How to Verify SEC Fee Rate Advisories Before You Rely on Them
A step-by-step method for checking SEC fee rate advisories: which advisory covers transaction fees versus filing fees, and what each one does and does not establish.
If you are trying to confirm a fee rate that affects your firm's filing or transaction costs, the reliable answer comes from the Commission's own advisory notices rather than from secondary summaries. The SEC publishes these advisories to inform the public of developments relating to transaction fees or filing fees paid to the Commission (c01). A correct verification therefore means matching the advisory you are reading to the specific fee it governs, and to the fiscal year it covers.
Step 1: Identify which fee you are actually checking
The two advisory families cover different obligations and rest on different statutes, so mixing them up is the most common way to misread a rate. Transaction fees are set under Section 31 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which requires self-regulatory organizations to pay the Commission twice annually a fee based on the aggregate dollar amount of certain sales of securities (c02). Filing fees are set under Section 6(b) of the Securities Act of 1933, which requires the Commission to collect fees from issuers on the registration of securities (c04).
Before you open any advisory, write down which of the two you are checking. If your question is about a registration statement, you want the Section 6(b) material. If your question is about a self-regulatory organization's twice-annual payment, you want the Section 31 material.
Step 2: Match the advisory to the fiscal year in its title
The titles carry the fiscal year, and the fiscal year matters because these rates are not permanent. The SEC's advisory list identifies a Section 6(b) Filing Fee Rate Advisory for Fiscal Year 2027 and a Section 31 Transaction Fee Rate Advisory for Fiscal Year 2026, listed with the months Aug. and Feb. respectively (c05, c06). Read the fiscal year and the month together: they tell you which period the notice addresses, not which period you are currently in.
A rate that appears in a Fiscal Year 2027 filing advisory is a statement about that fiscal year. It is not automatically the rate that applied in earlier years, and it is not automatically the rate that will apply in later ones.
Step 3: Confirm the advisory exists in the official list
Work from the Commission's advisory page rather than from a reposted figure. The list also includes a separate entry described as Basic Section 31 Transaction Fee Information for Firms (c07), which is informational material about Section 31 fees rather than a dated rate advisory. Treating that basic information page as a substitute for the dated advisory would leave you without a fiscal-year anchor.
- Confirm the notice title matches the fee type you are checking (c05, c06).
- Confirm the fiscal year in the title matches the year your question concerns.
- Confirm you are looking at an advisory, not the general Section 31 information page (c07).
Step 4: Understand why a rate can move
The transaction fee rate is explicitly subject to annual change. The rate may change annually as part of the Commission's budget appropriation for a given fiscal year (c03). That is the mechanism to keep in mind: a new fiscal year's appropriation can mean a new rate, and an advisory is how the public is told.
This is a description of how the rate is determined, not a forecast. The sources here do not state the direction or size of any change.
Step 5: Record what the advisory establishes and what it does not
An advisory tells you that a development relating to a fee has occurred and which fee type and fiscal year it concerns (c01, c05, c06). It does not, by itself, tell you your own firm's payment obligation, because the underlying statutes define who pays and on what base (c02, c04). Keep the two layers separate in your notes.
| Check | What you are confirming |
|---|---|
| Fee type | Section 31 transaction fee or Section 6(b) filing fee (c02, c04) |
| Fiscal year | Year stated in the advisory title (c05, c06) |
| Document type | Dated advisory versus basic Section 31 firm information (c07) |
| Basis of rate | Annual change tied to budget appropriation (c03) |
A worked example of the matching logic
Suppose a colleague forwards a figure and says it is "the SEC transaction fee." Your first move is not to accept the number but to ask which advisory it came from. If the answer is a Section 31 Transaction Fee Rate Advisory for Fiscal Year 2026 (c06), you have a fiscal-year anchor for a transaction fee. If the answer is the Section 6(b) Filing Fee Rate Advisory for Fiscal Year 2027 (c05), the figure belongs to a different fee family and a different fiscal year, and it should not be applied to a transaction fee question.
Hypothetical: if you were logging these checks for internal use, a simple entry such as "fee type / fiscal year / advisory month" would let a reviewer repeat your reasoning without re-reading every notice. The hypothetical here is the logging format only; no rate is assumed.
What the source does not say
The available material does not state the actual numeric fee rates for any fiscal year. It does not give the effective date on which a listed advisory's rate takes effect, beyond the fiscal year and month in the title. It does not state the size or direction of any annual change. It does not describe how a particular firm's payment is calculated, and it does not address digital assets, crypto trading, or how any crypto platform should treat these fees. It also does not establish that a Fiscal Year 2027 filing advisory is final, approved, or currently in force.
For a reader checking account or product conditions at a US platform, the practical takeaway is narrower than it may first appear. SEC fee advisories concern fees paid to the Commission under the two statutes described above. They are not a statement about platform availability, eligibility, or account terms, and nothing here should be read as confirming those.
Sources
Informational only. Not financial, legal or investment advice. Check the primary sources listed above before you act on anything here.