What Does MCPS Actually Pay You? How Mechanical Royalties Work in the UK
By Written by Peter McVeigh
MCPS collects the money for copies of your songs: streams, downloads, CDs and vinyl. Here is how that money is split with PRS, what the physical rates are, when it is paid, and what you need to do to receive it.
Most songwriters know what PRS does. MCPS is the one people nod at and move on from. It sounds like admin, and nobody explains where its money comes from or how much of it you should expect. This guide goes through what MCPS pays for, how the money is worked out, and what you need to do to receive it. Every figure below comes from PRS for Music's published MCPS Distribution Policy and its member pages, which I checked on 20 October 2026.
What MCPS pays you for
MCPS stands for the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society. It collects royalties when your songs are copied or reproduced. PRS describes this as music being copied onto vinyl, CDs or any other physical format, streamed or downloaded digitally, or used in film, TV or radio.
PRS looks after MCPS's rights and administration through a service agreement, which is why the two often collect together. But they are separate memberships. PRS says you need to be a member of MCPS to be paid mechanical royalties, and a member of PRS to be paid performance royalties. You can join both at the same time. Each has its own one-off joining fee: PRS lists £100 for PRS (£30 if you are under 25) and an additional £100 for MCPS.
There is no fixed rate per stream
This is the part people most want a number for, and it is where I have to be careful. For online services, PRS and MCPS license jointly and the service pays a blanket fee, not a set amount per play. The MCPS policy does not publish a per-stream rate. What you earn depends on how much the service pays, how that money is split, how many streams your songs got on that service, and your registered share.
What the policy does publish is how each blanket payment is divided between PRS and MCPS, by type of service:
Type of service: PRS share: MCPS share
Download: 25%: 75%
Streaming: 50%: 50%
Webcast or live streaming: 75%: 25%
Free ad-supported TV (FAST): 75%: 25%
Ringtones: 33.33%: 66.67%
Cloud locker services: 25%: 75%
Two things to understand about that table. First, it divides the song-side money between the two societies. It does not mean MCPS takes half of your stream income. As a writer you receive the PRS part and the MCPS part, so if you are a member of both, you see both. If you are only in PRS, the mechanical half of every stream is money you are not collecting through this route.
Second, YouTube is calculated differently. It works on a points system per work, weighted between performing and mechanical rights. Each performing right point is worth one and each mechanical point is worth 1.6, adjusted by territory.
Physical products: the one place with a published rate
For CDs and vinyl sold by record companies, the policy does give a rate. Under the main audio product schemes (AP1 and AP2), the royalty charged is 8.5% of the published dealer price, excluding VAT. Where there is no published dealer price, it is 6.5% of the retail price, excluding VAT.
To make that concrete: if a record company sells a CD to shops for £8, the mechanical royalty for the whole product is 8.5% of £8, which is 68p. That 68p is for all the songs on the disc together, not per track. It is shared across the tracks in proportion to their running time, and MCPS commission comes off before it reaches the writers and publishers. If some songs on the product are not controlled by MCPS, the charge is adjusted proportionally.
Under AP1, the record company reports what it shipped each quarter and pays in arrears. PRS says members should receive their royalties within two months of the end of each quarter. Under AP2, the record company pays up front, based on how many units it is going to manufacture.
What comes off before you are paid
MCPS charges commission on the money it collects, to cover its operating costs. It is deducted when the money is distributed, and the rate varies by source because some income costs more to collect than others. Any change needs the approval of the MCPS board, and members must get at least six months' notice. The policy says current rates are published online. I could not find a single published rate for music streaming, so I am not going to quote one. Check the rates page on prsformusic.com for the source you care about.
When the money arrives
PRS says MCPS members receive payments monthly. The timing depends on the source:
Recorded media (CDs, vinyl and similar) are usually distributed monthly, typically within two months of the end of a quarter or one month after MCPS receives the money.
Apple Music, iTunes and YouTube are aimed at monthly distributions, following the pattern of reported usage, about six months after the end of the quarterly performance period. Some YouTube data takes an extra quarter because the music has to be identified first.
Broadcast income is normally paid four times a year, in April, July, October and December.
So a stream today is not money in your account next month. A six-month delay is normal.
One more detail: for Apple Music and YouTube, usage that would not generate at least one euro cent is not loaded into the system at all. A handful of streams on a small song may never turn into a payment on their own.
Why some writers collect less than they could
MCPS can only pay a work it can match, and only to the people registered against it. The most common reasons money does not reach the writer are:
The writer is in PRS but never joined MCPS, so the mechanical share has nowhere to go.
The song is not registered, or the writer shares are wrong or missing.
A publisher or administrator is collecting the mechanical share, and the writer does not know it.
Titles, writer names or splits do not match across the societies, the distributor and the song data.
If you are self-published, the fix is the same boring routine as everything else in rights admin. Join MCPS, register every song with the correct writers and splits, and check your statements against your own list.
What to do next
If you are in PRS but not MCPS, work out whether your songs are streamed, downloaded or pressed to physical formats. If they are, you have mechanical income to collect. Then check one registered song end to end: writers, shares, title and any publisher. Our guides on registering with MCPS and how a stream becomes money cover the registration and the wider picture.
Sources
PRS for Music, MCPS Distribution Policy (online licensing, recorded media and commission sections): https://www.prsformusic.com/legal-policy-hub
PRS for Music, MCPS page: https://www.prsformusic.com/what-we-do/mcps
PRS for Music, Join PRS (fees, thresholds): https://www.prsformusic.com/music-and-royalties/join
PRS for Music, Royalty payment dates: https://www.prsformusic.com/music-and-royalties/royalties-payments/royalty-payment-dates