Split Sheet Template: How Songwriters Split Royalties (and What to Do With the Sheet After)
A split sheet is a one-page agreement, signed by everyone who wrote a song, that says who wrote it and how the composition is shared between them. Filling it in takes about ten minutes. That usually happens at the end of a session, when everyone is tired and wants to go home, which is exactly why it so often gets skipped.
The cost shows up later. A year after release, money starts coming in for the song, and nobody is sure who registered it, under which name, or what share was agreed. This guide gives you a template to copy, the usual ways writers agree the numbers, and what to do with the sheet once it's signed. The sheet itself doesn't get anyone paid. Your society pays out once the song is registered, and that registration should match what you all signed.
Why split sheets matter more than they used to
Songs have more writers than they used to. iMusician looked at UK Official Chart hits and found that a Top 100 single in the 1970s had 1.7 credited writers on average. Today the figure is around 4.5. Henry Marsden puts a lot of that down to samples and interpolations: when you borrow from an older song, its writers join the credits of yours. Each extra writer is one more person whose society membership, IPI number and share all have to be right before the song can pay anyone.
Large publishers employ people to chase this paperwork. If you're an independent writer working with a producer in Berlin and a topliner in Lisbon, that person is you.
The split sheet template
Keep it to one page. These are the details a collecting society asks for when you register the work, so it's worth writing them down while everyone is still in the room.
The song
- Working title, final title, and any alternative titles, such as a radio edit or a translated title
- Date and place of the session
- Any samples or interpolations: the original song, its writers, and its ISWC if you know it
Each writer
- Legal name, and the name they write under if it's different
- Role: music, lyrics, or both
- Collecting society or independent management entity, and IPI number, or "not a member yet"
- Publisher, if they have one, with the publisher's IPI
- Share of the composition, in percent
- Email address and signature
Totals and next steps
- Writer shares that add up to exactly 100 percent
- Who registers the work, and by when
- What happens if the song changes later, for example a new verse or a rewritten chorus
The sheet covers the composition, meaning the music and the lyrics. Who owns the recording, the master, is a different question and needs its own agreement. Try not to settle both on the same page. It gets messy quickly when the producer worked on both the song and the recording.
How to agree the split
Writers can split a song however they like. If they never agree, national law and the society's rules fill the gap, and those defaults differ from country to country, so it's better not to leave it to them. In practice most teams use one of three approaches.
Equal shares. Everyone who wrote gets the same percentage. It's quick, it's common in co-writing sessions, and it saves you from arguing over who came up with which line.
Music and lyrics first. Some teams divide the song between music and lyrics, then share each part among the people who worked on it. This works well when it was clear who did what.
By contribution. Shares follow how much each person contributed. It can feel fairer, but it's harder to agree on, and it's the approach most likely to be reopened later.
Whichever you pick, add one line on how you got there, for example "equal four ways, agreed at the session". A percentage with a reason behind it is much harder to argue with a year later.
If one of you has a publisher, the publishing contract and your society's rules decide how that writer's share is divided between them and the publisher. That doesn't need to go on the split sheet. A lot of templates online come from the US, where performance royalties are paid as a separate writer's share and publisher's share, so they ask for both. Most European societies work differently, and a song doesn't need a publisher at all. We explained why in what an IPI number is and how to get one.
After the session: from sheet to registration
Most split sheets go wrong after they're signed. Someone saves the PDF, everyone moves on to the release, and the song is either never registered or registered by only one of the writers.
In Europe, each writer is paid through their own society. If you write a song with people in Budapest, Lisbon and Stockholm, it ends up in the databases of three societies, and those three records need to say the same thing. The song also won't get an ISWC until every writer on it is identified with an IPI number, so one co-writer who hasn't joined a society holds up the code for everyone. Our guide on how to find the ISWC code of a song shows how to check where your song stands.
A simple routine helps:
- Send every writer a copy of the signed sheet the same day.
- Agree who registers first. That person registers the work with every writer, role and share from the sheet.
- Use the names and titles exactly as they appear on the sheet, accents included.
- Declare any samples or interpolations when you register, not afterwards.
- A few weeks later, check that the song has an ISWC and that every co-writer shows up with the same share in their own society's portal.
- If the song changes, update the sheet and the registration at the same time.
When the registrations don't match
There are two different situations here, and people often mix them up.
The first is a missing registration: one of the writers never registered their share. Societies usually pay out the shares that are registered and hold back the rest. The missing share isn't passed on to the other writers. It's collected and held as unclaimed, and once local deadlines pass it can be declared non-distributable. Our guide to unclaimed music royalties in Europe explains what happens to that money.
The second is a conflict. The registrations add up to more than 100 percent, or the same song has different splits at different societies. Societies treat that as a dispute, and the disputed shares are normally put on hold until everyone's paperwork matches. The details vary from society to society.
In both cases a signed split sheet is the quickest way to sort things out, because it shows what everyone agreed back when nobody knew whether the song would earn anything. It matters even more across borders, where each society works from its own copy of the registration, as we explained in how cross-border royalties work in Europe.
Five mistakes that cost money later
Shares that add up to 99 or 101 percent. This usually happens when three writers split a song equally. Decide who gets 33.34 and who gets 33.33, and write it down.
Different names in different places. If your society knows you as Kovács Anna and the sheet says Anna Kovacs, a matching system may treat you as two different people. Use one spelling everywhere.
Leaving out sampled writers. If you sample or interpolate another song, its writers have a claim on yours. Leaving them off the sheet doesn't make that claim go away. More often it means the song gets blocked or disputed once they find out.
Nothing signed. A message in the group chat is better than nothing, but a society, a publisher or a lawyer will want to see a signed page.
Not updating it. If a remix or a new version adds new writing, it counts as a new work. It needs its own sheet, its own registration and its own ISWC, with the original writers credited.
Can software do this for you?
To some extent. Some production platforms now record credits and splits while the song is being made, and BeatStars added a feature like this in October. That's useful as long as what the platform records actually ends up in your society registration. If the splits only live inside the app, your society never sees them.
When we surveyed independent artists, "rights" kept coming up as the hardest part of releasing music to understand. Splits are a big part of that, and ten minutes with a split sheet at the end of a session saves a lot of trouble later.
Artistic Futures is a Creative Europe-funded project building tools that help independent European creators find and recover royalties the system hasn't matched to them. We're in development, and subscribers to the monthly brief get early access.
Is a split sheet legally binding?
A signed split sheet is a written agreement between the writers, and in a dispute it's often the main evidence of what was agreed. Whether it can be enforced, and how, depends on the country and on what the sheet actually says. It isn't a publishing contract, and it doesn't hand your rights to anyone. If serious money or a publishing deal is involved, talk to a lawyer.
Does the producer go on the split sheet?
If the producer contributed to the music or the lyrics, yes, as a writer. If they only produced the recording, that's a question about the master, and it belongs in a separate agreement.
What if a co-writer isn't a member of any society?
Register your own share anyway. Theirs will stay unclaimed until they join, and the song can't get an ISWC until they have an IPI number. Send them our guide on how to get an IPI number for free.
Can the splits be changed later?
Yes, if all the writers agree. Sign an updated sheet and correct the registration at every society that holds the song.
Do I need a split sheet if I write alone?
There's nothing to split, but your registration still has to show you as the only writer with 100 percent. If anyone else contributed, even a single line, talk about it before the release.
How are European split sheets different from US ones?
Mostly in what they leave out. US templates usually ask for writer and publisher shares separately, because US performing rights organisations pay those two shares separately. In most European societies the publisher's portion is set by the society's rules and the publishing contract, so the sheet only needs to show how the writers divide the song.
Sources and further reading
- iMusician, How Many Songwriters Does it Take to Make a Hit
- Henry Marsden, Interpolation Nation, The Black Box
- CISAC, How to get an ISWC
- Music Ally, BeatStars' new feature tracks credits and splits as songs are made
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