CoverageMassachusetts
Massachusetts 911 surcharge remittance
We prepare a filing packet in the order of Enhanced 9-1-1 Service Surcharge Monthly Report Template. You transcribe it onto the state's own file.
The state publishes a document this product does not fill, and says why below. What follows is the computed figure set in the order of the state’s own document, for you to transcribe onto it.
The State 911 Department publishes its monthly report template as a legacy binary Excel workbook (the older .xls format), established from the downloaded file in both research passes. The product fills only the current Excel format, so there is no way to write into the Department’s own file and hand back what it published, so the product produces the figures in the order of the template’s own lines and the provider enters them and signs.
Why this product does not fill it
The Department publishes this template as a legacy binary Excel workbook (the older .xls format), and the product fills only the current Excel format, so it cannot produce the Department’s own file with values in it without rebuilding the workbook, which would no longer be the file the Commonwealth published. The product prepares the figures in the template’s own line order instead, and the provider enters them.
The rate in force now
- Rate
- $1.50 per line per month · Enhanced 9-1-1 Service Surcharge
- Effective
- 2019-01-01 → current
- Cite
- D.T.C. 18-2 Order (2018), approving the increase effective January 1, 2019, as continued by the D.T.C. 23-3 Final Order of November 30, 2023; imposition and counting rule at M.G.L. c.6A §18H(a)
- Form rev.
- Form updated: February 23, 2024
- Retrieved
- Wed, August 12, 2026 · two independent fetches agree
Cadence
“Each communication service provider shall report to the department on a monthly basis the total surcharge revenues collected from its subscribers or end users during the preceding month, the total uncollected surcharge revenues ... during the preceding month, [and] the total amount billed to the department for administration costs”
Monthly, on the preceding month’s collections. The template is captioned as a monthly report and carries a reporting-period month and year field.
Due dates
Monthly report template and payment
- To
- Massachusetts State 911 Department
- Rule
- 30 days after the period ends
- Weekends
- the date shown is not moved for a weekend or holiday
- Applies to
- Monthly
“PAYMENT DUE NO LATER THAN 30 DAYS AFTER END OF COLLECTION MONTH”
The report and the check travel together to the same address.
The statute fixes no numbered day: it requires a monthly report for the preceding month and stops there. The thirty-day rule is the Department’s own operative instruction, printed on the face of the template in force, and it is quoted from there.
A thirty-day deadline also appears in the Commonwealth’s prepaid wireless regulations. That is a different scheme with a different remitter, and it is not the source of the date on this record.
Massachusetts publishes no weekend or holiday rule for this deadline, so the engine moves no date.
Counting rule
A monthly charge per surcharge-liable voice-grade telephone line, at one flat amount across wireline, wireless, prepaid wireless and interconnected VoIP. Wireline is charged per voice-grade exchange line, with Centrex and ISDN primary-rate interface service handled through an equivalency ratio applied per private branch exchange trunk; wireless is charged per mobile telephone number. The template’s own line item is simply a subscriber, end-user or customer count multiplied by the flat amount. No per-customer or per-location cap appears in the statute, in regulation or on the form.
The statute charges interconnected-VoIP service on each voice-grade telephone line of business and residence customers within the Commonwealth, and applies to VoIP service comparable to Centrex and ISDN primary-rate interface service an equivalency ratio similar to the one used for wireline. Interconnected VoIP is expressly carved out of the default that bills other Internet-protocol-enabled service by Massachusetts billing address, so a VoIP figure here is a line count rather than an account count unless the Department has approved a different method for that provider. The numeric equivalency ratio itself is not published, which is recorded as a gap on this record — a provider selling Centrex-comparable or primary-rate service should settle the ratio with the Department rather than assume one.
Per-customer cap
None. Both research passes searched the statute, the regulations and the template and found no cap on lines per customer or per location.
“For interconnected VoIP provider service, the charge shall be imposed on each voice grade telephone line of business and residence customers within the commonwealth, but the surcharge applicable to such interconnected VoIP provider service that is comparable to centrex service and ISDN primary rate interface service associated with wireline enhanced 911 service shall be based on an equivalency ratio similar to that used for wireline enhanced 911 service.”
Collection allowance
- Applies to
- the gross amount collected
- On the form
- The “Less Administrative Fee Retained (1% of total surcharge collected)” line of the monthly report template
“Less Administrative Fee Retained (1% of total surcharge collected)”
The one percent is a line item on the Department’s own template, and it is not marked as belonging to any one provider type. The statute takes a different shape for the same idea — it has providers report what they billed the Department for the cost of billing, collecting and remitting the surcharge — and no statute or regulation fixing one percent for a non-prepaid provider was located by either research pass, which is recorded as a gap on this record. The Commonwealth’s prepaid wireless regulations cap a prepaid provider’s administrative fee at one percent on a distinct legal basis, and that provision is not the authority for this line.
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.
2019-01-01 → current
$1.50 per line per month · Enhanced 9-1-1 Service Surcharge
D.T.C. 18-2 Order (2018), approving the increase effective January 1, 2019, as continued by the D.T.C. 23-3 Final Order of November 30, 2023; imposition and counting rule at M.G.L. c.6A §18H(a)
https://www.mass.gov/doc/dtc-23-3-final-order/download · retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026
The provenance for the dollar figure is the order, not the statute. The statute fixes seventy-five cents as a default and delegates adjustment to the Department of Telecommunications and Cable on the State 911 Department’s petition, so the operative amount has never been the statutory one.
The 2023 final order continued the amount from the date of that order until December 31, 2028, which averted a scheduled step-down to one dollar on January 1, 2024. The same order provides that the surcharge reverts to one dollar on January 1, 2029 unless the State 911 Department petitions for a further extension, so this record carries a dated re-check for 2027 and 2028.
The amount has not moved since January 1, 2019.
Zero-report rule
Zero report · not on record
Massachusetts does not state whether a provider with no surcharge-eligible lines in a month must still file the monthly report. The statutory reporting duty is unconditional on its face — it carries no collected-amount threshold — and the template has no zero-liability box and no instruction for one, so the ordinary template is the only vehicle a zero month could travel on. No agency publication says in so many words that a zero month must be filed or may be skipped. The template’s declaration is the Commonwealth’s own printed wording, signed by the provider; nothing may be composed to accompany it.
Searched: M.G.L. c.6A §18H in full, the Commonwealth’s surcharge and submission pages, the Department’s provider advisory, and the template itself. Both research passes reached the same absence.
Record retention
Record retention · not on record
Massachusetts publishes no record-retention period for a provider’s own surcharge remittance records. Neither the State 911 Department nor the Department of Telecommunications and Cable states one in any publication either research pass reached. One adjacent provision is not a retention rule and is not presented as one: the statute exempts the monthly report from public-records disclosure, which is confidentiality. Public safety answering point call-data retention is a different rule binding a different party.
Searched: M.G.L. c.6A §18H in full, the Commonwealth’s surcharge and submission pages, and the Department’s published provider materials.
Registration
An interconnected-VoIP provider submits the Department’s VoIP Information Request Form before it begins serving Massachusetts, and separately files business-entity information with both the State 911 Department and the Department of Telecommunications and Cable, updated annually. No account number or personal identification number is issued; the provider’s own name and information identify the remittance on the form.
https://www.mass.gov/doc/voip-information-request-form/download
No separate remittance-account step was found beyond this intake. The provider’s own name and information are what identify a filing on the template.
The state’s own workbook, in a format this product does not write
- Form
- The state publishes no form identifier. Massachusetts publishes no numbered form identifier for this filing. The Commonwealth’s site links it as the “Surcharge Fee Submission Form” and the file’s own caption reads “Enhanced 9-1-1 Service Surcharge — Monthly Report Template”.
- Title
- Enhanced 9-1-1 Service Surcharge Monthly Report Template
- Revision
- Form updated: February 23, 2024 (the footer string inside the workbook, corroborated by the file’s own last-saved date)
The template is completed, signed and mailed with a paper check to the Department’s Boston lockbox. Massachusetts publishes no portal and no electronic filing path for this remittance.
Remit to
- Agency
- Massachusetts State 911 Department
- Division
- Within the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security
- Payee
- Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- Address
- Comm of Mass State 911 Dept, P.O. Box 411141, Boston, MA 02241-1141
- Contact
- 151 Campanelli Drive, Suite A, Middleborough, MA 02346 · (508) 828-2911
- Rate set by
- The Department of Telecommunications and Cable, which approves or adjusts the surcharge on the State 911 Department’s petition. The statutory figure is a default the Department has always adjusted away from.
Out of scope
What this page does not cover.
The prepaid wireless surcharge
A separate scheme under the Commonwealth’s own regulations, collected by the retail seller at the point of sale — a different remitter, even though the same template offers a prepaid wireless provider type. Its thirty-day deadline and its one percent cap are not the authority for anything on this record.
A municipal or local 911 charge
There is none for a provider. Public safety answering points and regional emergency communication centers are funded by grants from the Enhanced 911 Fund, which the Department administers after the money arrives.
Everything else this record does not know
Rate history · not on record
This record prices no period before January 1, 2019. The research record establishes that one dollar was the amount in force through December 31, 2018 and traces it to a 2015 order, but the date that amount began was not pinned from a primary source, so an earlier back period is refused rather than priced against a window with an invented start.
Searched: M.G.L. c.6A §18H and the Department of Telecommunications and Cable orders of 2015, 2018 and 2023.
Counting rule · not on record
The numeric equivalency ratio the Department applies to interconnected-VoIP service comparable to Centrex and to ISDN primary-rate interface service is not published. The statute says the ratio is similar to the one used for wireline, and the wireline ratio is not itself published numerically in anything either research pass reached. A provider selling that kind of service should settle the ratio with the Department before filing rather than assume one.
Searched: M.G.L. c.6A §18H, the Commonwealth’s regulations, the Department’s provider pages, and the template.
Collection allowance · not on record
No statute or regulation fixing the one percent administrative fee for a non-prepaid provider was located. The figure appears on the Department’s own template and nowhere else either research pass reached; the one percent cap in the Commonwealth’s prepaid wireless regulations governs prepaid wireless only and rests on a different legal basis.
Searched: M.G.L. c.6A §18H, the Commonwealth’s prepaid wireless regulations, and the Department’s published provider materials.
Form number · not on record
Massachusetts publishes no form number and no citable revision identifier beyond the template’s own “Form updated: February 23, 2024” footer and the file’s last-saved date.
Searched: The template, its document properties, and the Commonwealth’s surcharge and submission pages.
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.
Massachusetts General Court — M.G.L. c.6A §18H
The imposition of the surcharge and its seventy-five cent statutory default, the delegation of rate adjustment to the Department of Telecommunications and Cable, the interconnected-VoIP counting rule verbatim, the monthly reporting duty verbatim, the business-entity information duty and its annual update, and the confidentiality of the monthly report.
Retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026
Department of Telecommunications and Cable — D.T.C. 23-3 Final Order
That the operative amount is one dollar fifty, that it is continued through December 31, 2028, and that it reverts to one dollar afterwards absent a further petition and order.
Retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026
Massachusetts State 911 Department — Surcharge Fee Submission Form
The template’s own line order — provider and remitter information, reporting period, provider type, subscriber count, rate, subtotal, uncollectible amounts, the one percent administrative fee retained, and the total remitted — its printed thirty-day payment instruction, its “Form updated: February 23, 2024” footer, its printed declaration, and that the file is a legacy binary workbook (the older .xls format).
Retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026
Commonwealth of Massachusetts — E911 surcharge
The Commonwealth’s own description of the surcharge and the provider-facing materials it links.
Retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026
Commonwealth of Massachusetts — Submitting your surcharge fee
The remit-to address, the payee, and that the filing is a mailed form with a paper check rather than an electronic submission.
Retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026
Massachusetts State 911 Department — VoIP Information Request Form
The registration route for an interconnected-VoIP provider and the fields the Department collects before service begins.
Retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026
- M.G.L. c.6A §18H
- Imposition of the surcharge and its statutory default amount, the rate-adjustment procedure, the counting rules including the interconnected-VoIP rule, remittance to the state treasurer, the monthly provider reporting duty, the business-entity information duty, and the confidentiality of the monthly report
- M.G.L. c.6A §§18A–18J
- The State 911 Department’s enabling statutes
- D.T.C. 18-2 Order (2018)
- Approval of the increase to the current amount, effective January 1, 2019
- D.T.C. 23-3 Final Order (November 30, 2023)
- Continuation of the current amount through December 31, 2028, and the reversion that follows absent a further order
Notes carried on this record
One template serves every provider type through a service-type selector — wireline, wireless, prepaid wireless and VoIP — and the same amount and the same one percent apply whichever is chosen. That is a hybrid inside the form, never a hybrid collection model.
The template’s declaration is the Commonwealth’s own printed wording and the provider signs it. The product surfaces the line and leaves it blank; nothing here drafts, restates or supplements it.
The template carries uncollectible-amount handling of its own, so what is remitted is collections net of documented uncollectible amounts and the retained administrative fee. The provider enters their own uncollectible figure for the period; the product subtracts it from the subtotal and takes the retained fee on what remains. With nothing entered, the figures treat every billed surcharge as collected and say so.
A dated re-check belongs on this record: absent a further order, the amount reverts on January 1, 2029, so the successor petition is worth watching through 2027 and 2028.
Every Commonwealth web address on this record refuses automated requests. Both research passes verified content from archived captures of the identical addresses, which are copies of the Commonwealth’s own publications rather than descriptions of them; the drift check needs that route or it fails closed on a refusal forever.
No companion charge rides this template. Both research passes checked: it is a single-line-item remittance with no relay, 988 or poison-control field.