This September, Phillips will debut a new fee structure, a “first-of-its-kind buyer’s premium structure” featuring “priority bidding,” the auction house said in an announcement Tuesday.
Here’s how it will work: A binding written bid must be placed at least 48 hours before the auction’s start time and must be equal to or greater than the lot’s published low estimate. According to Phillips, the winning priority bid will benefit from a “significantly lower” buyer’s premium rate.
“We have a history of delivering positive results for our clients, evidenced by our 90 percent sell-through rate this spring,” Martin Wilson, Phillips chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Our aim now is to strengthen our position on this front by encouraging early engagement in order to generate spirited bidding while also providing greater certainty for sellers. Rewarding all buyers who commit early will create more momentum in the early stages of bidding and a compelling auction experience. We believe that this strategic adjustment will lead to a more vibrant auction experience and ultimately support better outcomes for both our sellers and bidders.”
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According to the press release, bidders placing a priority bid will benefit from the lower buyer’s premium rate whenever they place the successful bid—whether that winning bid is at the amount of their priority bid or a higher bid placed subsequently. The new bidding structure will apply to live auctions beginning this fall, and potentially to all categories moving forward.
The updated rates for New York sales are as follows: the new buyer’s premium is 29 percent for hammer prices up to and including $1 million; 22 percent for the portion above $1 million and up to $6 million; and 15 percent for the portion exceeding $6 million. Priority bidding rates, meanwhile, begin at 25 percent, decreasing to 20 percent and then to 14 percent for portions above $6 million.
Phillips also released updated buyer’s premium and priority bidding rates for upcoming sales in London, Hong Kong, Geneva (jewelry only), and Paris. Though hammer prices will be listed in local currency, they will correspond to approximately the same thresholds as the New York sales. The premium tiers—29/22/15 percent for standard rates and 25/20/14 percent for priority bids—will remain fixed across all these locations.
Watch auctions will continue to use the existing buyer’s premium rates. Timed online-only auctions will adopt the new standard rates but are not currently eligible for priority bidding.
Art advisor Dane Jensen told ARTnews on Tuesday that the new fees should have a limited impact. “This really is only applicable to more moderately priced lots, as usually the top lots have guarantees,” Jensen said.
The biggest advantage, he added, seems to go to the auction house, not collectors, as the structure gives specialists 48 hours to shop the bid around and solicit a higher bid. “It removes unpredictability from an auction, which strategically buyers want to work to their advantage. It will take a sophisticated buyer to make this work to their advantage, otherwise a bidder may inadvertently push the price up,” Jensen said.
The announcement follows the fee shake-up—and subsequent walk-back—by one of Phillips’s primary competitors: Sotheby’s.
In December 2024, Sotheby’s dropped the overhauled fee structure it introduced in May, reverting to its previous “bespoke” terms for sellers. Under its current system, the buyer’s premium ranges from 15 to 27 percent of the hammer price, depending on the work’s value. The now-scrapped model had capped the seller’s commission at 10 percent on the first $500,000 of a lot’s hammer price and waived it entirely for lots with low estimates above $5 million. Buyer’s premiums under that system were set at 20 percent up to $6 million, and 10 percent above.
At the time, Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart described the fee overhaul to ARTnews as a “smart disruption” and a sign of the art market’s increasing “maturity.”
On this, Jensen added: “You have to ask yourself who benefits from these changes. Is it the house or the buyer? Essentially, we’ve reached the point where no one wants to pay more or higher fees—they’re just too high and can, in some cases, be a deterrent to buyers. But if auction houses need to figure out ways to generate more revenue, they now need a new product that inspires more bidding rather than more fees.”
Correction, July 22, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated the deadline for priority bidding. They must be placed at least 48 hours before the sale, not eight hours before the sale.