Who Pays the Tax When My Agency Takes 40%?
You've got an offer in front of you, or a commission that's been going out for months. The money that lands in your account isn't the money your fans paid. By the end of this page you'll know which fact to settle first, where it's written down, and what to walk into an accountant's office holding. It's an easy question to leave alone until the money has already moved a few times.
We're Goddess Business, a creator agency.
Your Agency's Cut Comes Off One of Three Numbers
Follow the money and you'll count three numbers, not two.
What your fans paid. The full amount that left their cards.
What the platform counted as yours. The figure your own statement shows as earned for the period. It isn't the same as the first, and our cost guide walks through the gap with real figures.
What landed in your account. What was left once your agency's commission had gone.
Here's the part that matters. Your agency's commission is worked out on the first number or on the second. It can't be the third, because the third is what's left once the commission has gone.
Which of the two applies changes the size of the cut, and it's written in your contract. A serious agency works its commission out on what you actually earned, the figure your statement shows, not on what your fans paid. Charging on the full amount means taking a share of money that never reached you.
Take a commission of 40%. Here it's only an example. That same guide works the example through both ways: how much an OnlyFans agency costs. As it sets out, the guides it read quoted agency commissions from about 20% to 70% in September 2026.
What this page won't tell you is which of the three numbers your tax question lands on. Knowing there are three, and which one your cut comes off, is most of the work.
There Are Two Ways an Agency Gets Paid
Same money, two different journeys. It isn't a detail of wording.
Deducted first. The commission comes out before anything reaches you. You never receive that share. It was never in your account.
Invoiced later. Everything reaches you first, then an invoice arrives for the commission.
Read those two again. In one, money you never held was taken. In the other, money you held was sent back out. What the money did isn't the same fact.
That's why nobody can answer your question until it's settled. An accountant can't tell you what applies to a payment without knowing what happened to it.
So: do you know which one yours is? It may not have a heading of its own.
Your Contract Says Which Way You're Paid
Open it and find the clause on how commission is taken. You're after two things.
When it's taken, and by whom. Words like deducted, withheld or retained point one way. Words like invoiced, billed or payable point the other.
What it's calculated on. This is where the first two numbers come back. The clause should say which of them the percentage applies to, and if it's the full amount your fans paid, you've learned something about who you're dealing with.
If you read it twice and still can't tell, that's your result for today. You've found your first question, and it goes to your agency, not your accountant.
What an Agency Invoice Has to Show
If you're in the second case, a document exists, and it's worth reading properly. Four things: who issues it, what period it covers, what amount, and what it's for.
If no invoice exists at all, that's the question to raise before any other. That one goes to your agency too.
Then there's the one we can't answer. Is this document enough where you are? That's for an accountant, and it's worth asking early rather than at the end.
Which Entity Signs Your Contract, and Where It Invoices From
Three more lines to copy down, all from the same document: the legal entity that signs, which isn't always the name on the website, the address it invoices from, which may not be where you sit, and the currency the commission is paid in.
We're not going to tell you what any of that means. Write it down anyway.
What to Bring to Your Accountant
| What I bring | What it says | The question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| What my fans paid | ___ | "Am I taxed on this, even though I never received it?" |
| What my statement shows as earned | ___ | "Is this the figure that concerns me, or the one above?" |
| What landed in my account | ___ | |
| My commission clause | which number it's worked out on, and taken before or invoiced after | "Which one am I in?" |
| My agency invoice | issuer, period, amount, what for | "Is this document enough where I am?" |
| Entity, invoicing address, currency | ___ | "My agency is registered somewhere else. Does that change anything here?" |
What You Owe, and What Happened to the Money
Those are two different problems, and only one of them is yours to solve today.
What all of this means for your tax, we can't tell you. That's not modesty, it's the edge of what an agency knows. What you can do first is turn up with the facts already settled, so the conversation starts where it should.
