Effective January 1, 2027, the EPA Fee Schedule will be amended to temporarily increase the EPA fee from $0.10 to $0.12 per page for access to court records through PACER for a period of five years to help fund the accelerated initiative to modernize and strengthen the security of the judiciary's case management system. The modernization project is also necessary to improve public access to the judiciary's electronic docketing information. To lessen the user impact of the fee increase, the quarterly threshold for automatic exemption from EPA fees will be raised from $30 to $40. There will be no change to the fee for printing copies of records or documents accessed electronically at a courthouse public terminal—that fee will remain $0.10 per page.

The delayed effective date for the EPA fee increase allows for adequate time to reprogram the PACER billing software, provides users time to plan for the increased cost, and coincides with the start of a billing cycle.  A related press release was posted on the U.S. Courts public website. An announcement of the EPA fee increase has also been posted on the PACER public website.

If you have any questions about the EPA fee increase, please contact the EPA Program at CSO_EPA@ao.uscourts.gov.