The Only Way Is Essex stars are reportedly being forced to hand 15 percent of their earnings to the show's producers.
Production company Lime Pictures has drawn up contracts to get a cut of all earnings secured because of their links to TOWIE, including payments from magazine interviews, promotional work and endorsements.
The document also states that cast members who quit must continue to give the firm 15 percent from any deals for up to a year after they leave.
The new contracts come after the exits of Mark Wright and Amy Childs, who went on to launch successful media careers.
Wright is predicted to make millions from his appearance on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here and recently landed his first presenting role on Take Me Out: The Gossip.
Meanwhile, Childs secured her own Channel 5 show - It's All About Amy - following her stint on Celebrity Big Brother and has admitted she's nearly a millionaire.
The new cast members, such as James 'Diags' Bennewith and Georgina Dorsett, are believed to have signed the contracts, but the more established cast members have apparently refused the deal and are therefore filming the current series without contracts until the dispute is settled.
Lime Pictures pays each cast member £50 a day in expenses for starring in The Only Way Is Essex. Filming is said to take anything up to 13 hours a day.
"A lot of the cast have jobs outside TOWIE. But if you are working for 13 hours a day that doesn't leave time to hold down a second job, so they are dependent on £50 and anything else they can make from deals," a source told The Mail On Sunday.
"It seems unfair that on top of agents' fees and tax, they also have to give 15% back to the show. We are in discussions with their agents to tell us what their concerns are so we can continue negotiations."
Lime Pictures made post-tax profits of £7.6m on a turnover of £39.1m in 2009-10.
A spokesman for the company said: "We would never discuss artists' contracts. They are private."
