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Encyclopedia Ethereum · Entry 250

NFT royalties: what ERC-2981 specifies and what it does not enforce

AI-assisted research · separate automated verificationCorrections

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Ethereum
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Key facts

Key facts for NFT royalties: what ERC-2981 specifies and what it does not enforce
FactDetailSource
QueryroyaltyInfo returns a recipient and calculated amount.[1]
UnitsThe royalty amount uses the same monetary unit as the supplied sale price.[1]
EnforcementERC-2981 itself does not force marketplaces to pay.[1]
01

The contract provides a payment instruction

A marketplace supplies the token ID and sale price to royaltyInfo and uses the response to determine the requested royalty. The interface does not itself transfer funds to the recipient.

A transfer between two wallets might be a gift, custody move or sale. That is why a generic transfer method cannot infer the sale price required for a percentage royalty.

02

Keep the royalty in the sale-price currency

Assume a contract reports a 5% royalty. For a hypothetical sale of 2 ETH, the amount is 0.1 ETH. For a sale priced at 200 units of another currency, it is 10 units of that currency, not 10 ETH.

The implementation may use a royalty percentage that changes under its rules. Query the relevant token and sale context rather than assuming an earlier displayed percentage is permanent.

03

An advertised royalty and a paid royalty are separate facts

Standard support shows that royalty information can be requested. To establish that a particular sale paid it, inspect the marketplace’s payment implementation and the actual transfers.

Collections can use additional restrictions or marketplace arrangements, but those are separate designs. Do not attribute their enforcement guarantees to ERC-2981 alone.

Direct answers

Questions people ask

Does every wallet-to-wallet NFT transfer owe an automatic royalty?

ERC-2981 does not impose an automatic charge on transfers. It reports sale-related royalty information for participants that implement payment.

Can a marketplace ignore the royalty information?

The standard alone cannot force a payment. Its specification describes voluntary adoption by marketplaces and other sale participants.

Inspect the evidence

The answer and key facts have stable claim links. These records retain the scope and qualification when reused.

ERC-2981 lets an NFT contract report a royalty recipient and amount for a given sale price. It standardizes royalty information, not automatic payment on every transfer. A marketplace or other seller must implement the payment behavior; an ordinary token transfer does not reveal whether a sale occurred or what its price was.

Scope: Ethereum · data through 2026-10-02. Verification: verified · 2026-10-02T19:27:58.939Z.

Link to this claim
Query: royaltyInfo returns a recipient and calculated amount.

Scope: Ethereum · data through 2026-10-02. Verification: verified · 2026-10-02T19:27:58.939Z.

Link to this claim
Units: The royalty amount uses the same monetary unit as the supplied sale price.

Scope: Ethereum · data through 2026-10-02. Verification: verified · 2026-10-02T19:27:58.939Z.

Link to this claim
Enforcement: ERC-2981 itself does not force marketplaces to pay.

Scope: Ethereum · data through 2026-10-02. Verification: verified · 2026-10-02T19:27:58.939Z.

Link to this claim
Revision history
  1. — First publication after primary-source research and separate automated verification.

Source register

Sources and references

Retrieval dates and locators are recorded individually.
  1. NFT royalty standardEthereum Improvement Proposals

    Royalty information calculation in sale-price units does not enforce marketplace payment.

    Locator: Abstract; royaltyInfo; specification; voluntary payments · Version / scope: ERC-2981 · Retrieved: 2026-10-02T18:55:25.506ZOpen source
How this article was made

Research and drafting use AI assistance. A separate automated review checks claims against primary sources; no external expert or named human review is implied. Publication, substantive editing, source retrieval and verification are recorded separately. This version was independently checked by an automated reviewer on 2 October 2026.

Editorial method and corrections

Degrees of Satoshi editorial project. “NFT royalties: what ERC-2981 specifies and what it does not enforce.” Published 2026-10-02; updated 2026-10-02. https://degreesofsatoshi.com/encyclopedia/nft-royalties/