New Court Fees to Take Effect Dec. 1

Several changes to U.S. Courts’ Miscellaneous Fee Schedules, including two bankruptcy fee adjustments, will take effect Dec. 1, under amendments approved in September by the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Scheduled changes to the Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule include:

• A $50 increase, from $157 to $207, in the fee assessed when a direct appeal from a bankruptcy court is accepted by a Court of Appeals. The new fee brings parity to the fees assessed for other methods of appealing bankruptcy rulings to a Court of Appeals.
• A new $25 per-case filing fee for a motion to redact information from previously filed records in a bankruptcy case.  At the same time, another change clarified that no additional fees will be charged to reopen a closed bankruptcy case where the only purpose for the reopening request is to remove personal identifiers.

In addition, two other clarifications that do not result in additional fees will go into effect: 

• The District Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule will state that the processing fee for a petty offense charged on a federal violation notice is $25. Such a fee already was being charged, but had not been included in the fee schedule.
• A new item in the Court of Appeals Miscellaneous Fee Schedule clarifies that a statutory fee of $5 will be charged in addition to a $500 docketing fee, for a total filing fee of $505. That amount already was being charged, but had not been explicitly stated in the schedule.

The miscellaneous fee schedules for federal appellate, district and bankruptcy courts can be found at the Forms & Fees page.