Secondary Ticket Market 2026: Legality, VAT & Regulations

The Billion-Dollar Aftermarket That Isn’t Supposed to Exist

Somewhere between a Taylor Swift concert—the kind that crashed Ticketmaster’s servers while moving two million tickets—and a Champions League final, where seats vanish faster than you can type in your credit-card number, there exists a market valued at somewhere between three and seven billion dollars annually, depending on whom you ask and how generously they count. It is a market that operates in what lawyers delicately call a gray area: not quite legal, not quite illegal, governed by regulations that vary not merely from continent to continent but, often, from one neighboring country to the next.

In Europe alone, the secondary ticket trade generates an estimated 2.5 billion euros per year—though that figure, according to the industry coalition lobbying for regulation, refers specifically to unauthorized resales at inflated prices, not the broader resale ecosystem. Global forecasts project growth rates of seven to nine per cent annually through the end of the decade. And yet—here is the paradox—most of this activity proceeds in direct violation of the explicit terms imposed by the very people who put on the shows.

This is not an article about how to circumvent the rules. It is, rather, an examination of a fascinating collision: global commerce meeting fragmented law, technology outpacing regulation, and a seemingly simple question—”Is this legal?”—that cannot be answered without first asking, “Where, exactly?”

The Machinery of Ticket Brokering

At first glance, the professional ticket broker operates according to the same logic that governs any trading operation: buy low, sell high, profit on the spread.

Acquisition comes first. Tickets are purchased through official distribution channels, authorized platforms, hospitality allocations, or other brokers. Scale demands sophisticated tools, networks of collaborators, and significant capital reserves. Premium seats at major events can cost thousands of euros apiece; a full allocation for a World Cup final represents an investment measured in millions.

Consolidation and pricing follow. The broker assembles a portfolio of tickets across multiple events, diversifying away the risk of unsold inventory or cancelled shows. Prices are set dynamically: algorithms track demand, time remaining until the event, availability of competing inventory.

Distribution, in the business-to-business model, means selling to other brokers, marketplace platforms like Viagogo or StubHub, or hospitality packagers. Settlement often occurs after the event itself—so-called post-event settlement reduces chargeback risk but creates credit exposure.

The model appears simple. It is not.

A single transaction can simultaneously implicate the law of the broker’s home country, the law of the event organizer’s jurisdiction, the law of the venue’s location, the law of the intermediary platform’s headquarters, and the laws of multiple countries where end buyers reside. Each jurisdiction may have different rules—ranging from complete permissiveness to criminal penalties.

From the perspective of banks, ticket brokering registers as high-risk activity. High transaction volumes, cross-border flows, no physical delivery (rights transfer, not goods), a secondary market historically associated with the informal economy—compliance departments approach the sector with pronounced wariness.

The Cases That Shook the Industry

BZZ Limited: Four Years for Ed Sheeran Tickets

In February of 2020, Leeds Crown Court delivered a verdict that became a landmark in the industry’s history: the first successful criminal prosecution of professional ticket touts operating at industrial scale.

Peter Hunter, then fifty-one, and David Thomas Smith, sixty-six, ran a London company called BZZ Limited. For years, the firm had generated multimillion-pound revenues reselling tickets—Ed Sheeran concerts, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” performances, Madness and McBusted shows. But it was not the scale alone that sent them to prison.

The investigation by the National Trading Standards eCrime Team revealed an elaborate apparatus of deception: at least ninety-seven different trading names, eighty-eight postal addresses, and more than two hundred and ninety email addresses. Specialized software—Insomniac Browser, Omni Checker, Roboform—enabled mass circumvention of purchase limits and anti-bot systems at Ticketmaster, Eventim, and AXS. In 2017 alone, BZZ acquired more than seven hundred and fifty Ed Sheeran tickets in violation of the terms of sale.

But the decisive blow was something called “spec selling”—listing tickets on secondary platforms that the company did not yet possess. Consumers paid inflated prices for tickets that might prove invalid or never arrive at all. It was, in essence, fraud.

The jury convicted both men on four counts: fraudulent trading, possession of articles for use in fraud (bots, payment cards in others’ names), and continuing operations despite knowledge that tickets might be void.

The sentence: Peter Hunter, four years’ imprisonment. David Thomas Smith, thirty months.

The court and National Trading Standards called it a “landmark case”—a precedent demonstrating that secondary ticket trading, when combined with fraud, leads to real prison time, not merely fines.

Viagogo: Multimillion-Dollar Penalties Across Two Continents

Viagogo, one of the two dominant global secondary-ticketing platforms (alongside StubHub, which Viagogo acquired in 2020 for four billion dollars), has faced regulators repeatedly.

In Britain, the Competition and Markets Authority spent years investigating the platform’s practices—misleading consumers about ticket availability, concealing full costs until the final stage of checkout (drip pricing), omitting information about restrictions in organizers’ terms and conditions. Such practices can constitute unfair contract terms under consumer-protection law. A series of settlements and undertakings failed to resolve the matter—in 2025, the C.M.A. opened yet another investigation into the pricing practices of both StubHub and Viagogo.

In Italy, AGCOM imposed penalties reaching 23.5 million euros for violations of consumer-protection rules and deceptive commercial practices.

In Australia, the A.C.C.C. prevailed in court, securing a seven-million-dollar penalty for misleading conduct—the platform had suggested it was an official ticket seller when, in fact, it operated as a third-party marketplace.

The Viagogo-StubHub merger immediately triggered antitrust alarms. The C.M.A. determined that the combined entity would control approximately ninety per cent of the British secondary-ticketing market—well above the dominance threshold. In 2021, regulators ordered the divestiture of StubHub’s international business outside North America—a fact often overlooked in industry analyses but essential for understanding the current market structure.

Liverpool F.C. Ticket Scam: Prison for Organized Fraud

In December of 2025, a Liverpool court sentenced members of an organized group called Seatfinder UK, which had spent years reselling Liverpool F.C. match tickets using hundreds of hijacked fan accounts and cooperation from club ticket-office employees.

The scheme involved mass account takeovers, exploitation of confidential club information, and resale at vastly inflated prices. Liverpool F.C. actively collaborated with police, supplying evidence and supporting the prosecution.

The ringleader received four and a half years’ imprisonment; other members drew sentences ranging from suspended terms to several years behind bars.

Japan: Zero Tolerance, Enforced with Iron Consistency

Japan’s anti-scalping law, passed in 2018 and effective June 2019—in anticipation of the Tokyo Olympics—is no dead letter. Police routinely arrest individuals offering tickets above face value, even for single transactions, even on social-media platforms.

News reports describe arrests for reselling individual K-pop concert tickets or anime-event passes at markups of a few dozen per cent. These are not organized-crime operations; they are ordinary people who failed to grasp the consequences.

The Japanese model works not because the penalties are draconian (up to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of one million yen) but because they are actually enforced—consistently, publicly, without exception.

Three Levels of the Game: Where the Legality Problem Lies

Level One: The Contract You Breach by Buying the Ticket

The most frequently overlooked constraint is the terms of sale imposed by event organizers. Here the trouble begins.

FIFA employs standard terms stipulating that each ticket remains FIFA property, cannot be transferred or used commercially without written consent, and may be voided without refund if sold outside official channels. The hospitality regulations explicitly prohibit acting as “agent or facilitator” for resale.

UEFA follows the same path—tickets are personal, transfer and resale prohibited outside the official platform. Unauthorized sales result in cancellation, denied entry, and referral to authorities.

Ticketmaster and other primary platforms prohibit organized resale outside their own systems.

What does this mean? Trading FIFA, UEFA, or Ticketmaster tickets outside official channels typically constitutes a breach of contract under civil law. It is not (usually) a crime, but it is systematic violation of binding terms—with risks including ticket cancellation, damage claims, and permanent blacklisting.

The argument that a business-to-business model—selling only to brokers, not consumers—neutralizes this conflict? Wrong. The organizer does not care whether the violation is committed by a fan buying a ticket for a friend or by a specialized broker operating at wholesale scale.

Level Two: Countries Playing Different Games

At the European Union level, no general prohibition exists on reselling tickets above face value. The European Commission confirmed this explicitly in 2016—the matter remains for national regulation. E.U. law focuses on prohibiting consumer deception.

The problem is that individual countries have gone in radically different directions:

Belgium provides for a statutory prohibition on resale without organizer consent—with administrative and potentially criminal sanctions, including possible imprisonment in extreme cases.

France requires authorized platforms and restricts margins. Resale outside systems controlled by organizers is legally problematic.

Germany presents a more nuanced picture than is often portrayed. No general statutory ban exists, but case law and consumer regulations create significant constraints on platforms enabling unauthorized resale.

The United Kingdom—here, the most dramatic developments are unfolding. On November 18, 2025, the government announced plans to introduce a complete ban on resale above face value (face value plus unavoidable fees). Platforms will be required to monitor and enforce the cap actively, subject to penalties up to ten per cent of global turnover imposed by the Competition and Markets Authority. It is the most aggressive regulatory intervention in this industry anywhere in the Western world—and a signal to all of Europe.

Japan has gone furthest among developed economies. The 2018 law treats resale above face value as a criminal offense punishable by up to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of up to one million yen. Tickets are nominative, identity verification at entry is standard, and resale platforms actively monitor and report violations.

The United States represents a different philosophy entirely. The BOTS Act of 2016 prohibits using automated software to circumvent purchase limits but does not regulate resale prices. Most states permit resale at market prices, though a handful maintain local restrictions (at public venues, for example, or through broker-licensing requirements). It is a “transparency” model—regulate fraud, not prices.

Singapore represents the opposite extreme: no regulation, prices determined between willing seller and willing buyer. The government has stated explicitly that it has no intention of changing this.

Australia chose a middle path, with margin caps (typically a maximum of ten per cent above face value) and penalties for corporate violators—details vary by state.

Level Three: What Is Coming

The Digital Fairness Act is the most important date on the industry’s calendar. The legislative proposal is expected in 2026, following consultations in 2025. A coalition of booking agencies, artist-management firms, and promoters—CAA, UTA, WME, the European Live Events Alliance—sent a letter to the European Commission in January 2026 urging inclusion of secondary ticketing within the Act’s scope.

Their demands? Pan-European price caps, platform liability for noncompliant listings, verification systems linking primary and secondary platforms, penalties proportional to revenue.

If the Digital Fairness Act takes a shape resembling the British proposals, the business model based on above-face-value margins will become illegal throughout the E.U.

The Tax Dimension: TOMS and VAT Uncertainty

An aspect often overlooked but essential for businesses is the VAT treatment of secondary ticket trading.

Tour Operator Margin Scheme: Does It Apply to Tickets?

The European Court of Justice ruling in Case C-763/23, Dragoram Tour, handed down in June 2024, confirmed that TOMS (Tour Operator Margin Scheme) applies to standalone resale of airline tickets—even without packages or ancillary services.

The implications for event-ticket markets are profound, though uncertain:

• If TOMS applies, the broker accounts for VAT only on the margin (sale price minus purchase price).
• No deduction of input VAT on ticket purchases—a significant constraint on the right to VAT recovery.
• No invoices with separately stated VAT.

The complication: the E.C.J. did not rule specifically on concert or sports-event tickets. Article 307 of the VAT Directive enumerates passenger transport, accommodation, catering—without explicit reference to event admission.

Practical recommendation for brokers operating at significant scale: obtain an individual tax ruling from the relevant tax authorities.

Place of Taxation: Physical vs. Virtual

For physical events (concerts, matches), the place of VAT taxation is the event location—regardless of where seller or buyer is established. A Polish broker selling tickets to a concert in Berlin accounts for German VAT. Questions of tax residence and place of supply become critical.

As of January 1, 2025, virtual events (livestreams, webinars) are subject to new rules: VAT is charged according to consumer location. A Polish organizer streaming a concert to German viewers charges nineteen-per-cent German VAT, not twenty-three-per-cent Polish VAT.

The One-Stop Shop (OSS) system simplifies compliance for virtual events but does not apply to tickets for physical events.

Technology: The New Battlefield

Parallel to legal developments, a technological transformation is under way—one that may prove more effective than any regulation.

Nominative tickets with identity verification—standard practice in Japan for high-demand events, increasingly common in Europe. A ticket linked to the buyer’s identity document loses market value if it cannot be legally transferred. There is nothing to resell.

Dynamic pricing on the primary market—Ticketmaster’s “platinum tickets,” organizers adjusting prices in real time according to demand. If the primary market captures the value that previously flowed to scalpers, the space for secondary trading shrinks dramatically.

Official resale platforms—UEFA and FIFA operate their own authorized secondary channels. Fans can return or transfer tickets within a controlled ecosystem, without recourse to Viagogo.

Blockchain and smart contracts—some organizers are experimenting with tokenized tickets, where transfer conditions are encoded in the token itself. A smart contract can automatically block resale above a specified price or require organizer authorization. The VAT treatment of NFT tickets remains unresolved—tax authorities hold divergent positions, much as they do regarding cryptocurrency taxation more broadly.

A Map of the World: Who Prohibits, Who Permits

Globally, we observe a clear polarization into four models:

Prohibitionist (Japan, prospectively the U.K.): resale above face value as a prohibited act, criminal sanctions, active enforcement.

Price control (Australia, France, probably the future E.U.): resale permitted but with margin caps and transparency requirements.

Transparency (the United States): regulation of fraud and bots, not prices. The market determines ticket value.

Liberal (Singapore): no regulation, free market.

For the international broker, this fragmentation demands continuous monitoring and readiness to adapt the business model by jurisdiction. A concert ticket in Japan represents an entirely different legal situation from a ticket to the same artist’s show in Las Vegas.

The Big Question: Is This Business Legal?

An answer of “yes” is as imprecise as an answer of “no.” Everything depends on the details.

What events? Tickets to a local band’s club show with no transfer restrictions present a different situation from a Champions League final governed by rigorous UEFA terms.

What jurisdictions? Resale legal in one country may constitute a crime in the country where the event takes place or where the end buyer resides.

What channels? Sale through Viagogo, through one’s own website, through direct B2B contacts—each channel generates different exposure.

What model? Resale at face value with a modest markup for costs is usually safe. Systematic purchase of premium-event tickets with intent to resell at multiples of face value—that is an entirely different risk category.

A legal model can be constructed in this industry. It requires, however:

1. A regulatory map identifying which market segments (event types × jurisdictions × channels) permit operation without systematic violation of law and organizers’ terms.
2. Selectivity—forgoing high-risk segments (FIFA, UEFA, events in prohibitionist jurisdictions) in favor of those where resale is permitted or tolerated. Strategic advisory can prove helpful here.
3. Preparation for change—the Digital Fairness Act, evolving British regulations, technological transformation of the primary market may fundamentally reshape the landscape within a few years.
4. Tax awareness—TOMS, place of taxation, registration obligations across multiple jurisdictions are not theoretical concerns but real compliance risks. Professional tax advisory helps minimize them.

Where Is the Market Headed?

Three scenarios appear realistic:

Scenario One: Regulatory harmonization. The Digital Fairness Act introduces pan-European price caps, the U.K. enforces its ban, Australia and other jurisdictions tighten their approaches. The above-face-value margin model becomes illegal in most of the developed world. Survivors will be official resale platforms and brokers operating strictly within face value plus costs.

Scenario Two: Technological elimination. Nominative tickets with biometric verification become standard. Blockchain enables complete traceability with automatic enforcement of terms. Dynamic pricing on the primary market captures all value. The secondary market in its current form ceases to exist not because it is prohibited but because it is technically impossible.

Scenario Three: Status quo with growing uncertainty. Regulatory fragmentation persists. Professional brokers operate in a gray zone—formally violating terms and conditions, rarely facing consequences. The model remains profitable but carries increasing regulatory risk. This is the most probable short-term scenario (one to two years), but it becomes less tenable over a longer horizon.

Conclusion: An Industry at a Crossroads

The secondary ticket market illustrates a fundamental tension in the contemporary economy: global business against fragmented regulation, entrepreneurial freedom against consumer protection, technology outpacing law against law struggling to catch up with technology.

For some, it is an honest business providing access to sold-out events. For others, speculation that drives up prices and harms fans. For the lawyer, a fascinating case where the answer to an apparently simple question—”Is this legal?”—requires analysis of contractual terms, the laws of multiple jurisdictions, regulatory trends, and technological trajectories.

One thing is certain: the window for a model based on unrestricted above-face-value resale is closing. Anyone intending to operate in this industry for the long term must already be thinking about what the market will look like after the Digital Fairness Act, after full implementation of British regulations, after the spread of nominative tickets and dynamic pricing.

The question is not whether this will change. The question is how fast.

This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Specific business decisions require analysis tailored to the particular activity, jurisdictions, and current state of the law.

Robert Nogacki

Founder and Managing Partner of Skarbiec Law Firm, recognized by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna as one of the best tax advisory firms in Poland (2023, 2024). Legal advisor with 19 years of experience, serving Forbes-listed entrepreneurs and innovative start-ups. One of the most frequently quoted experts on commercial and tax law in the Polish media, regularly publishing in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. Author of the publication “AI Decoding Satoshi Nakamoto. Artificial Intelligence on the Trail of Bitcoin’s Creator” and co-author of the award-winning book “Bezpieczeństwo współczesnej firmy” (Security of a Modern Company). LinkedIn profile: 18 500 followers, 4 million views per year. Awards: 4-time winner of the European Medal, Golden Statuette of the Polish Business Leader, title of “International Tax Planning Law Firm of the Year in Poland.” He specializes in strategic legal consulting, tax planning, and crisis management for business.