Which deductions are made from the income?

GEMA makes two types of deductions from revenue: deductions for social and cultural purposes, and deductions to cover administrative costs.

Deductions for social and cultural purposes:

For social and cultural purposes, 10 per cent is deducted from registration fees, membership fees and revenue from public performance. For International Category A (performance and public performance rights), no deduction is made for social and cultural purposes. Exception: In the online categories GOP, MOD D and MOD S, the deduction will be 1 per cent of the distribution for the 2023 financial year (distributions in 2024).

Deductions to cover GEMA’s administrative costs:

Administrative costs are covered by commission rates set by the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board: for online uses, we have allocated 10 per cent of revenue to this until the end of 2025. From 2026, GEMA will reduce the deduction for the categories MOD D, MOD D VR, MOD S, MOD S VR and GOP, GOP VR to 9 per cent. For VOD and WEB, the rate will remain at the familiar 10 per cent. Please refer to your detailed statements for the commission rates applicable to the reproduction and distribution categories.

In the International Category A (performance and broadcasting rights), 5 per cent was retained, and in the International Category A VR (reproduction rights), 2 per cent was retained until the end of 2025. 
Exception: A 0 per cent commission applied to sound recordings from Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Spain and the United Kingdom.

With effect from 1 January 2026, GEMA will reduce the commission on payments from abroad.

• No commission will be deducted in future from revenue from Austria, Switzerland, the USA and the UK.
• For France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, Japan and South Korea, the commission on foreign revenue will be reduced to two per cent.
• For all other countries, a deduction of six per cent will be applied.