Performance royalties are paid to songwriters and publishers whenever a song is played in public: on the radio, on TV, in a bar or shop, at a gig, or on a streaming service. The Spotify royalty calculator estimates the songwriting money your streams earn, which includes this. You collect performance royalties through a collecting society, and only for songs you’ve registered with one.
Who collects them
Each country has its own society, and you join one:
- UK: PRS for Music
- US: ASCAP, BMI or SESAC
ASCAP is free for new writers, and BMI dropped its writer fee from 1 March 2025. SESAC is invitation-only. PRS charges a one-off £30 if you’re under 25. If you’re in the US and can’t decide, see ASCAP vs BMI.
Your society collects from venues, broadcasters and services, then splits the money between the writers and publishers of each song. The writer’s share is paid straight to you, so a publisher can’t sit on it.
Streaming
Every stream of a song earns songwriting money as well as recording money. Part of that songwriting money counts as a performance, collected by your society. The other part is a mechanical royalty, which goes through a different body. See mechanical royalties for that half.
Neither part is big. On a typical track, the song side is a fraction of what the recording earns, and it’s split between every writer.
Live shows: the money most artists miss
If you play your own songs live, you’re owed performance royalties, even at small gigs. Venues and promoters pay the societies a licence fee. The money only reaches you if someone tells the society what you played.
That means sending in your setlists. PRS members can report them online, and they have up to three years to claim live royalties (seven for classical music).
In 2025 the Guardian reported that PRS was holding unpaid live royalties for around 106,000 performances, mostly pop gigs at grassroots venues, because it couldn’t match setlists to songwriters. PRS disputes the findings. Either way, money that isn’t claimed in time goes back into the pot and gets shared out to everyone else, under the society’s own rules.
That’s how unclaimed money turns into black box royalties.
What to do
- Join one society.
- Register every song, with all co-writers and their shares.
- After each gig, send in the setlist. Keep a note of the date, venue and songs.
- Check your statements. If a show’s missing, chase it while you’re inside the claim window.
Next step
Run your streams through the songwriting section of the Spotify royalty calculator to see what the song side is worth. Then read music royalties for the other royalties you should be collecting, or browse our songwriting money guides.
Where these figures come from
- Pollstar: report says UK Performing Rights Society failed to pay out millions (22 Jul 2025)
- Hypebot: Which PRO is best for you? ASCAP vs BMI vs SESAC (23 Aug 2023)
- Music Business Worldwide: BMI launches Spark and drops writer application fees (13 Mar 2025)
- CISAC: PRS for Music reduces joining rate to £30 for under-25s (30 Mar 2023)
