How can one get the royalty rates data? As indicated below, a source for such arm’s length royalty rates could be found in commercial databases. Royalty rates for various types of intangibles, e.g. trademarks, trade names, patents, know-how and others can be found there.
OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations (Chapter III, Section A.4.3.1, paragraph 3.30) identifies that there are various sources of information that can be used to identify potential external comparables. A common source of information is commercial databases that can be practical and cost-effective way of identifying external comparables and may provide the most reliable source of information. Revision of the Special Considerations for intangibles in Chapter VI of the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines and Related Provisions (Chapter IV, Section D.1., paragraph 103) further states that ‘Comparability, and the possibility of making comparability adjustments, is especially important in considering potentially comparable intangibles and related royalty rates drawn from commercial data bases’.
RoyaltyRange royalty rates database provides reliable and detailed data on the comparable licence agreements involving intellectual property and royalty rates. Our proprietary royalty rates database contains manually gathered and analysed data on the most recent licensing transactions and royalty rates in various industrial sectors. Our data reports contain more than 50 standartised comparability factors on royalty rates and other terms of the licence and only unredacted agreements (i.e., licences where royalty rates are disclosed) containing royalty rates expressed in percentages are included in the database.