What music suits your hotel, and what do you pay for it?
Updated
The short answer The music that suits your hotel depends on the space. The breakfast room wants something calm, the lobby a soft background, and the bar something warmer in the evening.
What you pay now The lobby, breakfast room and bar fall under the Buma/Stemra and Sena hospitality tariff. Radio in the rooms counts as retransmission and has its own tariff. What the music in your lobby, breakfast room and bar costs you, you work out below.
With RadioMatic The music is made entirely with AI. You pay from € 29.99 a month, and nothing to Buma and Sena. For TV in the rooms you still pay Videma.
Work out what music in your hotel costs now
Three questions, and you see what you now spend on Buma/Stemra, Sena and your music service.
How big is your business?
One station for lobby, bar and breakfast
- A station of your own. The best music in your business every day, and the station remembers your hits.
- We handle your switch. After your trial we cancel Buma/Stemra, Sena and your old music service for you, free of charge. How the switching service works.
- Just atmosphere music, or a complete business radio. With a presenter who talks about your business between the songs, if you want, and with Professional also news and your own adverts.
- Works on what is already there. Sonos, Chromecast, a browser or the line-in of your amplifier.
- 14 days free. A reply within one working day and live in under ten minutes.
From € 29.99 per location per month. What you now pay Buma/Stemra and Sena goes, and so does your current music subscription.
What music fits where in your hotel?
Every space in your hotel asks for something different. In the lobby, music makes the first impression and masks what is said at the desk. In the breakfast room guests have only just woken up, so calm and not too loud. In the bar it can be warmer and fuller in the evening. In the lift and corridors a soft carry-over from the lobby is enough.
For the levies, Buma/Stemra counts hotels as hospitality (in Dutch). The tariff depends on the floor area where the music can be heard. If you play the same music in several spaces, the square metres are added together. If you play something different in each space, you pay for each space separately.
A breakfast room open only to hotel guests counts just the same. Guests are the public, even when they hold a room key.
Do you also pay for radio in the rooms?
Yes. Music your hotel passes on to the rooms, by radio, a channel on the TV or its own system, is called transmission. Buma/Stemra and Sena each have their own tariff for it, separate from the hospitality tariff.
Buma/Stemra charges 3% of what your guests pay for that transmission, with a minimum per year. If you do not charge for it separately, in practice you pay that minimum. For 2026 it is € 94.85 up to 50 connections, and the same amount again for every further 50 connections (Buma/Stemra, central transmission tariff).
Sena charges by the number of rooms that music can be passed on to. With the surcharge of 26.6%, the base tariff in 2026 is around € 124 up to 50 rooms. With more rooms the amount goes up (Sena, 2026 tariff overview). Why those are two bills is explained on the difference between Buma/Stemra and Sena.
TV in the rooms is a third bill
TV programmes do not fall under Buma/Stemra or Sena but under Videma. If your guests can watch TV in their room, you pay a fixed amount per room. In 2026 that is € 43.38 per room per year after discount for 1 to 24 rooms. With more rooms it is slightly less per room, and without the discount you pay more (Videma, hotels, in Dutch).
If there is a TV in the lobby or at reception, € 145.98 per space comes on top, or € 218.86 without the discount. For a TV in the bar, Videma charges by floor area. Pay channels such as ESPN, Viaplay and Ziggo Sport are not covered by the Videma licence.
If you are a member of Koninklijke Horeca Nederland, the Dutch hospitality association, you get an extra discount. KHN states 17% at Buma, on top of the discount for registering yourself and paying on time (KHN, in Dutch), and Videma states 12% for members of KHN or VCHO.
What does it cost for a hotel with 80 rooms?
Take a hotel with 80 rooms, radio and TV in the rooms, and a lobby, breakfast room and bar of 200 m² in total where the same music plays. For the hospitality spaces and the music to the rooms you pay Buma/Stemra and Sena around € 3,200 together in base tariff in 2026. Work out at the top what it is for your hotel.
Videma comes on top for the TV, around € 3,438 a year after discount for 80 rooms. If you register yourself, the music part comes out up to a third lower.
The calculator at the top works out the hospitality part. How that tariff works is on music in hospitality. Add the rooms yourself using the amounts above. If an invoice does not match your number of rooms or your floor area, read what to do with a letter from Mijnlicentie.
Sources: Buma/Stemra, 2026 hospitality tariff, Buma/Stemra, 2026 central transmission tariff, Sena, 2026 tariff overview, Videma, hotels and other accommodation, KHN, Buma discount, all in Dutch. Amounts per year; Buma/Stemra and Videma excluding VAT, Sena exempt from VAT and including the RAAP-PPI surcharge of 26.6%. Consulted on 22 September 2026. Also used bumastemra.nl, bumastemra.nl, ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175.
What it costs with us
With us you pay one amount per location per month for the lobby, the breakfast room and the bar. Each space gets its own mood, and you run them all from one dashboard. The music is generated entirely by AI. Buma/Stemra itself says that works made entirely by AI without a human creative contribution do not qualify for registration, copyright or payment (in Dutch). The same applies to Sena. Sena can only collect for a recording that has been commercially released, and on that ground Sena lost in court in 2025. The full reasoning is in our legal memorandum.
The breakfast room sounds calm in the morning, the bar warmer in the evening. DJ moments talk about your hotel, and between tracks you can announce breakfast times, the restaurant or the spa. In a chain, every property has its own mood. It plays on existing equipment, such as Sonos, Chromecast or the line-in on your amplifier. Nothing changes for TV in the rooms, because Videma remains due for that.
Read the legal reasoningWhy RadioMatic is something other than a playlist or the radio
A business owner who wants music on the premises usually picks from three things. A playlist from a streaming service, an ordinary radio station, or a royalty-free music package. This is where they differ.
| Playlist | Ordinary radio | Royalty-free | RadioMatic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New music | Fixed list | Yes, but not your choice | Limited catalogue | New every day |
| Music that is yours alone | No | No | No | Yes, your own hits |
| Fits the time of day | Switch it yourself | No | Switch it yourself | Automatic |
| Names your business | No | No | No | Yes |
| Your own offers | No | Only if you buy advertising | No | Yes, with Professional, no studio |
| Local news and weather | No | Yes, the station’s | No | Yes, with Professional, your town |
| Other people’s adverts | No | Yes | No | No |
| Several locations | Set up per location | No | Set up per location | Yes, from one place, each with its own mood |
| Buma/Stemra and Sena | Payable | Payable | See the terms | Not payable |
Questions about music in your hotel
Further reading
- What music suits your restaurant, and what does it cost?Mood by time of day, what research really says, and the levies at the hospitality rate.
- What does music cost in hospitality, and does the terrace count?The highest tariff of all categories, and why the terrace counts.
- Radio on in your business? Then you pay Buma and Sena too.The radio counts like anything else. What it costs, when it does not count, and why TV is a third bill.
- Music without Buma and Sena. Is it possible?Which routes exist, what they really cost, and which one holds up.
Ready to hear it for yourself?
Try RadioMatic free for 14 days. Your own station for your business, without Buma/Stemra and Sena, and cancel monthly if you pay monthly.
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