Auction fees explained: what you actually pay above the hammer price

The single most expensive mistake in this market is bidding to your budget instead of to your budget minus the fees. On the platforms where we have recorded a published rate, the buyer’s premium alone ranges from 11 % to 30 % — and the premium is only the first of five things that sit between the hammer price and what leaves your account.

This is how each one works, using rates the operators publish themselves.

1. The buyer’s premium

A percentage added to the hammer price and paid by the buyer. It is the auction house’s income, it is not negotiable, and it is why “price achieved” figures in the press are never what anyone paid.

Three patterns are worth knowing apart.

Flat rate. The commonest: one percentage on everything. Belgium’s Hammertime charges 17 %, NetBid and Restlos 18 %, John Pye 25 %, Venduehuis 30 %.

Tiered downward. Fine-art houses reduce the rate as the price rises. Koller, the largest Swiss house, charges 25 % up to CHF 400,000, then 22 % on the portion to CHF 1,000,000, then 15 % above that. On a CHF 2 million lot the blended rate is closer to 18 % than 25 % — which is exactly the intention.

Tiered downward with a floor. Irish Machinery Auctions publishes 14.5 % up to €5,000, 12.5 % to €10,000, 10.5 % to €25,000 and 7.5 % above — but with a minimum commission of €10 and a €10 admin fee on every lot won. On a €50 lot that is €20 of charges before VAT: the percentage is irrelevant and the flat amounts decide everything.

That floor is the trap. France’s Mercier charges 14.28 % including tax with a minimum of €360. On a €1,000 car the fee is not €143, it is €360.

And some charge nothing. State sellers frequently have no premium clause at all — Germany’s Zoll-Auktion.de is the clearest case. Against a 25 % commercial premium, that is a quarter off the same purchase before you compare anything else.

2. VAT, and what it is charged on

Two questions, and people usually only ask the first.

Which regime? Under the margin scheme, VAT is embedded in the price and no deductible VAT appears on the invoice, so a business buyer reclaims nothing. A net-priced lot at the same hammer price is genuinely cheaper for a VAT-registered buyer. For cross-border B2B inside the EU the reverse charge usually applies — but almost always only if your VAT number was validated before the purchase, not after.

Charged on what base? This is the part that surprises people. At Troostwijk, VAT applies to the hammer price, the buyer’s premium and any fixed service fee together. At Koller, Swiss VAT falls on the premium, and on lots marked with an asterisk on the bid price and premium combined — refundable against a stamped export declaration if the item leaves Switzerland. Sweden’s Budi displays bids excluding VAT and adds it to the service fee as well as the hammer price.

The practical consequence: a 25 % premium with 23 % VAT on top of that premium is not 25 %, it is around 30.75 % of the hammer price in charges.

3. Fixed and per-lot fees

Easy to miss because they do not scale, and brutal on cheap lots.

Irish Machinery’s €10 admin fee applies to every single lot won — win eight lots and that is €80 plus VAT before any commission. Some platforms add documentation fees on vehicles, a registration transfer charge, or a per-invoice administration charge. Read the fee schedule rather than the headline percentage, and if you plan to win several small lots, model the total rather than one representative lot.

4. Deposits

Enforcement and judicial sales commonly require money on the table before you may bid at all.

Greece’s eauction.gr requires a deposit as a percentage of the starting price. Turkey’s e-Satış UYAP takes 10 % of the court-appraised value, paid into the enforcement office’s account by 23:30 the day before the window closes. Lithuania’s eVaržytynės shows a participant fee of 10 % of the starting price on each lot — €176 on a €1,760 flat. Poland’s eLicytacje KAS requires 10 % of appraised value on real estate and on movables valued above PLN 10,000, cleared two working days ahead.

Deposits from losing bidders come back, but the timing matters: your capital is committed for the length of the process, and on some platforms the refund needs a form.

5. Removal, transport and paperwork

Not a fee, but it belongs in the same arithmetic because it is equally unavoidable.

On industrial lots this is routinely the largest single number. A press bolted to a factory floor becomes your responsibility at the fall of the hammer, and dismantling, rigging and haulage can exceed the hammer price. On vehicles bought abroad, a non-runner needs a transporter rather than a drive home, and a vehicle sold without registration documents can take months to put back on the road.

Cross-border adds two more: Switzerland and Norway sit outside the EU customs union, so import duty, destination VAT and type-approval questions apply to anything brought into the EU from either.

Working out the real number

Before you set a ceiling, calculate downward from what the item is worth to you:

1. Start with your maximum total cost.
2. Subtract transport, dismantling and any paperwork cost.
3. Subtract per-lot fixed fees and admin charges.
4. Divide what remains by (1 + premium rate) × (1 + VAT rate where VAT applies to the premium).
5. That figure — not your budget — is your maximum bid.

Two worked examples from published rates. On Irish Machinery, a €500 winning bid carries 14.5 % commission (€72.50), a €10 admin fee, and 23 % VAT on both: €601.48 total. On the same platform a €50 bid carries the €10 minimum commission, the €10 admin fee and VAT on €20: €74.60 — a 49 % uplift on a cheap lot.

Where to check

Every platform page in our directory carries what we have confirmed from the operator’s own terms, and the ones with a full buyer’s summary table set out premium, VAT, deposit, payment and collection in a fixed order so two platforms can be compared side by side. The glossary covers the terminology.

One habit is worth more than any of this: read the confirmation screen. Platforms that show the full total before you commit — Troostwijk does — have already done the arithmetic for you, and it is the only number that matters.

Rates cited are those published by the operators and recorded on their directory entries with the date last checked. Fees change and vary per sale; confirm on the platform before bidding.