ExplainersScope
911 surcharges are not USF, and not a Form 499 filing
Different collector, different form, different cadence, different money. What this product covers and what it deliberately leaves alone.
Providers meet three different regimes with overlapping vocabulary, and conflating them is how a filing gets missed. They differ in who collects, what is filed, how often, and on what basis the money is computed.
State 911 surcharges — what this product covers
A per-line charge the provider bills to the subscriber and remits to a state agency, on that state’s own schedule and its own form. There is no single collector: across the 27 states this product ships, 27 distinct agencies collect — revenue departments, public safety departments, utility commissions, and standalone 911 boards. There is no single cadence either: 23 monthly, 4 quarterly.
Agencies that collect, across the shipped registry
- Alabama 911 Board
- California Department of Tax and Fee Administration
- Comptroller of the Treasury
- Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection
- Emergency Services Communication Bureau
- Florida Emergency Communications Board
- Georgia Department of Revenue
- Illinois State Police
- Indiana Statewide 911 Board
- Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
- Kansas State 911 Board
- Massachusetts State 911 Department
- Michigan Department of Treasury
- Minnesota Department of Public Safety
- Mississippi Department of Revenue
- New Hampshire Department of Safety
- New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation
- North Carolina 911 Board
- Office of Unified Communications
- Rhode Island Division of Taxation
- South Dakota Department of Revenue
- State of Hawaii 9-1-1 Board
- Tennessee Department of Revenue
- Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
- Utah State Tax Commission
- Virginia Department of Taxation
- Wisconsin Department of Revenue
The basis is a count of lines or access points, under each state’s own counting rule. No subscriber-level information is involved anywhere in it, which is why this product holds aggregate counts and nothing else.
Federal universal service and FCC Form 499 — out of scope
FCC Form 499-A and 499-Q, universal service fund contributions, and FCC regulatory fees are a federal regime with a federal administrator, a revenue basis rather than a line count, and its own calendar. This product does not prepare them, does not compute them, and does not track their deadlines. It is an adjacent product, deliberately not this one, and a page that quietly implied otherwise would be claiming coverage that does not exist.
Prepaid wireless, and the other charges on a state’s bill
Several states levy a prepaid wireless 911 charge collected at the retail point of sale. That is a different remitter — the retailer — on a different form and often a different cadence, and it is out of scope here. Michigan is the clearest illustration: its state 911 charge rides a quarterly form for service suppliers, and its prepaid wireless surcharge rides a monthly form for retailers. A companion charge such as 988 or a telecommunications relay fee is in scope only where it appears as a field on the state’s own 911 remittance form, which each state’s page states plainly.
Where a state runs a local 911 charge alongside its state charge, that local leg is named as out of scope on the state’s own page rather than left implied.
This page describes what the states publish and what this product does with it. It is not advice, it renders no judgment on any filing, and it makes no determination about which states are yours — that determination is the provider’s. Every state, shipped or named.