Licensees must pay their Fiscal Year 2022 regulatory fees to the FCC by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on September 28. The agency’s Commission Registration System (CORES) payment system is here.
The Commission is not mailing bills. Each licensee or provider must log into the CORES payment system and ensure the fees are paid on time. Fees paid even one day late will be subject to a 25 percent penalty, plus processing charges, notes law firm Davis Wright Tremaine.
Who must pay? Commercial Mobile Radio Service providers pay 14 cents per unit and CMRS Messaging Services will pay 8 cents per unit. Microwave licensees pay $25 for the year. Telecommunications service providers pay $0.00452 per revenue dollar and the amount for interstate telecom services is based on reported revenue on FCC Form 499-A, according to Davis Wright Tremaine. This wireless fact sheet goes into more detail about the amounts.
The FCC adopted a population-based method for calculating broadcast television regulatory fees. The FCC had proposed charging .88 of one cent ($.008803) for each person within a station’s projected noise-limited service contour; however, a lower fee factor of .84 of one cent ($.008430) has been adopted for the 2022 fiscal year.
AM and FM broadcast radio fees are based on population serviced and station class, according to the FCC. The smallest fee is $1,050 for a Class A AM station serving a population of 25,000 or less. The highest fee is $22,390 for an FM Class B, C, C0, C1 & C2, serving a population of 6 million or above.
The agency slightly reduced broadcast fees that were originally proposed after NAB and 50 broadcast state associations protested; they say broadcasters are unfairly paying fees that don’t reflect the fact that the Commission spends much of its time on telecom work, Inside Towers reported.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
Reader Interactions