CoverageIowa
Iowa 911 surcharge remittance
We fill State of Iowa — Communications Surcharge Remittance. You review it, sign it, and send it to Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
The state publishes a fillable PDF and this product fills it. What follows is the state’s own form, with the computed figures placed in its own fields.
Iowa publishes a fillable PDF and the product fills it. The blank was retrieved from the department’s own file host and has eleven form fields. The product selects the quarter in the form’s own radio group and writes the single money line, “In the amount of $”, with the computed remittance — the gross less the one percent Iowa lets the provider retain — because the form travels with the remittance and asks for that figure. The signature block stays with the provider, and enclosing the payment is the provider’s own act.
The rate in force now
- Rate
- $1.00 per line per month · Emergency communications service surcharge
- Effective
- not published by the state · evidenced from 2026-02-18
- Cite
- Iowa Code § 34A.7A(1)(a); Iowa Admin. Code r. 605—10.7
- Form rev.
- the state publishes no revision label
- Retrieved
- Thu, August 13, 2026 · two independent fetches agree
Cadence
“Surcharge funds shall be remitted on a calendar quarter basis by the close of business on the twentieth day following the end of the quarter.”
Calendar quarters, and the form asks the provider to select one of the four and enter the year.
The local wire-line leg runs on the same calendar-quarter cycle under r. 605—10.5(2), to each joint 911 service board. It is a separate obligation and is out of scope here.
Due dates
Communications Surcharge Remittance form and payment
- To
- Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 911 Program Manager
- Rule
- 20 days after the period ends
- Weekends
- the date shown is not moved for a weekend or holiday
- Applies to
- Quarterly
“Surcharge funds shall be remitted on a calendar quarter basis by the close of business on the twentieth day following the end of the quarter.”
The form restates the same rule as four fixed dates — January 20, April 20, July 20 and October 20 — and adds that the remittance must be in the department’s office by then, not merely postmarked.
Iowa publishes no weekend or holiday rule for this deadline, so the engine does not move the date and says so.
Authority conflict
Two of the state's own documents disagree.
This is never settled in code. Both positions are reproduced as the state wrote them, the engine’s posture is stated plainly, and the period is flagged for review so a person decides before it closes.
Who the check for the quarterly surcharge is made payable to
Flagged for reviewIowa’s administrative rule and Iowa’s own remittance form name different payees for the same check. Both are state sources, both were read directly, and neither research pass found the two reconciled anywhere.
Iowa Admin. Code r. 605—10.7(1)
“Providers shall issue their checks or warrants to the Treasurer, State of Iowa, and remit to 911 Program Manager, Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 7900 Hickman Road, Suite 500, Windsor Heights, Iowa 50324.”
State of Iowa — Communications Surcharge Remittance (Updated 8/28/2014)
“PAYABLE TO: IOWA HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT”
What the engine does: Both payees are shown on the cover sheet, verbatim and attributed, and neither is presented as the answer. The figures on the return are unaffected either way.
What you can do: Ask the department’s 911 Program Manager which payee the department currently accepts, and record the answer against this state.
Counting rule
Per originating service number — the assigned telephone or service number — imposed uniformly on a statewide basis and simultaneously on all originating service numbers. The hundred-access-line cap that appears in Iowa Code § 34A.7(3) belongs to the local wire-line surcharge and is not repeated in § 34A.7A, so no cap applies to this stream; that is an absence of text rather than an affirmative statement that none exists.
Non-fixed, nomadic interconnected VoIP is treated as wireless service for surcharge remittance and collection by Iowa Admin. Code r. 605—10.7(2), which puts it on this state surcharge, counted per originating service number. Fixed interconnected VoIP is treated as wireline service by r. 605—10.5(1) and is not on this stream at all: it carries the local wire-line surcharge, per access line, capped at a hundred access lines per subscriber in a single 911 service area, remitted to a joint 911 service board. Iowa publishes no trunk or concurrent-call equivalency rule for either stream.
Per-customer cap
None on the state stream. Both research passes looked for an analogue to the local surcharge’s hundred-line cap in § 34A.7A and neither found one.
“the director shall adopt by rule a monthly surcharge of one dollar”
“shall not be imposed on wire-line-based communications or prepaid wireless telecommunications service”
“an exchange access line that has the ability to access dial tone and reach a public safety answering point”
Collection allowance
- Applies to
- the gross amount collected
- On the form
- Not printed on the form — Iowa’s remittance form carries a single amount line, so the retention is taken before the figure that goes on it
“the originating service provider may retain one percent of the gross surcharges collected”
The same one percent exists on the out-of-scope local wire-line leg under § 34A.7(2)(a), where a shortfall against actual billing cost may be carried into a rate case. Each applies only to its own leg.
Rate history
The engine resolves the window that covers the filing period, never the latest one. A back period therefore prices at the rate that was in force for it.
2026-02-18 (evidenced) → current
$1.00 per line per month · Emergency communications service surcharge
Iowa Code § 34A.7A(1)(a); Iowa Admin. Code r. 605—10.7
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/34A.pdf · retrieved Thu, August 13, 2026
Iowa publishes no effective date for this amount. The amendment history printed with § 34A.7A records no change to the dollar figure, and both research passes read it that way, but no earlier codification was retrieved — so this window is bounded at the date of the published text that was actually read, and the engine refuses a period before it rather than assuming the figure held.
The remittance form does not print the rate at all. Its single money line is the whole computation surface, which is why the archive carries the count times rate that produced it.
The rule that routes fixed against non-fixed VoIP was last amended by ARC 0072D, effective March 25, 2026. Whether the classification changed on that date or is longstanding could not be established: the mirror carrying earlier rule text refused automated retrieval. A back period before that date may route differently.
Flagged for review: Who the check for the quarterly surcharge is made payable to
Zero-report rule
Zero report · not on record
Iowa states neither that a quarter with nothing collected must be filed nor that it may be skipped. The form offers no zero-liability box and no declaration, and its own wording — “Enclosed, please find the surcharge collected for the ___ quarter … In the amount of $___” — presumes money travels with it. No sworn or attested zero-report language exists anywhere in Iowa Code ch. 34A, and none may be composed.
Searched: Iowa Code ch. 34A in full and Iowa Admin. Code 605—ch. 10 in full, both from the legislature’s own published PDFs, plus the department’s 911 Program page and the face of the form. Both research passes reached the same absence.
Record retention
Record retention · not on record
Iowa publishes no record-retention period for a provider’s own surcharge remittance records. What ch. 34A does impose is confidentiality: access-line counts and remittance figures a provider gives the state or a board are confidential records. A confidentiality duty is not a retention duration, and the product’s archive keeps the filings indefinitely.
Searched: Iowa Code ch. 34A, including §§ 34A.7(2)(d) and 34A.8, and Iowa Admin. Code 605—ch. 10, including r. 605—10.5(3). Both research passes reached the same absence.
Registration
Registration · not on record
Iowa publishes no registration form, portal or documented procedure for opening a surcharge remittance account. A provider appears simply to begin mailing the quarterly form and check. Two adjacent processes exist and are not this one: r. 605—10.11(3)(c) requires an originating service provider to ask the 911 program manager for network access, and a shared-system notice-of-intent form linked from the program page whose applicability to an individual provider is unconfirmed. The statute frames onboarding the other way round — the program manager gives a provider sixty days’ notice before the surcharge begins.
Searched: The department’s 911 Program page and every document linked from it, Iowa Code ch. 34A, and Iowa Admin. Code 605—ch. 10. Both research passes reached the same absence.
The state’s own form
- Form
- The state publishes no form identifier. Iowa prints no form number on this document and publishes none for it. The state identifies it by its title alone, “State of Iowa — Communications Surcharge Remittance”, and the registry does the same.
- Title
- State of Iowa — Communications Surcharge Remittance
- Revision
- Updated 8/28/2014
The form is signed and mailed with a check to the 911 Program Manager at the department’s Windsor Heights address. The form states that it must accompany the remittance and must carry an original signature. There is no online filing or electronic payment channel.
Remit to
- Agency
- Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
- Division
- 911 Program — 911 Program Manager
- Payee
- The rule and the form name different payees and both are recorded: Iowa Admin. Code r. 605—10.7(1) directs checks or warrants to “the Treasurer, State of Iowa”, and the form directs the check to “Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department”.
- Address
- 911 Program Manager, Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 7900 Hickman Road, Suite 500, Windsor Heights, Iowa 50324
- Contact
- The 911 Program Manager at the department, through the 911 Program page
Out of scope
Iowa has a local component this product does not cover.
Iowa splits the obligation by VoIP subtype rather than by a percentage on one form. Non-fixed, nomadic interconnected VoIP is classified as wireless service by Iowa Admin. Code r. 605—10.7(2) and carries the statewide surcharge covered here, remitted to the department, which afterwards redistributes a statutory share to local joint 911 service boards without the provider touching it. Fixed interconnected VoIP is classified as wireline service by r. 605—10.5(1) and carries the local wire-line surcharge instead, remitted to the joint 911 service board for each 911 service area where the provider has subscribers — as many remittances as there are service areas, to boards that each set their own process, with no statewide form and no state aggregation point. That local leg is out of scope for this product and is named here for that reason: a provider with fixed-VoIP subscribers across Iowa counties has no single Iowa filing.
The local wire-line 911 service surcharge on fixed interconnected VoIP
It is a dollar a month per access line, capped at a hundred access lines per subscriber in one 911 service area, and it is remitted to each joint 911 service board rather than to the state. There is no statewide form, no state portal and no state aggregation point, so a provider serving fixed VoIP has one remittance per service area. This product covers the state stream.
The prepaid wireless E911 surcharge
It is thirty-three cents per retail transaction, collected by the retail seller at the point of sale and administered by the Department of Revenue on the sales-tax mechanism. Different remitter, different agency, different filing.
Everything else this record does not know
Form revision · not on record
The department’s own page labels this form “Archived” while linking it as the only remittance form on the live 911 Program page, and the file is footer-dated 2014. Its address and due-date text match the current rule word for word, so the weight of evidence is that it is the operative form; the label is unexplained.
Searched: The department’s 911 Program page and its document list, and the form itself. One research pass raised the label; the other did not see it.
Portal address · not on record
Iowa publishes no online filing or payment channel for either the state surcharge or the local wire-line surcharge. The state stream is a paper form and a check; the local stream has no statewide vehicle at all.
Searched: The department’s 911 Program page and Iowa Admin. Code 605—ch. 10. Both research passes reached the same absence.
Sources
Every fact above traces to one of these, retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026.
The record was reached by two independent research passes that agreed. Each source below opens at the address it was read from, with the date it was read.
Iowa Legislature — Iowa Code ch. 34A (911 Emergency Telephone Systems)
The dollar amount and remittance duty of the state surcharge, the one percent retention, the local wire-line surcharge and its cap, and the confidentiality provisions.
Retrieved Thu, August 13, 2026
Iowa Legislature — Iowa Administrative Code, Homeland Security[605] ch. 10, stamped IAC 2/18/26
The fixed-versus-non-fixed VoIP classification rules, the calendar-quarter deadline, and the payee and remit-to address.
Retrieved Thu, August 13, 2026
Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management — 911 Program
The remittance form itself, the naming of the 911 Program Manager, the “Archived” label beside the form link, and the absence of any registration or zero-report guidance.
Retrieved Thu, August 13, 2026
Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management — Communications Surcharge Remittance
The quarter selector and year, the single amount line, the payee printed on the form, the remit-to address, and the four fixed quarterly dates.
Retrieved Wed, September 9, 2026
- Iowa Code § 34A.7A
- The statewide emergency communications service surcharge — the dollar amount, the remittance duty, the one percent retention, and the distribution of the fund
- Iowa Code § 34A.7
- The local wire-line 911 service surcharge and its hundred-access-line cap, the out-of-scope leg that fixed VoIP carries
- Iowa Code § 34A.2
- Definitions, including communications service, originating service provider, voice over internet protocol service, and access line
- Iowa Admin. Code r. 605—10.7
- Remittance mechanics, the twentieth-day deadline, the payee and remit-to address, and the classification of non-fixed VoIP as wireless service
- Iowa Admin. Code r. 605—10.5
- The classification of fixed VoIP as wireline service and the remittance of the local surcharge to a joint 911 service board
- Iowa Code § 34A.8
- Confidentiality of the counts and remittance figures a provider reports
Notes carried on this record
The form carries no companion charge — no 988, telecommunications relay or poison-control line appears on it or anywhere in ch. 34A.
There is no line-count breakdown anywhere on the form: one dollar figure is the whole computation surface. The count times rate that produced it lives in this product’s archive, and the cover sheet carries it, because the state’s own artifact does not.
The department’s roster of joint 911 service boards, the starting point for the out-of-scope local leg, was identified but not retrieved by either research pass.