Members should expect to receive their residuals within 60 days from the date SAG-AFTRA receives the checks and producers' information. Want to track your residuals? Click here for the Residuals Portal. Have a question about your residual payment?
If, instead of television work, your work is a SAG film released in theaters, or what's called “Made-for-Theatrical,” and then that work is shown and/or repeated on network prime time, your residuals are to be sent within 30 days of the air date of the initial airing. After that, it's sent quarterly.
Residuals are administered by the unions—SAG-AFTRA, the Directors Guild of America (DGA), and the Writers Guild of America (WGA)—for their members, who are paid between one and four months after the air date. According to SAG-AFTRA, it processes around 1.5 million residual checks a year.
Residual payments experience diminishing returns until the 13th rerun. By the 13th rerun, the royalty amount is reduced to 5% of the actor's original payment, and goes on in perpetuity, never dipping below that amount.
For starters, residuals are payments performers receive for TV and film projects after initial compensation. An actor can expect a residual check once a show or movie re-airs on cable or a streaming service, or sells via DVD or VOD.
While streaming companies technically pay residuals, both unions and their members say the amounts and pay timelines leave actors and writers with a pittance of what they once received — and those who were once paid for reruns of network shows often get nothing now.
This means residual payments may continue well after the performer's death. Although SAG-AFTRA is responsible for administering these payments, residuals are the personal property of the performer, who may leave them to anyone in a will or trust.
“Extras don't usually earn residuals." Most members of the production crew on TV shows and films don't receive residuals directly, but some have residuals paid into their retirement pension funds.
Residuals still do get paid out, but traditional residuals have been replaced on streaming services with lower, less frequent fees, and not all streamers are upfront about their viewership numbers.
So, do all actors get paid for reruns? According to the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, some do, and some don't. For principal performers, royalties can lead to long-term payoffs that trump the original salary.
The industry standard is approximately 4-6 weeks from the day you worked, but it can sometimes take up to 3 months. Commercials and corporate jobs often don't pay until after 90 days from the invoice. All payments will be made by BACS directly into your bank account.
The major difference between residuals and royalties in this situation is that residuals are paid out as the result of a service rendered (playing music) while royalties are paid out for content created (writing music).
Most often non-union projects do not pay residuals, as there is no regulated system in place to track someone down decades later (much less years) and compensate them. However, SAG-AFTRA performers hired under (or upgraded to) a principal performer whose performance remains in the final product require residual pay.
Screen Actors Guild, or SAG, members who are extras in commercials are paid for the work that they do during a session, or taping, but do not receive residuals.
Residual checks on shows are nothing. If you're doing a show and you're not an executive producer and own it, then you get residuals which can amount to checks from $2 to $2,000.” (Saget died in 2022.)
If actors are paid directly from production for a booking and/or for residuals, it is the actor's responsibility to pay the commission to the agent, unless otherwise directed by the agent (in some rare instances, the agency fee is paid directly to the agent).
The pay is called “top-of-show.” That's the most a show will pay for a guest star actor, unless that person is a name. On network TV, the rate for a one-hour drama is currently $9,522 (eight days of work) and half-hour comedies pay $5,951 (five days of work).
Primary actors are paid for time spent filming as well as residuals for later screenings, while smaller and background actors are only paid for the initial filming. They aren't paid by Netflix itself; instead, they're paid through production companies.
Do actors get paid every time a movie is streamed?
Yes. As Adam explains, principal actors in movies and television shows are paid residuals whenever their work airs on television (or is streamed, sold as a dvd, licensed to an airline, etc.) The amount of the payment is based on all kinds of complex formulas and agreements applied to the actor's initial compensation.
https://www.sagaftra.org/membership-benefits/residuals/history-residuals. The history of residuals starts back at the mid-20th century. By the mid-1950s, both SAG and AFTRA had been successful in negotiating residuals for TV programs re-runs.
Grey's Anatomy does stream on Netflix as well, but it should be noted: The streamer wouldn't be paying those actors residuals; those would come from the show's producers like ABC Studios, who license Grey's to Netflix.
