What Is a Holding Fee? Commercial Exclusivity Explained for Actors

You booked a national spot in the spring. One long day on set, a session check a few weeks later, and then nothing for months. Then a second check turns up for the same commercial. You haven’t seen it on TV, and nobody told you it was coming.

Around the same time, your agent sends an audition for a rival brand in the same aisle of the supermarket and asks a question you weren’t ready for: “Are you clear?” The check and the question are connected. Both come from the holding fee.

The short version: on a SAG-AFTRA commercial, the advertiser pays you a holding fee at the start of each 13-week cycle after the first to keep the right to use the spot and to keep you off competing products. While those payments arrive on time, you’re exclusive to that product category. If a payment is late or doesn’t come, you may be released. Before you audition for a competitor, check when the next fee is due, whether it arrived, and what your contract says.

The figures below come from the 2025 SAG-AFTRA Commercials Contract (April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2028) and its first-year rates. Rates rise each year, so check current numbers with your agent or the union.

Know what the holding fee is buying

A union commercial pays you in two kinds of money. The session fee pays for the work on the day. After that, the advertiser pays for use, and pays to keep you available. The holding fee is the second part. As a talent payment FAQ in the trade magazine SHOOT puts it, the contract sets the holding fee “in an amount equal to a session fee,” and paying it is a condition of the producer’s right to keep using the commercial.

So the holding fee isn’t a bonus for airtime. It’s rent on the right to run your performance and on your promise not to appear for a competitor. Dance Spirit’s glossary of commercial terms describes it as compensation for not appearing in work for a competitive product, and adds that once the company stops paying, you’re released from the conflict.

How much it is

Because the holding fee equals a session fee, the number follows the scale session rate for your category. In Extreme Reach’s 2025 rate book for the contract’s first year (April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026), the on-camera principal session is listed at 822.30 dollars. The law firm DLA Piper’s summary of the 2025 deal lists wage increases of 5 percent in year one, 4 percent in year two, and 3 percent in year three, so a spot shot on or after April 1, 2026, sits on a higher scale. If your agent negotiated overscale, your holding fee may be higher too.

Count the cycles from the shoot, not from the air date

Holding fees come in fixed cycles of 13 weeks. The joint FAQ on the 2025 commercials contracts, published jointly by SAG-AFTRA and the Joint Policy Committee, which bargains for advertisers, says the first fixed cycle begins on the first day of production, so holding fees are due 13 weeks after that. Extreme Reach’s rate book lists the due date as “no later than the first date of the fixed cycle.”

That’s why your second check can feel random. It’s tied to your shoot day, not the air date, whether or not you’ve seen the commercial anywhere.

When a spot is running on TV, a holding fee can often be applied against the use payments, so you may not see two separate checks. The same joint FAQ explains that this changes on the digital side: holding fees may not be applied to Traditional Digital use cycles unless and until a TV (linear) or streaming cycle is paid. Ask your agent which payment is which.

Write your cycle dates down

Take your first shoot day and add 13 weeks, then another 13, and so on. Put each date in your calendar with the advertiser’s name. Every question about conflicts and late payments starts with those dates.

Understand how long they can hold you

Holding fees can’t go on forever. Every union commercial has a maximum period of use, usually shortened to MPU. Under the 2025 SAG-AFTRA Commercials Contract memorandum of agreement, it runs 24 months, beginning 10 business days after the start of on-camera principal photography. The previous contract used 21 months, which is why older articles still say that.

The joint FAQ gives a worked example. A first production day of August 19, 2025, starts the MPU on September 3, 2025, after Labor Day is counted, and ends it on September 2, 2027. Another answer in the same section warns that the holding fee cycles and the MPU don’t always line up, because one counts from the first day of production and the other from 10 business days later.

When the MPU ends, so does the right to use the spot. The memorandum says that to keep using it, the producer normally has to negotiate with the principal performer and get their consent. The exception is a performer who can’t be found after a good-faith search by the producer and the union.

Know what exclusivity covers, and what it doesn’t

The promise itself is in the standard contract you sign. In the 2022 SAG-AFTRA standard employment contract (Exhibit 1), the exclusivity paragraph says that during the term of permissible use you won’t accept employment in, or authorize the use of your name, likeness, or identifiable voice in, any commercial advertising a competitive product or service.

Notice the scope. It’s about competing products, not about every commercial. A spot for one brand of coffee keeps you off other coffee, not off a car ad. Dance Spirit’s example is a department store: if you shoot for one, booking another department store would be a conflict. Where a product sits on the line (an energy drink and a soda, a bank and a payment app), ask before you assume.

Some performers aren’t bound automatically. The same contract paragraph says it doesn’t apply to off-camera solo or duo singers, to group performers other than named groups, or to performers in seasonal commercials, unless the performer consents and the producer pays the exclusivity fee the contract requires. It also excludes commercials used only on Traditional Digital and some emerging platforms. The 2025 joint FAQ confirms that a digital-only spot carries no automatic exclusivity, and that if the advertiser wants it, it must negotiate with you and pay holding fees.

A bigger deal can reach further than the standard paragraph. If an offer asks to keep you off a wider category than direct competitors, that’s a term to negotiate, not a formality, so have your agent look at it. Either way, read your signed contract for any language beyond the standard wording.

Check these before you audition for a competing product

The standard paragraph covers accepting employment and authorizing use of your likeness, not auditions. But a competing brand’s casting team will want to know you can take the job, and commercial casting often asks about conflicts. Have a clear answer before you say yes to the slot.

1. Find the date of your most recent holding fee and the date the next one is due, from your calendar or your pay stubs.
2. Check whether the last fee arrived on time, and keep the stub or the payroll email that shows the date.
3. Work out where you are in the maximum period of use, so you know whether the hold could still have months to run.
4. Read the exclusivity paragraph in your signed contract for any wider category or extra language your deal added.
5. Ask whether the new product actually competes with the one you’re held to, and if it’s close, get an answer in writing from your agent.
6. If you believe you’ve been released, get that confirmed, by your agent with the advertiser’s side or by the union, before you book the new job.
7. Tell the casting office the truth about any conflict when they ask, through your agent if you have one.

If the answer is “you’re clear,” prepare the audition like any other. Commercial copy is short, and knowing it cold lets you look at the lens instead of the cue card. Our guide to preparing for a commercial audition covers copy, cue cards, and the button. If the spot has dialogue, you can upload the copy to Offbook, pick your role, and let realistic voices read the other parts while you answer from memory.

If a holding fee is late, talk to your agent before you cash it

Late holding fees are where actors lose leverage without noticing. Extreme Reach’s rate book puts the rule plainly: if a holding fee isn’t paid on time, the performer “may be considered released” and may renegotiate for higher rates. SHOOT’s FAQ adds that there are no grace periods for holding fees, and that a performer can refuse a late one.

So a late fee gives you a choice. You can accept it; the contract’s late-payment damages apply to late payments generally. Or you can refuse it, treat yourself as released from exclusivity, and either walk away from the spot or renegotiate its use. Which one is right depends on the job and what’s coming up, which is a conversation for your agent or the union, ideally before the late check is deposited.

What late-payment damages look like

Late payments carry daily damages. For the contract’s first year, Extreme Reach’s rate book lists 4.71 dollars per performer per working day for up to 25 working days, capped at 117.75 dollars, followed by 13.09 dollars a day without limit until everything is paid. The joint FAQ confirms the producer owes the daily amount after 25 business days even without written notice, that an email counts as written notice, and that your agent can send it for you.

These amounts are small next to a holding fee. The real value of a late payment is usually the release.

Know when you’re released

Exclusivity ends in a few ways. The maximum period of use runs out. The advertiser stops paying holding fees, often because it has decided not to use the spot again. Or the advertiser pays late and you choose to treat yourself as released. The joint FAQ also describes an advertiser that switches a spot to digital-only use and keeps running it without paying holding fees; then “the performer will no longer be exclusive and must be released.”

Releases don’t always arrive as a tidy letter. Often the only sign is a cycle date that passes with no check, and you can’t spot that unless you know when the payment was due.

Don’t sit on a missing payment either. The memorandum says claims about unpaid use must reach the producer no later than six months after the maximum period of use ends, or after you’re released from exclusivity, whichever comes first. If a cycle passes and something looks wrong, ask your agent or the union that month, not next year.

Keep a simple record for every commercial

For each union commercial, keep one page: the advertiser, the product, your shoot date, your cycle dates, the MPU end date, and a copy of your signed contract. Add each holding fee and use payment as it arrives.

That one page answers “are you clear?” in a minute. It also helps with the rest of the money: our guide to residuals, buyouts, and use fees explains how commercial payments sit next to film and TV residuals, and the guide to pinned, on avail, and on hold explains the other kind of “hold,” the one that reserves your shoot dates before you’ve booked.

Questions actors ask

What is a holding fee for a commercial?

For most union TV and streaming spots, it’s a payment, equal to a session fee, that the advertiser makes at the start of each 13-week cycle after the first to keep the right to use your commercial and to keep you exclusive to its product category. It’s due whether or not the spot is airing.

Can I audition for a competing brand while I’m being held?

The standard contract language bars you from accepting work or authorizing your likeness for a competing product, and it doesn’t mention auditions. In practice, casting will ask about conflicts, so check your cycle dates and whether you’ve been released first, and tell your agent. Don’t book a competing job while holding fees are still arriving on time.

What happens if a holding fee is late?

You can accept it (the contract sets daily damages for late payments), or refuse it and treat yourself as released, which frees you for competing work and lets you renegotiate. Talk to your agent or the union before you deposit a late check.

How long can an advertiser keep paying holding fees?

Until the maximum period of use ends. Under the 2025 contract that’s 24 months, starting 10 business days after on-camera principal photography begins. After that, the advertiser normally has to negotiate with you and get your consent to keep using the spot.

Do non-union commercials pay holding fees?

Not under these rules. Non-union spots often pay a flat buyout for a stated term, and any exclusivity is whatever the contract says. Read the term, the territory, and the conflict language before you sign, and if you’re working toward union work, see how to become SAG-AFTRA eligible.