Answers/Getting started/How to Register With ASCAP or BMI (Step by Step)

Getting started

How to Register With ASCAP or BMI (Step by Step)

By Boboy Watson·Last verified September 1, 2026·Getting started

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The first publisher name I submitted got rejected for conflicting with an existing entity, and I spent the rest of that evening trying to think of a second one instead of finishing the registration. Bring three names to the session. That is the whole lesson.

Affiliating with a performing rights organization is free on the writer side at both ASCAP and BMI, and it is the one registration with no fallback — if you never join ASCAP or BMI, nobody collects your performance royalties on your behalf and no organisation holds them for you. Here is the process, and the one genuine decision inside it.

How much does it cost to join ASCAP or BMI?

These are the current fees taken from ASCAP's and BMI's own pages, checked 1 September 2026. Neither organisation charges annual dues, so anything you pay below is one-time.

ASCAP's own wording is worth having exactly: "Joining ASCAP is free for writers, or if you join as a writer and publisher at the same time." The application shows three options — Writer & Publisher at no cost, Writer at no cost, and Publisher at $50 non-refundable. That $50 is narrower than it looks. ASCAP's own explanation of the Publisher option is that it is for someone who is already an ASCAP writer and now wants to collect the publisher share too, or someone who does not write but plans to publish the music of others. Apply for both halves at once and you pay nothing at all.

BMI no longer publishes its publisher fee. Its join page requires a credit card issued by a US bank "for payment of a one-time processing fee" and names no amount, and neither BMI publisher agreement PDF contains a figure. Until August 2026 BMI published $175 to affiliate an individual publisher, $250 for a corporation or LLC and $500 for a partnership; those pages have been taken down, so treat those numbers as history rather than as what you will be charged, and read the amount off the application before you submit it.

On the writer side BMI is as direct as it has always been: although some performing rights organizations collect annual dues, BMI does not. If you have read elsewhere that BMI charges songwriters $75, that figure is wrong — songwriter and composer affiliation is free.

How do you register with ASCAP or BMI, step by step?

1. Choose ASCAP or BMI on what you need registered, not on which one "pays more." The writer account is free at both, so cost decides nothing there. It separates them only if you want the publisher half registered as well: ASCAP is free when you take writer and publisher together on one application, and BMI charges a one-time publisher fee it does not publish. Neither organisation publishes a distribution formula you can audit either, so this is the one comparison actually available to you.
2. Decide whether you need a publisher account at all right now. BMI states that a new songwriter "will not need to set up a publishing company" and that "creating a publishing company will not mean that you receive more royalties" — take that at face value and start with the writer affiliation alone unless you administer other writers or a deal requires an entity.
3. Gather your details before opening the application. You need your legal name as it appears on identification, address, date of birth, Social Security or taxpayer identification number, and — if you are creating a publisher entity — three candidate publisher names, because the first one is quite likely to conflict with an existing registered entity.
4. Complete the application on ascap.com or bmi.com. Neither charges anything for the writer account. At ASCAP, if you already know you want the publisher half registered, choose the combined Writer & Publisher option here rather than coming back for it later — together they are free, and the publisher account added on its own afterwards is $50.
5. Wait for approval and then record your member number and your IPI/CAE number. The IPI number is issued when your affiliation is approved, it appears on your member dashboard, and you will be asked for it at The MLC, on every split sheet and by every co-writer registering a shared work.
6. Create the publisher account separately if you did not take it with the writer application. At ASCAP this is where the $50 non-refundable fee applies, because a publisher account added on its own is the case ASCAP charges for. At BMI it is a one-time processing fee BMI does not state in advance, so the amount appears during the application. Register as an individual publisher unless you have a specific business reason to incorporate.
7. Register your first work, entering the title exactly as it appears on the release. Titles are a matching key across ASCAP, BMI, The MLC and international societies, so a work registered under a working title while the store listing says something else creates avoidable mismatches.
8. List every writer on the composition with their legal name, IPI number and PRO affiliation. Take these from your signed split sheet rather than from memory, and include co-writers affiliated with a different organisation — ASCAP and BMI exchange this data and a cross-affiliated song is routine.
9. Enter the writer shares so they total exactly 100%, and enter the same numbers everywhere else you register. Mismatched splits between co-writers freeze the disputed share at both organisations, and this is the most common reason a registered work does not pay.
10. Attach the publisher share to your publisher entity if you created one, or leave it unclaimed if you did not. The performance royalty splits roughly 50% to the songwriter share and 50% to the publisher share, and the publisher half is payable only to a registered publisher.
11. Repeat the work registration for every song you have already released, then for each new one before its release date. Performance royalties accrue from first public performance, and claiming backwards through ASCAP or BMI is slower and more limited than being registered on day one.
12. Register the same works with The MLC and SoundExchange, both free. ASCAP and BMI collect performance royalties on the composition and nothing else — the mechanical royalty and the digital performance royalty on your recordings are separate pots with separate collectors.

Do you need a publisher account yet?

This is the only real decision on the page, and BMI answers it against its own commercial interest.

BMI's FAQ says a new songwriter "will not need to set up a publishing company" and that "Creating a publishing company will not mean that you receive more royalties." That is the organisation writing the cheques telling you the entity is not what unlocks the money. What unlocks the money is being affiliated as a writer and having your works registered.

A publisher account becomes genuinely warranted when one of these is true:

• You administer compositions written by other people
• You are entering a co-publishing arrangement and need an entity to hold your side
• A foreign sub-publisher or licensee needs a publisher entity to point at
• You run a label that signs writers
• You want the publisher half of your performance royalty credited to a named entity you control rather than sitting unclaimed

That last one is a legitimate reason, and at ASCAP it now costs nothing to act on. Taking the writer and publisher options together on the same application is free, so if you are applying to ASCAP today there is no cost argument for leaving the publisher half unregistered. Come back for it later and it is $50. At BMI the publisher affiliation costs money BMI will not quote you in advance, so BMI's is the one worth deferring until the entity has a purpose.

What is the difference between joining and registering your songs?

Joining ASCAP or BMI creates an account with your name on it. Registering a work tells the organisation that a specific composition exists, who wrote it, what the splits are and who publishes it.

An affiliation with no registered works collects nothing. Not less — nothing. ASCAP and BMI match performance data against their works databases, and a song that is not in the database has nothing to match against no matter how many times it is streamed, broadcast or performed live.

This is the step people skip, and it is invisible when you skip it, because your member dashboard looks perfectly healthy either way.

What information does a work registration need?

Everything in that table should already exist on a signed split sheet before you open the registration form. If it does not, you are reconstructing an agreement from memory at the exact moment you are being asked to make it official.

What does a PRO collect that DistroKid and The MLC do not?

ASCAP and BMI collect the public performance royalty on the composition — generated when your song is streamed on Spotify or Apple Music, played on terrestrial or satellite radio, performed live in a licensed venue, played as background music in a business, or used on television.

DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby collect the sound recording royalty through basic distribution and nothing else. The MLC collects United States mechanical royalties on the composition and nothing else. SoundExchange collects the digital performance royalty on the sound recording from non-interactive services such as Pandora radio and SiriusXM.

Of those four pots, performance is the one with no backstop. There is no organisation that quietly holds your performance royalties until you turn up. Even DistroKid Publishing, which does collect some composition income, states that it collects both the publisher and songwriter shares only if you are PRO-affiliated — and the publisher share alone if you are not.

Which performing rights organization should you actually pick?

At beginner volume the variance between ASCAP and BMI is dwarfed by three things entirely within your control: whether you affiliated at all, whether your works are registered rather than just your account, and whether the splits on those works match what your co-writers filed.

What goes wrong during a PRO registration?

Four things, repeatedly:

• The publisher name is rejected for conflicting with an existing entity. Bring three alternates and treat rejection as routine.
• The application is filed with a nickname rather than the legal name on your identification, which breaks matching against The MLC and international societies later.
• The IPI number is never written down, and it is then needed urgently by a co-writer or by The MLC.
• Works are registered after release, which means chasing performance data backwards instead of being in the database when it arrives.

Register the account this week, write down your member number and IPI, and register every song you have already put out before you release the next one.

I am a working independent artist writing from experience with these signups, not a lawyer or an accountant — ASCAP and BMI change their fees, so check their own pages before you pay anything.