Answers/Getting started/How to Register With SoundExchange (Step by Step)

Getting started

How to Register With SoundExchange (Step by Step)

By Boboy Watson·Last verified August 31, 2026·2,053 words·Getting started

SoundExchange is the registration independent artists find last, usually years in, usually by accident. Mine came from someone in a comment thread asking whether I had checked the unclaimed list. I had not, and there were recordings on it.

It is free, it takes about ten minutes, and it collects a royalty that no distributor and no performing rights organization collects on your behalf. Here is the process.

What is SoundExchange and what does it collect?

SoundExchange is the organisation designated to collect and distribute the digital performance royalty on sound recordings under the statutory licence in the United States. It collects when your recording is played on non-interactive digital services: SiriusXM satellite radio, Pandora's radio mode, and internet radio stations and webcasters operating under the statutory licence.

That is the recording side. It has nothing to do with your composition. ASCAP and BMI collect performance royalties on the composition; The MLC collects United States mechanical royalties on the composition; your distributor collects sound recording royalties from on-demand services like Spotify and Apple Music. SoundExchange sits in the fourth corner, collecting recording royalties from radio-style digital listening, and no other organisation in that list picks it up if you never register.

SoundExchange's own description of the signup is direct: "Registering is free, simple, and fast."

How do you register with SoundExchange, step by step?

1. Collect what you need before you start. Have your legal name, address and taxpayer identification details, your artist name and any former names or aliases you have released under, your bank details for direct deposit, and a list of every release with its ISRCs from DistroKid, TuneCore or CD Baby.
2. Search SoundExchange's unclaimed royalties list before you register anything. SoundExchange publishes the names of artists and copyright owners it holds money for and cannot reach — search your current artist name, every former band name and every alias, because catalog you released years ago may already be sitting there.
3. Create a free account at soundexchange.com. There is no signup fee and no membership charge; SoundExchange recovers its administrative cost from the royalty pool rather than billing you.
4. Register as a featured artist. This is the role that claims the performer's share of the statutory royalty for recordings on which you are the featured performer.
5. Register as a sound recording copyright owner as well, if you own your masters. A self-releasing artist who paid for their own recordings owns the master, which makes them the copyright owner as well as the featured artist — and those two roles are paid separately, so registering as only one leaves half the money behind.
6. Complete the account with your tax details and set up direct deposit. SoundExchange pays into a bank account, and an account with no verified payment details accrues royalties it cannot send you.
7. Submit your repertoire — every recording, with its ISRC, release title, label name and release date. The ISRC is the field that matters most, because SoundExchange matches airplay reports from SiriusXM, Pandora and webcasters against recording identifiers rather than against song titles.
8. Include recordings you released under a different artist name or a former band. SoundExchange pays on the recording, not on your current project, and old aliases are exactly what ends up unclaimed.
9. Claim anything you found on the unclaimed list, following SoundExchange's claim process for those recordings. This is a separate action from registering new repertoire and it is the step that recovers money already collected.
10. Check whether a distributor add-on already registered you before duplicating anything. Some paid distribution bundles include SoundExchange registration, and two claims on one recording slow payment rather than doubling it.
11. Add each new release to your repertoire as part of your release routine. Registering a recording after it has already been on rotation for a year means chasing backwards through unmatched royalties instead of being in the database when the play reports arrive.

Why does a self-releasing artist register in two roles?

Because the statutory royalty is split three ways, and an independent artist is entitled to two of the three shares.

Those allocations are set out in 17 U.S.C. 114. On a major label release, the label takes the 50% copyright owner share and the artist takes the 45% featured artist share. When you record and release your own music, both of those descriptions are you — and SoundExchange will only pay a share to somebody registered as claiming it.

This is the single most common SoundExchange mistake among independent artists: registering as a featured artist, seeing a payment arrive, and never realising the larger half of the same royalty was never claimed.

What is the difference between SoundExchange and my distributor?

They cover different kinds of listening under different licences, and neither is a substitute for the other.

Your distributor — DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby — collects sound recording royalties from interactive services, where the listener chooses the track: Spotify on demand, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, Tidal. Those services negotiate directly with rights holders and pay through the distribution chain.

SoundExchange collects from non-interactive services operating under the statutory licence, where the listener does not choose the specific track: SiriusXM, Pandora radio mode, and internet radio. Those services pay a statutory rate into a pool that SoundExchange distributes.

A single recording generates both, from different platforms, into different accounts. Standard DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby distribution does not collect SoundExchange royalties, so the ten minutes of registration is not redundant with anything you already pay for.

Which royalty does each organisation collect?

Two of those four are free, and SoundExchange is one of them. There is no version of the argument where skipping it saves you anything.

What is the unclaimed royalties search and why does it matter?

SoundExchange collects royalties for recordings whose featured artists and copyright owners it has not been able to identify. When the play data arrives and there is no registered claimant behind the recording, the money is held, and SoundExchange publishes the names it is trying to reach.

For an independent artist with a back catalog, this is the highest-value ten minutes of the whole exercise. Recordings released under a band name you no longer use, a solo alias, a collaborative project, or through a label that no longer exists are exactly the profile of what ends up unclaimed.

Search before you register, search every name you have ever released under, and search the names of projects you were the featured artist on even if someone else owned the master — the featured artist share is yours regardless of who held the recording copyright.

Does SoundExchange publish a payout threshold?

SoundExchange does not publish a payout threshold on its public registration page. This matters because thresholds are quoted confidently across music business blogs and forum threads, and none of those figures trace back to a SoundExchange source.

Compare that with The MLC, which publishes its minimums plainly: $5 by ACH direct deposit, $100 by physical check and $250 by wire for United States members. If a number is published, use it. If it is not, do not plan against a number somebody guessed.

If the threshold genuinely affects a decision you are making, ask SoundExchange directly through your member account rather than relying on secondhand figures.

What does SoundExchange not collect?

SoundExchange does not collect:

• Sound recording royalties from Spotify, Apple Music or any on-demand service — that is your distributor
• Any royalty on the composition — that is ASCAP or BMI for performance, The MLC for United States mechanicals
• Terrestrial AM/FM radio royalties for the recording — United States terrestrial radio pays the composition side but not the sound recording side, which is a long-standing gap in US law and not a SoundExchange failure
• Foreign neighbouring rights in most territories — SoundExchange has agreements covering some international collection, but the default is that foreign recording performance income requires separate arrangements

The scope is narrow and specific: digital, non-interactive, sound recording, United States statutory licence. Within that scope it is the only collector there is.

What information does the repertoire submission need?

Every field SoundExchange asks for in a repertoire submission exists so that an airplay report can be matched to a claimant.

The ISRC is the field to be obsessive about. Your distributor assigns one to every recording at release and shows it in the release dashboard, and a repertoire submission with complete ISRCs matches cleanly where a submission with titles and artist names alone relies on fuzzy matching against reports that spell things inconsistently.

What goes wrong with a SoundExchange registration?

Four failure modes, all avoidable:

• Registering only as a featured artist. The 50% sound recording copyright owner share is the larger of the two, and a self-releasing artist who owns their masters is entitled to it. This is the most expensive omission on the page.
• Never searching the unclaimed list. Registering new repertoire does not automatically sweep up royalties already held against a name SoundExchange could not identify.
• Omitting former aliases and band names. SoundExchange pays on the recording. A record you made under a name you abandoned in 2019 still generates plays, and the claim belongs to whoever registers for that recording.
• Duplicating a registration a distributor add-on already made. Some paid distribution bundles include SoundExchange registration; two claims on one recording slow payment rather than doubling it.

Do you need SoundExchange if nobody plays you on radio?

Yes, and the assumption behind the question is usually wrong. "Radio" in the SoundExchange sense includes Pandora's radio mode and internet radio stations and webcasters, not only broadcast programming with a presenter. An algorithmic station on a non-interactive service that includes your track in a rotation generates a statutory royalty exactly as a satellite radio spin does.

Registration is also free and permanent. There is no scenario where registering and generating nothing costs you anything, and there is a common scenario where not registering means royalties are collected on your recordings and held against a name nobody can identify.

What should you do in the next ten minutes?

• Search the SoundExchange unclaimed list for every name you have released under.
• Create the free account.
• Register as both a featured artist and a sound recording copyright owner.
• Submit your repertoire with ISRCs.
• Set up direct deposit so a distribution has somewhere to land.

Then add it to your release routine, alongside registering the work at ASCAP or BMI and at The MLC, so that every future release is connected on the day it comes out rather than years later through an unclaimed list.

I write this as an independent artist who has been through the SoundExchange signup and the unclaimed search, not as a lawyer — verify the current process on SoundExchange's own registration page before relying on any detail here.