The ten per cent is four different things, and they bind different people
Every page in this search prints the same number as though it were one rule. It is four, they come from four places, and which one applies to you depends on where you live and whether your agent is franchised.
Start with the one that surprises people. California’s Talent Agencies Act contains no percentage anywhere in it.
The Act is long and serious. It licenses agencies, bonds them, controls their contract forms and polices their trust accounts. It simply never says how much they may charge.
Where the ten per cent actually comes fromFour sources, read on 8 September 2026
New YorkGeneral Business Law section 185(8)
Statute
A hard ceiling of ten per cent of the compensation for a single engagement, on every licensed theatrical employment agency in the state. Twenty per cent is allowed only for orchestras, opera and concert work.
CaliforniaLabor Code section 1700 onward
No cap
The Act requires a filed and posted fee schedule and approval of the contract form. It names no percentage at all, so as a matter of statute an agent may ask for more.
Union franchiseSAG Rule 16(g), section XI
Ten per cent
No contract may specify a higher rate, and a second clause blocks charging separately for publicity, photography or coaching to get around it. Binding only on agencies that hold a franchise.
The approved contract formThe agents’ own general services agreement
Ten per cent
The form most large agencies now use also says ten. It binds you as a contract rather than as a rule, and its other terms are much wider than the union’s. See the section below.
Actors’ EquityStill franchising nationally
Ten per cent
And more protective on expenses than either. Equity’s minimum per diem and out of town expense are not commissionable at all, only the amount above the minimum.
Everywhere elseMost of the country
Custom
Around forty states have no talent agency licence requirement of any kind. In Atlanta, New Orleans and Albuquerque the union franchise is the only constraint there is.
Why a union is allowed to cap what a private business charges, which is a real legal question with a real answer.
It was decided by the Supreme Court in 1981, in a case brought by agents against Actors’ Equity. The franchise system and its commission limits were held exempt from antitrust law under the statutory labour exemption.
The reasoning matters. Agents count as a labour group because of their economic relationship to members’ wages, and the rules were necessary to assure that scale wages will be paid.
The same case struck down something else. Equity’s franchise fees charged to agents were held not exempt, because the justification for them was inadequate.
So the practical instruction is not to memorize a number. It is to establish which of those four regimes you are standing in.
In New York the answer is simple and statutory. Anywhere else it depends on a franchise you have to go and check.
New York is the only place the ten per cent is genuinely the law
This is worth its own section because it changes what you can do about a problem, and because not one page we read draws the distinction.
The New York cap sits in the General Business Law and it is not subtle. For a theatrical engagement the gross fee may not exceed ten per cent of the compensation.
Gross fee means the total charge before any deductions. An agency may not require or accept a deposit or advance fee, and excess or unlawful fees must be returned within seven days.
What New York requires that California does notRead on 8 September 2026
The commission capSection 185(8)
Ten per cent
Per engagement, as a gross fee. Twenty per cent applies only to orchestras, opera and concert engagements, which is not most actors.
Who issues the licenceA point people get wrong
Either
The state Commissioner of Labor, except in New York City, where the consumer protection department issues it instead. City licensing substitutes for state licensing rather than adding to it.
BondSection 177
$5,000
Rising to $10,000 for modelling agencies. California requires ten times as much at $50,000, which is one of the few places California is stricter.
Operating unlicensedSection 190
Misdemeanour
A fine of up to $2,500 per violation, up to a year in jail, or both. In California, failing to obtain a licence is expressly not a criminal act.
The manager loopholeSection 171(8)
Exists here
A business that only incidentally involves seeking employment falls outside the definition. California has no such exception, which is the single biggest difference for managers.
What the city bans outrightConsumer protection rules
Listed
Registration fees, headshot or photograph charges, uniforms, setting up interviews, résumé review, training, and publications. The written contract must carry the licence number and the gross commission.
There is a second New York statute worth knowing, because the Attorney General enforces it. It is unlawful to hold yourself out as an agent, manager or casting director and take any advance payment from the public.
The only things such a person may lawfully take are repayment of expenses actually incurred and commission on money the artist actually receives. That is the whole permitted list.
What broke in 2002, and why it still matters to you
One page in thirty mentions this and gets the date wrong. It is the reason the union’s rulebook and your actual contract may have nothing to do with each other.
Screen Actors Guild adopted agency regulations in 1939 and franchised agents under them for sixty years. Rule 16(g) ran to more than eighty pages of protections, including a cap on how much of a production company an agency could own.
Around 2000 the agents asked to raise that cap. Talks widened, and their opening position went a great deal further. In 2002 the members voted the negotiated replacement down.
The agents’ association then terminated the existing agreement. Every one of its member agencies became unfranchised for Guild purposes overnight, and no replacement has been agreed since.
The union contract against the form that replaced itFrom a specimen of the approved agency form
The rateBoth documents
Ten per cent
This is the part that did not change, which is why almost nobody noticed anything had. Everything below it changed.
What gets commissionedThe biggest difference
Everything
The union rules tie commission to work the agent procured and exclude scale in some regions. The replacement form takes ten per cent of gross regardless of who procures the work, with no scale carve out and no itemised exclusions.
The tail after you leavePost term commission
Very long
Commission on engagements accepted within four months of the end, plus commission for as long as anything recorded during the term is used, sold or leased. That is close to perpetual on exploitation.
TermInitial length
Two years
Against one year under the Guild rules, or eighteen months under the legacy television and radio rules.
Separate contracts by fieldA union requirement
Not replicated
Union rules demand separate forms for theatrical and for commercials. The replacement form makes the agency your sole and exclusive representative throughout the world in all fields.
How fast you get paidForwarding deadline
3 to 7 days
Union rules require money to be paid over in three business days, five for commercials, seven for out of state cheques. California statute allows thirty days.
What this means when you are choosing, and it is genuinely a live question.
The union still runs a franchise programme, still publishes commission charts under it, and still maintains a searchable list of franchised agencies with a warning attached.
The warning is worth quoting the sense of. If your agency appears only under the legacy television and radio heading, it may attempt to offer you a contract that does not conform.
The union also says plainly that agencies operating outside the franchises are not under its jurisdiction, and that a state licence is not union approval. In three cities members are required to use franchised agents.
What an agent may actually take a cut of
This is the most useful material in the whole subject and it is almost entirely unused. The union publishes itemised lists, and five of thirty pages attempt any version of them.
The organising principle is clean once you see it. Compensation for your services is commissionable. Reimbursement of your costs and penalties for the employer’s breach are not.
The union’s own itemised listsPage last updated 20 October 2025
CommissionablePayment for working
Yes
Session fees, regular pay, rehearsal, overtime, night premiums, weekend premiums, holiday pay, travel time, fitting fees, interview fees, third callback payments, looping, dubbing, stunt adjustments, holding fees, cancellation fees, wet pay, hazard pay, billboards, clip reuse, location pay.
Not commissionableGetting your costs back
No
Per diem, meal allowances, mileage, travel allowances, living expenses, relocation, wardrobe allowances, prop allowances and general reimbursements. A testing stipend is named specifically as not commissionable.
Not commissionableThe employer got it wrong
No
Meal penalties, forced call, late payment penalties, rest period violation penalties and turnaround pay. These are compensation for a breach rather than for your work.
The distinction to hold ontoTwo pairs that look alike
Watch these
Travel time is commissionable and travel allowance is not. Location pay is commissionable and per diem is not. The words are close and the answers are opposite.
Los Angeles theatrical at scaleThe under-reported rule
Nothing
In Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Washington and Hawaii, television and theatrical original compensation is not commissionable at scale at all. The agent has to have negotiated above scale to earn anything.
CommercialsThe exception
Yes
Commissionable at scale in every region, for principals. Background performers on commercials are excluded under the legacy television and radio rules.
ResidualsThe most misunderstood line
It depends
Network primetime reruns are commissionable if the original job was overscale. Streaming residuals only on the initial release platform and only if the original was overscale. Theatrical and foreign are generally not commissionable in the Los Angeles region.
Scale plus ten, which means two different things, and every page we read conflates them.
The first meaning is the union one. Because bare scale is not commissionable for Los Angeles theatrical work, the agent must negotiate you above scale to be owed anything at all. Scale plus ten is the smallest deal that achieves it.
The second is a budgeting convention. The production pays a hundred and ten per cent of scale, you pay ten per cent of what you receive, and you end up with ninety-nine per cent of scale with the difference effectively borne by the production.
Who really pays is the part that gets muddled. The commission is always legally yours, deducted from what you receive. Scale plus ten is a negotiated uplift to your gross that shifts the cost in practice. There is no automatic entitlement to it.
One more trap sits inside this, and the union has published a warning about it. Getting scale plus ten on the session does not by itself make your residuals commissionable.
For some categories the agent must have negotiated the residuals above minimum, not merely the session fee. Overscale initial compensation does not equal overscale residuals.
A worked example, because the numbers are small and the principle is not.
One on camera commercial session day in Los Angeles at scale, with a franchised agent. Session fee $855.20, per diem $75, one meal penalty of $25, mileage $40. The agent is owed $85.52, not $99.52.
An agent commissioning the whole $995.20 would be taking fourteen dollars it is not entitled to. Once across a year of bookings, that is nothing. Every time, it is not.
The same actor on a Los Angeles theatrical day at bare scale owes nothing at all. If the agent negotiated scale plus ten, the fee is $141.13 and you net slightly under bare scale, with an agent who has earned it.
What an agent may never charge you for
There is one bright line in this whole subject and it is worth learning properly, because in California crossing it is a crime with treble damages attached.
The line is the direction the money travels. Money should only ever flow from the job to you, with the agent’s cut deducted from earnings you have actually received.
Anything charged before you earn, or apart from what you earn, is the advance fee line. Paying to get a job is the single reliable marker of a scam.
The prohibitions, and what happens when they are brokenStatute and union rule
Registration feesCalifornia section 1700.40
Banned
No talent agency shall collect a registration fee. If a fee was taken and the work or the payment does not materialise, it must be repaid on demand, and if not repaid within 48 hours the agency owes you the same sum again.
Self dealing referralsCalifornia section 1700.40
Banned
No referring you to a photographer or coach the agency has a financial interest in, and no taking referral fees from them. The union adds that if an agent suggests one, you should be given a list of several.
Advance fee representationCalifornia section 1702
Illegal outright
Nobody may own, operate or act as an advance fee talent representation service, or advertise for one or knowingly refer anybody to one.
Charging for an auditionCalifornia section 1703.4
Banned
A talent service may not charge or attempt to charge for an audition or an employment opportunity, nor require you to pay for photographs or promotional materials.
The penaltiesCalifornia sections 1704 onward
Criminal
A wilful violation is a misdemeanour carrying up to a year in county jail and a fine to $10,000, with restitution to the artist taking precedence over the fine. Civil damages are not less than three times what you paid, plus costs.
The 2009 statute in fullThe scam prevention act
In force
Effective 1 January 2010. It splits the world in two: counselling, listing and training services are legal but heavily regulated, with a $50,000 bond and a ten business day cancellation right. Advance fee representation is flatly illegal.
New YorkTwo separate statutes
Banned
No deposit or advance fee under the General Business Law, and no advance payment of any nature under the arts law, which the Attorney General enforces with injunctions and restitution.
An asymmetry worth knowing, because it tells you which rule has teeth.
Operating an unlicensed talent agency in California is expressly not a criminal act, and the statute says so in terms.
Operating an advance fee talent representation service is a misdemeanour with treble civil damages. The scam statute bites much harder than the licensing statute.
The practical consequence is that the strongest weapon you have is usually not that somebody lacked a licence. It is that they took your money before you earned any.
The pay to meet casting workshop question sits here too, and it has been tested. A Los Angeles City Attorney prosecution running from 2016 to 2017 brought charges against more than two dozen defendants.
Most pleaded, one was convicted by a jury, and sentences included probation, community service and bars on operating talent training services. The sector reportedly went from four hundred and fifty sessions a month to a fraction of that.
Managers, and the licence they do not have
The rate difference is the least interesting part. The legally material fact is that in California a manager who gets you work is very likely acting as an unlicensed agent.
Take the rates first. The union’s own guidance says agents are generally limited to ten per cent and managers generally charge ten to fifteen.
The customary fifteen is a defensible generalisation. It is also just custom. Manager commissions fall outside union regulation entirely and are capped nowhere we could find.
The stack, and what actually constrains each rateCustomary figures
AgentLicensed and franchisable
10%
Statutory cap in New York, union cap under a franchise, and custom everywhere else.
ManagerUnlicensed everywhere
10 to 15%
Uncapped in every jurisdiction we checked. The title provides no protection and no obligation.
AttorneyPercentage fee
5%
Uncapped, but exposed. A five per cent fee agreement was declared illegal, void and unenforceable where an attorney negotiated employment, because the licensing statute contains no exemption for lawyers.
Business managerPercentage fee
5%
Uncapped and unlicensed. In one case a business manager taking ten per cent lost on the licensing point regardless of the job title.
The totalIf you have all four
30 to 35%
Of gross, before union dues, taxes and any other deduction. Commission is normally calculated on gross, so the stack bites before anything else does.
Now the licensing problem, which is the real subject. California defines a talent agency by conduct rather than by job title.
Anyone who procures, offers, promises or attempts to procure employment for an artist is one. The California Supreme Court has said so in exactly those terms.
The case an actor should know the name of, and what it actually decided.
In 2008 the California Supreme Court held that the Act uses a functional rather than a titular definition. Any person who procures employment is a talent agency subject to regulation, whether an individual, a corporation or a manager.
There is no incidental exception in California. Even occasional procurement requires a licence, which is a rule New York does not have.
But the court also allowed severability. The unlawful procurement can be cut out and the lawful management left standing, so a manager does not automatically forfeit everything.
What that means if you are trying to get money back, stated plainly.
The forum is the Labor Commissioner rather than a court, and it has exclusive original jurisdiction. The clock for recovering money is one year.
A 2026 determination shows the cost of missing it. An actor sought disgorgement from an unlicensed manager and the Commissioner never reached the procurement question, because the relationship had ended more than a year before filing.
Defensively the clock is different. If the manager sues you for unpaid commission you may raise unlicensed procurement whenever, because statutes of limitation are shields rather than swords. The honest summary is that this law is a strong shield and a weak sword.
The terms to read, with the numbers nobody publishes
Two of thirty pages mention the out clause and none gives the day counts. They are specific, they are published, and they are the most useful thing in the contract.
Take the exit first, because it is the term you will actually need. Under the Guild television and theatrical contract you may terminate after 120 days without an offer of employment.
Once you are working the test changes. You may leave where 151 days or more have elapsed, or afterwards for lack of ten days of paid work in the preceding 91 days.
The contract terms, with their actual numbersFrom the union’s own published rules
Out clause, theatricalGuild contract
120 days
Without an offer of employment on an initial contract. Then 151 days, or ten days of paid work in the preceding 91.
Out clause, commercialsGuild contract
$4,000
Same 120 and 151 day tests, but the earnings test is failure to earn $4,000 including residuals in the preceding 91 days.
Out clause, legacy television and radioA ceiling on your right to leave
Blocked
Ten days of employment in 91 as above, but you cannot terminate if you earned $25,000 or more over 182 days, or $20,000 in the radio, television and sound recording fields.
Term lengthInitial contract
1 year
Three years only where the agent has already represented you for the preceding eight months. Legacy television and radio allows eighteen months. The replacement industry form runs two years.
Separate agents by fieldWhy this is possible
Union rule
The Guild rules require separate contract forms for theatrical and for commercials and forbid combining fields. This is a union rule and not a statute, and the replacement form does not reproduce it.
Print workWorth knowing
No jurisdiction
Print sits outside union jurisdiction entirely. An agent representing you for print operates with no union rules over them at all.
Money reaching youTrust account
3 days
Three business days under union rules, five for commercials, seven for out of state cheques. California statute allows thirty days, with interest and your legal costs if the failure was wilful.
Residuals paid to you directlyYour obligation
10 days
Unless you have authorised the agent in writing to receive them, you must calculate and pay the commission yourself within ten business days.
Terminating is a letter rather than a conversation, and the union publishes a form for it. Send the original to the agency and a copy to the union, in a way that gives you proof of receipt.
One term deserves a specific warning. A sunset clause, meaning a post term percentage that declines over a few years, is a negotiated term and not a rule anywhere.
Nothing entitles you to one. If you want it, you have to ask for it before you sign.
Thirty pages, and what the field is missing
We opened every page ranking for this question and its variants, then checked each claim against the statute, the union rule or the case it came from.
Thirty pages, read on 8 September 2026Sourcing and accuracy
Pages getting 2002 rightThe franchise collapse
Zero
One page mentions it at all and dates it wrongly to around 2000. Nobody names the form that replaced it or explains what changed.
Pages flagging the regional scale ruleLos Angeles theatrical
One
That bare scale is not commissionable in six named regions. It is the difference between a full commission and none, and it is published on the union’s own chart.
Pages giving the out clause numbers120, 151, ten in 91
Zero
Two mention an out clause at all. One describes it as a thirty or sixty day notice period, which is not how union agency contracts work.
Pages citing a statute by sectionOf thirty
Four
Six name a statute without a section, two cite a case, and three name a union rule number. The rest assert the ten per cent with no authority at all.
Pages with an identifiable errorLegal or factual
Eight
Including two that invent a California cap. One says the Talent Agencies Act caps commission at ten per cent and another says twenty. The Act contains no percentage.
Pages with agents and managers invertedA real one
One
Gives agents ten to twenty per cent, usually fifteen, and managers usually ten. That is backwards on both sides and contradicted by the union’s own page.
Pages listing what is commissionableAny version
Five
Only one gives a usable list. Four mention scale plus ten and only two explain who bears it, emphasising it differently.
Pages explaining payment flowTrust accounts and deadlines
Three
And none contrasts the three business day union deadline with the thirty day statutory one.
One error is worth naming because it inverts the whole history. A page attributes the ten per cent cap to the general services agreement, which is the agents’ own state-approved form.
That form is precisely what replaced the union franchise after the members voted it down. The cap comes from the union rule the form supplanted.
Grading the sources
This page makes legal claims about four jurisdictions and quotes commission rules from documents most actors never see. It owes you the working, and one honest warning.
We are not lawyers and none of this is legal advice. If real money is in dispute, the sums here justify paying somebody who is one.
The claim, and where it came fromWhat we found
Every statutory provisionThe statutes themselves
Primary
Read on 8 September 2026, including the state labour department’s own compilation revised in January 2025. Section numbers are quoted so you can check any of them.
The commission cap and the chartsUnion rules and published charts
Primary
The rule text and the commission chart both come from the union’s own documents. The commissionable list carries a page date of 20 October 2025.
The 1981 antitrust caseThe official report
Primary
Read in the official reports rather than a summary. It is the reason the whole franchise system is lawful, and no page in this search cites it.
The 2002 collapseUnion notices and trade reporting
Reconstructed
Assembled from union member notices and a 2006 trade article. We could not find a single primary document narrating the whole sequence, so the chronology is ours.
The replacement contract termsOne specimen form
One document
A 2018 specimen carrying its approval notation. We are describing one example rather than every version in use, and yours may differ.
The out clause day countsA union frequently asked questions page
Second hand
The page carries no date and we could not read the underlying contract paragraph itself. A 2006 trade article gives a different window, and we have taken the union’s current page over it.
Which states require a licenceTwo industry compilations
They disagree
Both are secondary and neither gives citations. They conflict on Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina, so we have not named those either way.
Manager ratesCustom
Not law
The union’s own figure is a range of ten to fifteen. The widely printed flat fifteen is trade custom, and we have labelled it as such rather than repeating it as a rule.
When the ten per cent was first setThe original date
Not found
Equity has licensed agents since 1928 and the Guild adopted regulations in 1939. We could not find a primary source fixing when the number itself was first imposed.
Where we differ from the standard account
Where does the ten per cent come from?
Commonly saidA single industry standard, asserted on twenty-six of thirty pages with no authority given.
What we foundFour separate sources binding different people. Statute in New York, a union rule under franchise, a private contract form, and custom.
Does California cap agent commission?
Commonly saidYes, at ten per cent on one page and at twenty on another, both stating it as law.
What we foundThe Talent Agencies Act contains no percentage anywhere. It regulates licensing, bonding, trust accounts and contract forms.
Is my agent franchised?
Commonly saidTreated as settled, with twelve of thirty mentioning franchising and none explaining its current state.
What we foundThe largest agencies have not been Guild franchised since 2002. The union publishes a list and tells you to check it.
Is everything I earn commissionable?
Commonly saidRarely addressed. Five of thirty give any list and only one is usable.
What we foundPer diem, mileage, meal penalties and reimbursements are not. Travel time is commissionable but travel allowance is not.
Does my agent commission a scale job?
Commonly saidAssumed yes, universally, with one exception in thirty pages.
What we foundNot for theatrical work at bare scale in six named regions including Los Angeles and Atlanta. Commercials are different.
What does scale plus ten mean?
Commonly saidA producer paying the agent, on the four pages that mention it.
What we foundThe commission is always legally yours. Scale plus ten is a negotiated uplift to your gross that shifts the cost in practice.
What is the difference between an agent and a manager?
Commonly saidThe commission rate and the amount of attention you get.
What we foundThe licence. In California a manager who procures work is an unlicensed agent, with no incidental exception.
How do I leave an agent who is not working?
Commonly saidGive thirty or sixty days notice, on the one page that addresses it.
What we foundPublished day counts. 120 days without an offer, then 151, then ten days of work in 91, or $4,000 for commercials.
So the useful question is not what agents charge, because almost all of them charge ten. It is which document that ten is written in, because that decides everything else: whether it can lawfully be more, whether bare scale counts, whether your per diem is safe, how fast the money has to reach you, and what happens when you want to leave. Find out whether your agency is franchised and read the paragraph about termination before you read anything else. And hold on to the one rule that never varies anywhere in the country, which is that the money moves from the job to you, and never from you to the person who says they can get you one.
