Royalties and payments for UK Office Agreements

Please note: The UK Royalties Department manages royalties for authors who have signed publishing agreements with Oxford University Press (OUP)’s UK office. Authors whose publishing agreements originated with other OUP offices should visit the US Royalties or Canadian Royalties pages.

If you do not find the answer to your question relating to UK royalties below, please contact the UK Royalties Department.

Standard payment terms

The OUP policy is for royalty payments to be made by direct deposit to bank accounts. Payment by cheque is not possible. Most of our authors receive their royalty payments twice per year: refer to your contract for payment terms. There are a small number of author agreements with non-standard terms providing for monthly payments.

Advances

Advances will be paid according to your publishing contract. When your title is published and starts earning royalties, these royalties will be deducted from the advance that you have already been paid, and any unearned balance of your advance will be shown clearly in your royalty statement. Once the total value of the advance has been earned, you will begin to receive royalty payments.

Sales figures

For information on sales figures for your book(s), please contact your editor directly. Sales fluctuate, so past performance should not be used as an indicator of anticipated royalty earnings.

Royalty statements

For security reasons, we do not routinely send royalty statements via email. All authors will receive their royalty statements by surface mail. Additional electronic versions are available in PDF format upon request.

• Royalty period October to March: Your royalty earnings are calculated on royalty sales made between October 1st and March 31st. Please note that you’ll only receive a royalty payment if the total amount is above the minimum payment level on your royalty account. When the threshold is not reached, all royalties due will be carried forward to the following statement. If you qualify for a July payment, you should receive your payment and statement by July 31st.
• Royalty period April to September: Your royalty earnings are calculated on royalty sales made between April 1st and September 30th. A royalty payment will not be made to you if the amount due is below the minimum payment level on your royalty account but will be carried forward to the following statement. Contractually payment is due by the end of January. Historically the Press have paid some authors in December, if you qualify for a December payment, we aim to get your payment to you shortly before Christmas. If you are paid into a US bank account, we will make a payment before 31st January. Please allow a few extra days for a statement to be delivered to account for any postage delays before contacting us

You will receive your royalty statement even if you do not receive a payment, unless your account is ‘on hold’ for any of the following reasons:

• All your titles are out of print
• You have not informed the Royalties Team of a change of postal or email address
• A previous royalty statement or payment has been returned to us

If your royalty statement has not arrived, please contact the UK Royalties Department. Please note that delivery times can vary due to postal delays, so allow a few extra days for delivery before contacting us.

Upon request, the Royalties Department can provide such information as the amount of an upcoming or past payment and total payments over a tax year. For more information, please refer to our Royalty Statement Guide.

Designated bank account

As the contracted party, you specify the bank account where OUP will deliver your payment as required by the UK Criminal Finances Act 2017. If you have any questions, please contact your editor.

To arrange for royalty payments to be made directly into a different bank account, please complete the bank form and send to the Royalty Department. For security reasons, we can’t make any changes to your account with bank details conveyed by telephone.

If you suspect that a payment may have been deposited to the wrong account, we ask that you first consult your bank because it may be possible to redirect the payment to the correct account, especially if it is held by the same bank. Before we can re-issue a payment, we must have confirmation from our bank that a payment has been rejected and returned. OUP is not responsible for misdirected payments if authors fail to notify us of changes to bank account details.

Delaying payments

Unfortunately, we can’t delay your royalty payment to help you defer tax liability. You may apply for a refund of any UK tax deducted by contacting HM Revenue & Custom.

Changes of address

If you wish to change your correspondence address, please contact the UK Royalties Department. For security reasons, we can’t make any changes to your address details conveyed by telephone.

Deceased authors

Estate representatives of a deceased author should contact the UK Royalties Department for the list of the documentation we require to set up a redirection of royalty payments.

Income tax / withholding tax

If you are a tax resident of the UK: In most cases OUP is not required to deduct UK income/withholding tax on payments to UK companies and individuals who are UK tax residents.

If you are not a tax resident of the UK: UK income/withholding tax will be deducted from royalties on UK sales only if you are:

• not a UK tax resident and NOT the copyright creator (you have assigned or inherited rights from the original author)
• a company (not an individual)

When UK income tax/withholding tax has been deducted from your royalties, this information will be evident on your remittance advice and your statement will include a certificate of tax deduction. All royalty income should be reported as required by local tax regulations. If you are in doubt, please contact your local tax authority for advice.

Claiming tax relief

If UK law requires that we deduct UK income/withholding tax, and you are resident in a country that has a tax treaty with the UK, you may be entitled to a reduced withholding rate under the treaty. To apply for this relief, you must complete an application form, submit it first to your local tax office for certification of your tax residence, and then to HM Revenue & Customs. Application forms are available for downloading from the Double Taxation: Treaty Relief (Form DT-Individual)’ and ‘Double Taxation relief for companies as appropriate’, on the gov.uk website. Our Royalties Department can’t help you with completing the forms but encourage you to contact HM Revenue & Customs directly if you need assistance.

If treaty relief is granted, HM Revenue & Customs will provide us with a reference number and certificate for you. The certificate covers all titles on which you are paid OUP royalties. Relief is usually granted for an indefinite period (subject to your continued tax declaration of your royalty income in a treaty eligible country). There are sometimes exceptions in which the period is limited. In those cases, you must re-apply for relief when the certificate expires.

Reclaiming tax

If UK income/withholding tax has been deducted from your royalty payment, a Certificate of Deduction of UK income/withholding tax will be enclosed with your statement that you can use to reclaim some or all of that from the country where you reside, if they have a treaty with the UK. To make the claim you will need to complete and send the relevant form to HM Revenue & Customs; forms and instructions can be found on the UK’s gov.uk website at ‘Double Taxation: Treaty Relief (Form DT-Individual)’ or ‘Double Taxation relief for companies as appropriate’. The steps will vary depending on whether you are a company or individual, and where you are resident for tax purposes. OUP cannot refund any UK income tax deducted from your royalties.

One application for relief covers all of your OUP titles but you cannot use the same tax relief reference number for two different publishers. You will need to make a separate relief application for any titles you have published with another company.

If you move to a different country

If you have become resident in another country, you will need to make a new application for treaty relief–even if that country also has a tax treaty with the UK. Please let us know if you are planning a move, otherwise we will assume your tax status has changed and may have to deduct UK income tax from your payment. In some instances, the level of UK income tax that OUP is required to withhold from your payment may change, depending on your new country of residence. If your new country requires that you report your royalty income, we will have to deposit your payment into a bank account in that country. New banking information should be sent to the UK Royalties Department by completing this form.

Tax ID Numbers (for US residents only)

OUP is obliged to supply a 1099 form with the total amount we have paid authors who are US residents for each calendar year to you and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). To set up this process, you will need to complete a W-9 form with your tax identification or Social Security number. We cannot make a payment to you until we have received your completed W-9 form by email.

UK VAT

Your OUP royalty statement acts as self-billing invoice and will show the net amount of royalties paid and any associated VAT amount. VAT is calculated on your gross royalty earnings regardless of their origin. Please notify us if you register for VAT by sending us your VAT registration number. Once we have received the VAT number we will apply UK VAT to all payments we make to you until the expiry of your VAT self-billing agreement. Please note that you are responsible for paying the VAT charged to HM Revenue & Customs in your own VAT returns. If you have de-registered for VAT it is your responsibility, under the terms of the self-billing agreement, to inform us in writing immediately. If you are VAT registered but VAT was not added to your royalty statement, you should contact the UK Royalties Department by email immediately with an invoice for the VAT amount due to you. We will then make this VAT payment to you.

Understanding your royalty statement

Remittance advice

This section shows the amount OUP is paying you for the relevant accounting period, indicating the value of royalties from the statement summary (see below), deductions for any books supplied to you, withholding tax (if applicable), and details of any returned payments from earlier periods (e.g. if the bank account OUP paid into was closed).

Account Number

This is an internal reference number unique to your account. Please use this when contacting OUP so that we can quickly trace your payment details.

Royalty statement

Your royalty statement comes in two parts – summary and detail. Each is explained separately below. Your statement is further broken down by contracts – these refer to specific author contract(s) you have with OUP. One contract may cover different formats of the same book and earnings from rights licensing.

Please note: on each set of royalty statements, we include a contract on the statement only if its products had sales or returns in the current accounting period, or if there were negative amounts carried forward from previous royalty periods (money still owing to OUP). If you have a contract with a negative balance owing, you will see zeros on the Statement Summary. You can find details of the exact amount still owing (if applicable) on the Statement Detail pages.

Statement summary

This is a summary of the royalty amount OUP is paying to you for the relevant period.

Period

This shows the accounting period covered by the statement.

Royalties this period

‘Total payable this period’ is the amount that will show on the remittance advice (see above). VAT will be shown here, if applicable.

Summary

The amount due to you is shown, broken down by contract, each assigned a unique Reference number that should be used in correspondence with OUP. The individual works covered by each contract are described.

Statement detail

This section provides detail on how your payable royalties have been calculated. The detailed calculations behind each contract’s ‘amount due’ can be found here.

• Recouped refers to negative amounts from advances, costs, or returns in previous accounting periods which have been deducted from your earnings in this period.
• Carried forward refers to negative amounts from returns incurred in the current period, which are shown here for information only–these amounts are NOT included in the Total payable this period. These amounts will be recouped from your earnings in future accounting periods.

If there are several contracts, these are divided by a grey line showing the title description. These titles are grouped by contract and show a ‘Subtotal’ for each title, matching the figures on the summary. There is a black line showing the contract reference number and the ‘Total’ amount due for all titles on that contract.

Detail by title

• Name and ISBN: Title and identifier of the published work
• Format: Published format(s)
• Pub Date: Publication date, by specified format
• Life Sales: Total quantity sold to date (not just in this statement period), specified by edition and format
• Market/Channel: Territories where sold
• Basis: Basis for calculating royalties (e.g. NR=Net Receipts)
• Net Qty: Quantity sold during current period
• Base Value: Value realized in the period on which you are entitled to royalties
• Rate: Percentage rate for calculation of royalties, as specified in your contract
• Royalty: Royalty payment due in that market (equals percentage rate of Base Value, unless on a per copy basis). There may be more than one rate shown if rising rates apply – please see your contract for more information
• Subsidiary income royalties [if relevant]
  • Type: Licensing rights type granted
  • Customer: Customer to whom we have granted licensing rights
  • Base Value: Sum received from the customer
  • Rate: % rate for calculation of subsidiary (rights licensing) income
  • Royalty: Royalty payable for rights type
  • Subtotal by title
• Subtotal: Royalties earned across all markets for a specific title. This total is transferred to the Statement summary
• Advances/costs/returns recouped (if relevant): Negative amount from advances, costs, or returns incurred in this or earlier periods that are deducted from earnings this period
• Returns carried forward (if relevant): Indicates any remaining negative amount arising from returns in this period to be carried forward to future periods
• Total payable this period: Total payable per contract
• Advances/costs/returns still to be recouped (if relevant): Total of any advances, costs, or negative royalties (from returns) owed to OUP that have been incurred