Glossary · Royalties
BMI
BMI, Broadcast Music, Inc., is a US performing rights organization founded in 1939 that licenses public performance of compositions and pays performance royalties. Songwriter and composer affiliation is free; publisher affiliation costs $175 for an individual.
BMI is the largest US performing rights organization by affiliate count and, since a 2022 restructuring, operates as a for-profit company. It licenses the public performance of its affiliates' compositions to broadcasters, streaming services, venues and businesses, and distributes performance royalties to songwriters, composers and publishers.
The fees, from BMI's own FAQ pages retrieved August 2026, are the thing most often reported wrongly online:
| BMI account type | One-time fee |
|---|---|
| Songwriter / composer affiliation | $0 — free |
| Individual publisher | $175 |
| Publishing company that is a corporation (including sole-stockholder) or LLC | $250 |
| Publishing company that is a partnership | $500 |
BMI's exact wording is that "Although some performing rights organizations collect annual dues, BMI does not," and that there is "a one-time fee of $175 to affiliate an individual publisher, $250 as publishing company that is a corporation (including sole stockholder corporations) or LLC and $500 for a partnership." Those publisher fees are non-refundable and are not deducted from future earnings. Any page telling you BMI charges songwriters $75, or that a publisher account is $150, is out of date or wrong.
BMI also publishes a useful myth-buster: a new songwriter "will not need to set up a publishing company," and "Creating a publishing company will not mean that you receive more royalties." A publisher account changes who can be paid the publisher share, not how much the song earns.
The misunderstanding: BMI does not collect mechanical royalties, which go to The MLC, and does not collect the digital performance royalty on recordings, which goes to SoundExchange.
I check these fees at bmi.com rather than trusting blogs, and so should you.
Related terms
- ASCAPASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, is a US performing rights organization founded in 1914.
- PRO (performing rights organization)A performing rights organization licenses the public performance of musical compositions and collects performance royalties for…
- Publisher shareThe publisher share is the half of a composition's performance and mechanical royalties that belongs to the publisher of the…
- Performance royaltyA performance royalty is the money owed when a musical composition is performed publicly — on radio, on television, in a bar, at…
Answers that use this term
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- Where Does the Money From One Stream Actually Go?One stream of one song generates money in four separate places at once: the recording royalty (collected by your distributor)…
- ASCAP or BMI — Which PRO Should a Beginner Join?BMI is free for songwriters and ASCAP charges a $50 one-time processing fee, so BMI is the cheaper door for a beginner.
- Why Am I Only Getting Half My Performance Royalties?Because performance royalties are split into a songwriter share and a publisher share, roughly half each, and ASCAP and BMI pay…
Definitions on this site describe the United States system. I am an artist who has been through this, not a lawyer.
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