FCC Shields ISPs from Paying Agency Regulatory Fees

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission declined Friday to expand who pays for its annual regulatory fees.

In its fiscal year 2025 order, the agency rejected proposals to add new categories of fee payors, including broadband internet service providers and large technology companies.

“Claims that large technology companies ‘benefit significantly’ from the commission’s work are not sufficient,” the order read. “Commenters advocating for these new fee categories failed to indicate how their adoption would fit within the commission’s current regulatory fee methodology.”

The National Association of Broadcasters and Telesat had urged the FCC in July to broaden the base by creating five new categories covering broadband service providers, large tech, equipment authorization holders, experimental licensees, and database administrators for unlicensed services. Iridium and state broadcaster associations supported the effort.

However, the proposal drew sharp opposition from CTIA, the Wi-Fi Alliance, Kinéis, NCTA, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and the Consumer Technology Association, which argued the plan would be burdensome, duplicative, and administratively unworkable.

The order clarifies the FCC will add a new fee category only when “significant FTE resources of a core bureau are being spent on oversight and regulatory activities with respect to a specific service,” adding, “Such circumstances have not been presented here.”

The FCC and many stakeholders also dismissed NAB’s request to hold stakeholder “roundtables” on the matter ahead of the 2026 fee cycle.

What are regulatory fees?

Regulatory fees are how the FCC funds itself. Under federal law, the FCC must recover the bulk of its operating costs each year by collecting fees from the industries it regulates.

Each year, the agency calculates how much time its staff, measured in full-time equivalents (FTEs), spends regulating different sectors. The total budget is then divided among those industries in proportion to their share of the FCC’s workload. 

For FY 2025, that comes to just over $390 million spread across categories such as broadcasters, wireless carriers, satellite operators, and cable providers.

That includes $116.6 million from the sectors regulated by the Wireline Competition Bureau, including phone, VoIP, submarine cable; $116.1 million from Media Bureau regulatees, like broadcasters, cable and satellite TV providers; $105.6 million from wireless licensees; $44.9 million from satellite operators under the Space Bureau; and, $7 million from international services. 

The allocations reflect a reclassification of 61 indirect FTEs as direct FTEs: 23 each to Wireline and Wireless, 13 to Media, and 2 to Space.

Changes for satellite operators 

Satellite providers will see changes in how and when fees are assessed. 

Beginning this year, space and earth station fees will be billed at the time of authorization rather than when facilities become operational. 

The FCC said this change ensures it recovers “significant” staff costs associated with licensing work, even if an authorized satellite never becomes operational.

Additionally, non-geostationary orbit constellations are now divided into two categories: small systems with fewer than 1,000 satellites and large systems with 1,000 or more.