Do You Get Paid When Your Art Is Resold? What Every Artist Should Know
7 June 2026 · 6 min read
You sell a painting for $2,000. The collector holds it for a decade. Your career grows. The work becomes sought after. Ten years later it sells at auction for $40,000. You see none of that $38,000 increase. The auction house takes their fee. The seller pockets the rest. You get nothing.
This is not a niche problem. It is how the entire traditional art world works.
What are resale royalties?
A resale royalty - also called droit de suite - is a percentage of the resale price paid to the original artist every time their work changes hands on the secondary market. If your painting sells at auction for $40,000 and a 10% resale royalty applies, you receive $4,000 regardless of who currently owns the work.
Where resale royalties exist legally
The European Union has had mandatory droit de suite since 2006. Australia has had the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Act since 2010, providing a 5% royalty on commercial resales over $1,000. The United States has no federal resale royalty law. Most of the rest of the world has limited or no legal protection.
Even where legislation exists, it typically covers only commercial resales above a threshold. Online platform resales are often in a legal grey area.
Why most platforms do not pay resale royalties
Because it is not required and reduces their margin. Platforms make money from new listings and new sales. The secondary market is someone else's transaction, and building infrastructure to return value to artists from those transactions costs money and returns nothing to the platform.
What Solene Haus does differently
Solene Haus has built resale royalties into the platform from the ground up. Every time a work changes hands within the platform, the original artist automatically receives a royalty. The paintings you sell now for $800 or $2,000 may be worth considerably more as your reputation builds. Without resale royalties, that appreciation goes entirely to collectors. With them, you participate in your own success even on work sold years ago.
How to protect your resale rights now
Even where no legal framework applies, artists can negotiate resale royalty clauses into their sale contracts directly. A clause stating that on any commercial resale above a threshold the seller will pay the artist a percentage is legally enforceable in most jurisdictions as a contract term. Most collectors who genuinely value your work will accept a reasonable clause.
Frequently asked questions
Do artists get paid when their art is resold
In most cases, no. Traditional art platforms and galleries do not pay resale royalties. Solene Haus is an exception: every time a work changes hands on the platform, the original artist automatically receives a resale royalty. In Australia, the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Act 2010 provides a 5% royalty on commercial resales over $1,000.
What is droit de suite
Droit de suite is the French term for an artist’s resale right — a percentage of the resale price paid to the original artist every time their work is sold on the secondary market. It is legally mandated across the European Union and in Australia, but not in the United States.
Which art platforms pay resale royalties
Solene Haus has built-in resale royalties on all platform sales. Most other major platforms — including Saatchi Art, Artfinder, and Etsy — do not pay resale royalties.
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