the practical consequence is that the published percentage now varies by four points across the three major houses before tax, transit and the artist's resale right are counted at all. A working auction house buyer's premium comparison is therefore a habit rather than a table: read the card for the specific saleroom, read the conditions of sale for everything the card excludes, and set the ceiling against the total. Houses that publish a single rate and hold to it make that arithmetic shorter.

Also worth reading:

• After the sale: how to read results for what they actually mean
• Reading a catalogue before the sale: finding the lots that matter
• Reading the art market without mistaking price for value
• What a record price actually tells you, and what it hides

Sources:

• Sotheby's hikes buyer's premiums as auction houses test new fee structures : The Art Newspaper, Carlie Porterfield, 17 February 2026
• Sotheby's raises buyer's premium to 28% at the lower tier : Antiques Trade Gazette, Alex Capon, 18 February 2026
• Phillips Buyer's Premium Rates Effective 12 April 2026 : Phillips, 2026
• Priority Bidding 101 : Phillips, 2026
• Phillips reduces fees for early bidders at live auctions this autumn : Ocula, Elaine YJ Zheng, 2025
• Spring 2026 auction season: examining recent changes in buyer's premiums : Grossman LLP, 2026
• Seven trends shaping the global art market's recalibration : Art Basel and UBS, Dr. Clare McAndrew, 12 March 2026
• Artist's Resale Right : Design and Artists Copyright Society, 2026
• Artist's Resale Right (Droit de Suite) : Max Planck Encyclopedia of European Private Law, Clemens Trautmann, 2012
• When galleries go bust, artists and collectors can struggle to recover their works : The Art Newspaper, 24 August 2026