How to Transfer Your Full Catalog to a New Distributor Step by Step

What's the right order to transfer a catalog?

Do it in this order: export all codes and metadata, export your analytics, de-register Content ID through the old distributor, upload to the new distributor using your original ISRCs and UPCs, allow a 48 to 72 hour overlap, confirm the new delivery is live everywhere, then remove the old release. Keep the old account open until the final royalty cycle clears.

That sequence is the whole game. Two steps are the ones people get wrong at scale: providing your original ISRCs and UPCs on upload, and de-registering Content ID before re-registering it. Skip the first and DSPs treat every track as brand new. Skip the second and YouTube throws an ownership conflict.

The hard numbers that shape every decision below: a 48 to 72 hour overlap window (practitioner convention, not a Spotify guarantee), a 2 to 4 month standard royalty payment lag from stream to payout, 1 UPC per release with one ISRC per track, and Spotify track-linking that is never 100% guaranteed.

How do I export my ISRCs and UPCs before moving?

Pull every ISRC (one per track) and every UPC (one per release) from your old distributor's dashboard before you touch anything else. An ISRC is a 12-character code tied permanently to a specific recording; a UPC is a 12-digit barcode for the release as a whole. A 10-track album carries 1 UPC and 10 ISRCs, per LANDR and RouteNote.

While you're in there, record the full metadata for each release, because the new upload has to match the old one exactly: track title, artist name (exact styling), version title, featured-artist formatting, the explicit flag, release type, original release date, and cover artwork, per Ari's Take and eMastered.

For a large catalog, build a single spreadsheet, one row per track, before you migrate a single release. The reason this matters: some distributors auto-assign a new ISRC by default unless you explicitly hand them the original code, per eMastered. If a new distributor generates a new ISRC for the same recording, DSPs treat it as a brand-new track. Stream counts reset to zero, playlist placements drop, and algorithmic history is gone. There's a documented case of an artist who switched with a new ISRC and lost every playlist slot, restarting from zero on identical audio, per Ari's Take. The ISRC itself doesn't change when distribution changes hands; it's tied to the recording, not the deal, per CONNECT Music Licensing. The only way it changes is if a distributor mints a fresh one, so your job is to stop that from happening.

While you have the dashboard open, export your analytics and sales reports too. Distributor-level dashboard data is never transferred between providers, so download it before you close the account. Your DSP-native dashboards (Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists) keep their history independently of who distributes you, per Absolute Label Services.

How do I move Content ID without an ownership conflict?

De-register Content ID through your old distributor before the new one registers anything. If both distributors hold a Content ID claim on the same track, YouTube flags an ownership conflict and monetization can be restricted or blocked, per Symphonic and CD Baby.

The order is strict: old distributor removes the claim first, you confirm it's gone, then the new distributor re-registers. For a catalog with a lot of tracks in user-generated YouTube content, this is the slow part, so start it early. Content ID runs at real scale, processing billions of claims a year with automation handling the overwhelming majority, so a conflict in that system isn't a phone call you can resolve quickly. The sibling breakage guide carries the exact figures.

One thing to check before you start: not every distributor includes Content ID. CD Baby includes it in the base plan at no extra fee. TuneCore includes it but keeps a 20% commission on YouTube ad revenue. DistroKid charges extra per song ($4.95/song/year or $14.95/song one-time) plus a 20% revenue share on YouTube ad earnings, per ALERA, Chartlex, and CD Baby.

How do the overlapping deliveries work?

Upload to the new distributor using your original ISRCs and UPCs, with the identical audio file, then keep the old release live for 48 to 72 hours after the new delivery goes live. During that overlap, DSPs can detect the duplicate and consolidate streams, saves, and playlist placements onto one entry, per Ari's Take.

Upload the same audio, not a re-export or remaster, unless the track length is preserved exactly. Spotify uses a track-linking algorithm to match a new delivery to your existing catalog entry, and when it links, it combines the stream counts onto the linked track, per Symphonic and Label Engine. The signals it matches on are ISRC, artist name, track title, audio fingerprint, and track duration. They all have to be identical, track-linking is never 100% guaranteed, and Spotify can't do manual link requests, per Label Engine.

Be straight with yourself on the 48 to 72 hour window. It's practitioner convention, widely recommended, but Spotify's own documentation doesn't confirm the specific figure or guarantee that streams consolidate, per Ari's Take. I treat it as a sensible safety margin, not a promise. One more thing to watch: if a new UPC also gets generated (sometimes required for a deluxe edition or a format change), the original release link on a DSP can break even when the ISRC is preserved, because DSPs map catalog pages to release-level UPCs. Preserve the UPC wherever you can.

For a deeper breakdown of every failure mode in a transfer, see the sibling guide on what actually breaks during a distributor transfer. If your priority is specifically protecting Spotify, the guide on switching without losing Spotify streams or playlist placement covers the track-linking side in detail.

Stage every release through the free catalog migration checklist →

How do I confirm go-live before removing the old release?

Check each platform individually before you take anything down. Don't trust the new distributor's dashboard saying "live." Open Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and confirm the release is actually there with the right metadata.

This is where a methodical large-catalog approach pays off:

Remove the old release only after the new delivery is confirmed live on every platform, and re-register Content ID through the new distributor only after the old registration is confirmed removed.

When can I close the old distributor account?

Not until its final royalty cycle clears, which can run several months after you remove the release. Your old distributor keeps collecting royalties for streams that happened while its delivery was live, right up to removal. The new distributor only collects from its go-live date forward. Close the old account before that final cycle completes and you can forfeit those earnings, per ALERA and SpareMusic.

Plan around the lag. The standard delay from stream to distribution payout is typically 2 to 4 months: Spotify reports around 45 days after month-end, Apple Music up to 60 days, then the distributor adds its own processing window, per Dynamoi. So a stream that happened the week before you removed a release might not pay out for months. Keep the account open, keep the payout method valid, and wait for the pipeline to clear before you cancel.

What do I have to re-register myself after the move?

Your distributor only handles master-recording royalties. The songwriting and neighbouring-rights side runs through separate bodies, and a distributor switch doesn't touch them, but it's the right moment to confirm your registrations still point at the correct recordings. None of these collect through your distributor.

In the US: The MLC collects mechanical royalties on the songwriting side from DSPs under a blanket license, and pays registered publishers, admins, and self-administered songwriters, per The MLC. SoundExchange collects non-interactive digital performance royalties (Pandora, SiriusXM, iHeartRadio) on the recording side, splitting the pool 50% to the sound-recording owner, 45% directly to the featured artist, and 5% to a non-featured-artist fund, per SoundExchange.

In Canada, the structure is different and worth getting exactly right. SOCAN administers performing and communication rights for the composition, and uses ISRC codes as one of its core identifiers to match streams to rights holders. Without accurate ISRCs, SOCAN's own guidance says your royalties risk getting lost along the way, which is one more reason to preserve your codes through the move, per SOCAN Academy and the SOCAN FAQ. Mechanical and reproduction rights on the composition are collected by CMRRA or by SOCAN Reproduction Rights (SOCAN RR), and you can't be a client of both for the same rights at once, per CMRRA and SOCAN RR. Neighbouring rights on the recording side go through Re:Sound and its member organizations (MROC, Artisti, ACTRA RACS), per Re:Sound.

You don't re-register these for a distributor switch the way you'd re-deliver a release. You confirm the registrations exist and reference the correct recordings, then move on. The catalog migration checklist keeps these on the list so a 50-release move doesn't quietly leave the songwriting side stale.