# After the Hammer: What Art Buyers and Sellers Need to Know About Auction Fees

> Source: LLB Auction (https://www.llb-auction.com/insights/the-saleroom/how-auctions-work/after-the-hammer-invoicing-vat-customs-and-the-insured-journey-home)
> Author: LLB Auction
> Published: August 21, 2026

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A winning bid is not the end of the transaction. Understanding what art buyers and sellers need to know about auction fees starts the moment a lot is knocked down, because the hammer price is the first line of an invoice that also carries a buyer's premium, value added tax, an artist royalty in most of Europe, and the cost of moving the work home under insurance. On a 12,000 euro hammer at a house charging 20 percent, the sum transferred exceeds 15,000 euros once tax and transport are counted.

> **Key takeaways:**
> - The **buyer's premium** is added to the winning bidder's invoice and retained entirely by the house. Phillips charges 29 percent on the first tranche under its schedule effective 12 April 2026; LLB Auction charges 20 percent.
> - VAT falls on the premium in every European sale, and on the hammer price wherever the margin scheme no longer applies. Council Directive (EU) 2022/542 withdrew it for most lots from 1 January 2025.
> - The **Artist's Resale Right** is payable by the seller under Article 1(4) of Directive 2001/84/EC, at 4 percent on the first 50,000 euros of the sale price and capped at 12,500 euros. Each member state sets its own minimum sale price, which Article 3(2) caps at 3,000 euros.
> - Any lot leaving the customs territory of the European Union needs an export licence, under Regulation (EC) No 116/2009.

## Reading the invoice: the buyer's premium line, decoded

The **buyer's premium** is the percentage an auction house adds to the hammer price and collects from the winning bidder. The consignor receives no part of it, and unlike the seller's commission it is not negotiable. Phillips's schedule, effective 12 April 2026, sets 29 percent on hammer up to 1,750,000 euros in Paris and 1,500,000 pounds in London, stepping down to 22 percent and then 15 percent. Where VAT is due on that premium in London, the VAT inclusive rate reaches 34.8 percent, as the house sets out in [Phillips' Buyer's Premium Rates](https://dist.phillips.com/content/web/docs/forms/BuyersPremium.pdf).

| Invoice line | Charged on | Rate to expect |
| :- | :- | :- |
| Hammer price | The winning bid | Set by the bidding |
| Buyer's premium | Hammer price | 20% at LLB Auction; 29% at Phillips; 27% at Sotheby's to $1m |
| VAT | The premium, and the hammer where no margin scheme applies | 20% on the premium in the UK; 5.5% on art in France since January 2025 |
| Artist's Resale Right | Sale price net of tax, above the national threshold | 4% on the first €50,000, capped at €12,500 |
| Shipping and transit insurance | Declared value, size, route | €80 to €1,000 and above; cover at 1% to 2% of value |

Rates above are drawn from the Phillips schedule effective 12 April 2026 and from Artsy's November 2025 survey of auction fees.

## What art buyers and sellers need to know about auction fees, tier by tier

Consignors face a different ladder. Artsy reported in November 2025 that seller's commission usually runs between 5 and 10 percent, negotiated lot by lot, with reduced or waived rates on the high-value works houses compete for. Around it sit catalogue and photography charges, insurance in the house's custody at roughly 1 to 2 percent of the reserve, withdrawal fees, and a buy-in fee on the reserve when a lot fails to sell.

Trace one buyer's invoice for the arithmetic. Take a work hammered at 12,000 euros in a European Union sale, at a 20 percent buyer's premium and a 20 percent standard VAT rate on that premium, which is the position in France. The premium adds 2,400 euros, the VAT on it 480 euros, and the artist's resale royalty at 4 percent of the sale price a further 480 euros. The invoice closes at 15,360 euros before a crate is built, 28 percent above the figure on screen.

## VAT for EU and non-EU buyers after Directive 2022/542

Council Directive (EU) 2022/542 was adopted on 5 April 2022 and reshaped the market from 1 January 2025. The law firm Fieldfisher records that it made combining a reduced VAT rate on purchase with a margin mechanism on resale impossible, so most works are now sold with VAT on the full price rather than on the auctioneer's margin. Member states answered by cutting headline rates: France to 5.5 percent, Germany to 7 percent, Luxembourg to 8 percent, while Italy held at 22 percent.

Where the sale happens decides what the buyer pays. Barnebys notes that the United Kingdom kept its margin schemes and applies a reduced 5 percent import VAT rate to qualifying works brought in for sale, and that a buyer exporting outside the Union may reclaim VAT on the hammer price against proof of export while VAT on the premium stays unrecoverable. Aleksandra Ziemiszewska, head of contemporary day sales at Sotheby's London, put it plainly to Artsy: "There are different VAT obligations in each country, and whilst we cannot advise on import taxes, we can clarify what the VAT implications are for a work depending on where it is coming from." Every serious catalogue carries a symbol against each lot recording that treatment.

![A sealed plywood art shipping crate on a loading bay floor, strapped for international transit](https://renderings.laboetie.io/media/0LXegFSllBTQY9mChB67X/w2560)

## Customs and export documentation for a cross-border lot

Regulation (EC) No 116/2009, in application since 2 March 2009 as the codified successor to Regulation (EEC) No 3911/92, governs what leaves the customs territory of the European Union. An **export licence** must be presented when a cultural good in one of the categories of its Annex I is exported outside that territory. The competent national authority issues it, the licence is valid throughout the Union, and it must be lodged together with the export declaration at a customs office empowered to handle the formality. Member states may restrict how many of their offices carry that competence, and they are required to set penalties that are effective, proportionate and dissuasive. A standard licence covers one year; a specific open licence, used for repeated temporary export of a named work by its owner, runs up to five years.

Shipments to the United States follow separate rules. Convelio records that United States law charges no import VAT on art and that original paintings and sculptures usually fall under Chapter 97 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, left exempt by the 2025 tariff round. The **Incoterm** on the waybill decides who is billed: DAP leaves duties to the consignee, DDP folds them into one quoted price.

## Insured shipping, crating and the free-shipping incentive

Convelio prices international art shipping between 80 euros and beyond 1,000 euros depending on size, declared value and destination. Union Fine Art Services reports that a medium framed canvas of 30 by 24 inches ships domestically in the United States for 147 to 212 dollars including packing and declared value cover, that oversized or international shipments exceed 500 dollars, and that fine art transit insurance commonly runs at 1 to 2 percent of the work's value. Icham Harhouz, drivers and art handlers team lead at Convelio, observes that "two similarly sized pieces can have vastly different shipping costs because declared value directly impacts insurance rates, customs risk, and packing materials".

A free-shipping incentive is one of the few variables in what art buyers and sellers need to know about auction fees that moves in the buyer's favour. It covers packing, carriage and transit cover to a stated destination; it does not extinguish import VAT, customs duty or brokerage, which follow the goods regardless of who books the truck. Storage charges are billed once a buyer leaves a work uncollected past the grace period.

## FAQ: what art buyers and sellers need to know about auction fees

### What art buyers and sellers need to know about auction fees in a timed online sale?

The structure matches a saleroom, with one exception. Phillips's schedule effective 12 April 2026 applies its standard rates to live and timed online auctions alike, reserving its discounted Priority Bidding rates for live auctions only. A timed online buyer pays the standard percentage, plus VAT on that premium at the local rate.

### Is the buyer's premium negotiable?

No. Houses publish the premium in their conditions of sale and apply it uniformly to every winning bidder, which is why Artsy describes it as fixed while treating seller's commission as negotiable. The art advisor David Shapiro told Artsy in November 2025 that houses disclose the full charge structure on request. The rate does vary: 20 percent at LLB Auction against 29 percent on Phillips's first tranche.

### Who pays the Artist's Resale Right, the buyer or the seller?

Article 1(4) of Directive 2001/84/EC makes the royalty payable by the seller, while allowing member states to shift or share that liability with another art market professional involved in the sale. Several houses accordingly recover it from the buyer as a separate invoice line. The rate is 4 percent on the first 50,000 euros of the sale price, capped at 12,500 euros. Confirm the allocation before bidding.

### Can a non-EU buyer reclaim the VAT paid at a European auction?

Partly. Barnebys reports that a buyer exporting a work outside the European Union may recover VAT charged on the hammer price, provided the export is evidenced within the house's deadline through a stamped export declaration. VAT on the buyer's premium taxes a service supplied inside the Union and stays with the buyer.

## How LLB Auction settles the post-sale bill

**Disclosed fees.** A 20 percent buyer's premium and a 10 percent seller's commission, stated before a sale opens, with no catalogue, marketing or platform surcharge.

**Curated intake.** Roughly 40 percent of submitted works are refused, and every accepted lot carries a three-page condition report and a documented ownership history.

**Coordinated transport.** Worldwide shipping is arranged by the house and free on selected sales. The Contemporary Art Spring 2026 sale of 26 May 2026 ran 25 lots, of which 23 sold, for roughly 39,480 euros in gross hammer.

Register at llb-auction.com to receive the catalogue, the condition reports and the full fee schedule for each of the four sales committed in 2026.

## Conclusion

Post-sale cost is knowable in advance, and the houses publish almost all of it. What art buyers and sellers need to know about auction fees resolves into four documents: the conditions of sale, the lot page VAT symbol, the export licence for anything crossing the customs frontier, and the transport quotation with its declared value and Incoterm. Read those four before bidding, and the invoice that follows the hammer holds no surprises.

**Also worth reading:**

- [How a Timed Online Art Auction Actually Runs, Start to Settlement](/insights/the-saleroom/how-auctions-work)
- [From Catalogue to Crate: the Stages a Lot Passes Through](/insights/the-saleroom/how-auctions-work/from-catalogue-to-crate-the-stages-a-lot-passes-through)
- [The People Behind Every Lot, and What Each One Decides](/insights/the-saleroom/how-auctions-work/the-people-behind-every-lot-and-what-each-one-actually-decides)
- [Vente aux enchères d'art en ligne, étape par étape](/insights/the-saleroom/how-auctions-work/comment-se-deroule-une-vente-aux-encheres-d-art-en-ligne-etape-par-etape)

**Sources:**

- [Buyer's Premium Rates](https://dist.phillips.com/content/web/docs/forms/BuyersPremium.pdf) : Phillips, 2026
- [What Art Buyers and Sellers Need to Know About Auction Fees](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-buyers-sellers-auction-fees) : Artsy, 2025
- [Export of cultural goods](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM:cu0005) : EUR-Lex, 2017
- [Directive 2001/84/EC, resale right](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32001L0084) : EUR-Lex, 2001
- [VAT rates on art in Europe](https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/insights/vat-rates-on-art-europe-moves-forward-italy-stays-behind) : Fieldfisher, 2025
- [What it costs to ship art](https://www.convelio.com/en/blog/blogpost/art-shipping-cost-2025/) : Convelio, 2025
- [Art shipping costs and insurance](https://unionfas.com/ultimate-guide-to-art-shipping-costs-insurance-in-2025/) : Union Fine Art Services, 2025
- [What art buyers need to know about VAT](https://www.barnebys.com/blog/what-art-buyers-need-to-know-about-vat-in-2025) : Barnebys, 2025