Get your music registrations done for you

Mogul gets you 100% paid from your music.

Home Who it's for Partner Royalty Finder Pricing Login Get started

October 7, 2026

What the Mechanical Royalty Rate Is and How It Gets Paid

A songwriter who tells you they're "signed with ASCAP" or "registered with BMI" has taken care of one royalty type: performance royalties, paid when a song gets played publicly. That leaves a separate category untouched. Mechanical royalties pay for copying a song, not playing it, and they run through a completely different set of organizations. This is where a lot of songwriters lose money without realizing it, because Performance Rights Organization (PRO) membership feels like it should cover everything, and it doesn't.

The rate is 12.7 cents per track for physical copies and downloads in 2025, and 15.25% of a streaming service's revenue for on-demand streams.

What a Mechanical Royalty Actually Pays For

Mechanical royalties are payments owed to songwriters and music publishers each time a song is reproduced, whether that's a copy pressed to vinyl, a permanent download, or an on-demand stream. The trigger is the copy, not the play.

Performance royalties are a different thing entirely. They pay for a song being played publicly, on radio, in a venue, over a streaming service's non-interactive channels. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC collect performance royalties. They don't collect mechanical royalties, and this distinction is the source of a lot of confusion. A songwriter who registers with a PRO and assumes that registration covers every royalty type they're owed is leaving mechanical royalties uncollected, because that's simply not what a PRO does.

Statutory Rates for Physical Copies and Downloads

For physical sales and permanent downloads, the US mechanical rate is a flat amount set by the Copyright Royalty Board, the federal body responsible for setting these rates under a proceeding called Phonorecords. Under Phonorecords IV, the rate is 12.7 cents per track in 2025, rising to 13.1 cents in 2026. For tracks over five minutes, a per-minute rate applies instead of the flat per-track amount, currently 2.45 cents per minute in 2025. Ringtones carry their own separate flat rate of 24 cents per tone.

These numbers have moved slowly over the past century. The first US mechanical rate, set by the Copyright Act of 1909, was 2 cents per copy. That rate held for 67 years before the Copyright Act of 1976 raised it to 2.75 cents. Compared to that stretch, the current five-year Phonorecords cycle looks almost fast-moving, with incremental increases built in through 2026 and a cost-of-living adjustment scheduled for 2027.

How the Mechanical Royalty Rate Works for Streaming

Streaming works differently from physical and downloads. Instead of a flat per-track amount, streaming mechanical royalties are calculated as a percentage of a service's revenue, known as the headline rate. That rate is currently 15.25% in 2025 and scheduled to reach 15.35% by 2027, the highest it's ever been.

This percentage comes out of the same Phonorecords proceeding that sets the physical and download rates, with the Copyright Royalty Board required by law to set a fair market rate every five years. The current schedule came out of a settlement between the National Music Publishers' Association, the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and the Digital Media Association, announced specifically to avoid a courtroom fight over the numbers.

The previous cycle wasn't nearly as smooth. Phonorecords III raised the headline rate from 10.5% to 15.1%, and streaming services appealed the decision. The appeal ended with the rate affirmed and songwriters and publishers receiving back pay for the period the appeal had held up. The settlement that followed locked in that 15.1% rate as a floor and built in the increases through 2027, along with improvements to the underlying formula that determines how the percentage translates into an actual per-stream payout.

One detail worth knowing: performance royalties paid to PROs are deducted from the all-in pool before the mechanical payout is calculated. A songwriter's PRO collection and mechanical collection aren't stacked on top of each other without interaction. They come out of related revenue calculations, which is one more reason the two royalty types need to be tracked separately rather than assumed to be one combined payment.

Who Pays and Who Collects Mechanical Royalties

Payment responsibility and collection responsibility are two different jobs, handled by different parties depending on the format. A songwriter usually needs to be registered with more than one organization to actually receive what they're owed.

Labels and Streaming Services on the Paying Side

For physical sales and permanent downloads, the record label pays the mechanical royalty. For on-demand streaming, the digital service provider pays, with the amount calculated against the headline percentage of that service's revenue.

This payment obligation isn't limited to the original artist's recording. Section 115 of the Copyright Act creates a compulsory license: once a song has been recorded and released, another artist can record their own cover version without asking permission. They just have to pay the set statutory mechanical rate. That's part of why the rate needs to be a fixed, published number rather than something negotiated deal by deal.

Harry Fox Agency and the MLC on the Collecting Side

The Harry Fox Agency has licensed and collected mechanical royalties since 1927 and represents major music publishers, functioning as a long-running intermediary between labels and rights holders for physical and download mechanicals.

Streaming mechanicals run through a newer organization. The Mechanical Licensing Collective was created by the Music Modernization Act of 2018 and named by the US Copyright Office in 2019. It runs the blanket mechanical license for US on-demand streaming and downloads. Since starting operations in January 2021, the MLC has paid out more than $3 billion in mechanical royalties, and now has more than 68,000 members and a database of over 50 million songs. Its match rate, the share of royalties it successfully connects to a registered songwriter, sits near 92%. That leaves roughly 8% of streaming mechanical royalties going unmatched at any given time, waiting for the right songwriter to claim them.

Where Mechanical Royalty Payments Get Missed

The Mechanical Licensing Collective's coverage has real limits. It only covers US on-demand streaming and downloads. It doesn't collect mechanical royalties from YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook, global mechanical royalties from outside the US, or physical and sync royalties. A songwriter who registers with the MLC and assumes that registration covers every mechanical royalty they're owed, everywhere their music gets used, is working with an incomplete picture.

Bad metadata is one of the most common reasons a royalty payment never reaches the songwriter it belongs to. If the writer information, song title, or split percentages on file with the MLC don't match what a streaming platform reports, the payment can't be matched to the right person. It doesn't disappear exactly. It sits unmatched, which is part of that roughly 8% gap in the MLC's own numbers.

The PRO-versus-MLC confusion compounds this. A songwriter registered only with a PRO has performance royalties covered, but streaming mechanical royalties require a separate registration, either directly with the MLC or through a publishing administrator who registers on the songwriter's behalf. Treating the two as one registration is a common gap Mogul looks for when helping artists and songwriters trace where their royalties are actually landing.

What a Songwriter Can Check on Their Own Registrations

Start by confirming which royalty types are actually being collected under your name. A PRO registration, ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, handles performance royalties. A separate MLC registration, or a publishing administrator acting on your behalf, handles streaming mechanical royalties. These aren't interchangeable, and having one doesn't mean the other is in place.

From there, check the metadata on file against what's actually showing up on platforms. Writer splits, song titles, and songwriter names all need to match what streaming services report. A mismatch, even a minor spelling difference or an outdated split, is enough to keep a payment from matching to the right person.

It's also worth knowing what share of the mechanical royalty should be arriving in the first place. A standard publishing deal guarantees a writer's share of at least 50%, though some deals give the songwriter more. A self-published songwriter, someone serving as their own publisher, can receive up to 100% of the mechanical royalty. Knowing which arrangement applies to your catalog tells you what percentage should actually be showing up when a mechanical royalty payment lands.

This is the kind of registration and metadata check Mogul's Royalty Finder runs for artists and songwriters, checking PRO, MLC, and SoundExchange registrations for gaps and mismatches so more of what's owed actually gets paid rather than sitting unmatched.

‍

Know an artist who should read this?

Take Hold of your

Royalties & Registrations

Make sure you are getting paid 100%

Related Posts

October 13, 2026

Where Self Music Publishing Costs Songwriters Money

October 12, 2026

What the Mechanical Royalty Rate Is and How It Gets Paid

October 9, 2026

Statutory Mechanical Royalty Rate History and Current Figures

October 8, 2026

Do Producers Get Royalties and Which Ones Actually Pay

October 7, 2026

How Do Producers Get Paid From Streaming and What the Rates Look Like

September 24, 2026

How Music Metadata Errors Quietly Stop Your Payments

Home Who's it for?Pricing Partners Log In

Terms of Service Privacy Policy info@usemogul.com Blog Help Center

© 2025 Mogul. All Rights Reserved.