Filled9-1-1 Emergency Service Fee and 9-1-1 Equalization Surcharge · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

Texas 911 surcharge remittance

We fill Forms 54-100 and 54-101 (9-1-1 Emergency Service Fee), and Form 54-102 (9-1-1 Equalization Surcharge). You review it, sign it, and send it to Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

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.

Texas publishes fillable PDFs — Form 54-100 with its Form 54-101 supplement, and Form 54-102 — and both come out filled, each saved, reopened and every value read back intact. Texas is the one state that files two returns for one period, so a filing here is two documents and the cover sheet says so.

The rate in force now

Rate: $0.50 per line per month · 9-1-1 Emergency Service Fee; $0.06 per line per month · 9-1-1 Equalization Surcharge
Effective: not published by the state · evidenced from 2024-10-01
Cite: Tex. Health & Safety Code §771.071 (fee, 50-cent ceiling) and §771.072 (surcharge, 10-cent ceiling); 1 Tex. Admin. Code §255.1
Form rev.: 54-100 Rev. 10-24/8 · 54-102 Rev.11-18/8
Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts — Form 54-100 (Rev. 10-24/8) and Form 54-102 (Rev. 11-18/8), read verbatim and re-confirmed by an independent reconciler fetch
Retrieved: Wed, August 12, 2026 · two independent fetches agree

Cadence

Monthly · set by statute

“The report must be filed each month, even if no equalization surcharge is due.”

Form 54-102

Both charges are monthly, and a report is required every month regardless of liability.

Due dates

Form 54-100 with Form 54-101, and payment

To: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Rule: 30 days after the period ends
Weekends: a weekend or holiday moves the date to the next business day
Applies to: Monthly

“File this report and remit the fee due on or before the 30th day following the end of the month in which the fees were collected. If the due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, the next business day is the due date.”

Form 54-100

Form 54-102 and payment

To: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Rule: 30 days after the period ends
Weekends: a weekend or holiday moves the date to the next business day
Applies to: Monthly

“The report must be filed on or before the 30th day following the end of the month in which the surcharges are collected. If the due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, the next business day is the due date.”

Form 54-102

The thirtieth-day rule belongs to these two forms. The adjacent wireless Form 54-103 uses the twentieth of the following month, and the rule must not be generalized to it.

The engine applies United States federal holidays. Texas state holidays were not captured by the research record and are not applied, so a deadline landing near one should be checked.

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.

How the equalization surcharge is calculated

Flagged for review

Two Comptroller publications describe the equalization surcharge differently. The live form calculates a flat six cents per line; Publication 94-167 narrates it as one percent of intrastate long-distance charges, a framework dating from 2005.

Form 54-102, Item 2 — the actual remittance instrument

“Gross equalization surcharge due (Multiply Item 1 by $0.06)”

https://comptroller.texas.gov/forms/54-102.pdf

Texas Comptroller, Manual of Accounts, revenue object 3563

“equalization surcharge of six cents per telecommunications connection”

https://fmcpa.cpa.state.tx.us/fiscalmoa/rev.jsp?num=3563

Texas Comptroller, Publication 94-167

“1 percent of intrastate long-distance charges”

https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/publications/94-167.php

What the engine does: The engine prices six cents per line, following the form. The form is the actual remittance instrument, its instructions reference the VoIP definitions, and the Manual of Accounts independently states the same per-connection figure. The publication’s language appears to describe the statutory ceiling formula rather than the current per-line assessment, but that reading is not confirmed and is not treated as settled here.

What you can do: Confirm with the Comptroller whether the Publication 94-167 description has any residual application or is purely legacy narrative.

Counting rule

Per local exchange access line or equivalent local exchange access line — the transport connection between an end-user premises and the provider’s network that provides 911 access. The equalization surcharge additionally counts each wireless telecommunications connection. Multi-channel services count per channel: the Comptroller’s own worked example is an ISDN primary rate interface, where “each individual channel provided to an end user customer shall constitute a separate local exchange access line.”

Interconnected VoIP providers are named by name in Form 54-100’s “who must file”. Where a provider serves a single end-user location over facilities with multiple calling capacity and cannot determine the actual number of lines or channels — enterprise interconnected VoIP and burstable trunks are the cases the form names — the fee must be assessed in accordance with the Commission on State Emergency Communications rule at 1 Tex. Admin. Code §255.4. The text of that rule could not be retrieved, so this product does not compute the undeterminable case.

Per-customer cap
No numeric per-customer or per-location line cap exists in any source checked by either research pass.

“each individual channel provided to an end user customer shall constitute a separate “local exchange access line.””

Form 54-100

“Unlike the 911 Emergency Service Fee, the 911 Equalization Surcharge applies to all service locations in Texas. No distinction is needed between the RPC and the ECD.”

Texas Comptroller, Audit Procedures for Telecommunications Taxes

Collection allowance

1.00%

Applies to: the gross amount collected
On the form: Item 3 on Form 54-100 and on Form 54-102; on Form 54-101 it is applied per district before the roll-up

“Service providers/business service users may retain an administrative fee of 1% of the gross 9-1-1 emergency service fees collected.”

Form 54-100, Item 3

Form 54-102 carries the same allowance in its own words: “Service providers may retain an administrative fee of 1% of the total 9-1-1 equalization surcharge collected.” No separate statutory pinpoint for the one percent figure was independently verified — the forms are the provenance.

Rate history

1 window on record

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.

2024-10-01 (evidenced) → current
$0.50 per line per month · 9-1-1 Emergency Service Fee; $0.06 per line per month · 9-1-1 Equalization Surcharge
Tex. Health & Safety Code §771.071 (fee, 50-cent ceiling) and §771.072 (surcharge, 10-cent ceiling); 1 Tex. Admin. Code §255.1
https://comptroller.texas.gov/forms/54-100.pdf · retrieved Wed, August 12, 2026
This window carries no start date because Texas does not publish one for the amounts currently in force. Neither the forms, nor the Comptroller’s 911 pages, nor the Manual of Accounts prints an effective date for the fifty-cent or six-cent figures; only form revision dates and the statutory ceilings are published. Recording an inferred date would put a fabricated effective date on a filing’s provenance, so the window is left open and the absence is stated.
What is verified from a primary source is that the landline and VoIP fee framework originates in H.B. 1983 of the 76th Legislature, effective September 1, 1999. That is the framework’s origin, not the current amount’s effective date, and it is deliberately not used as one.
No rate change to either charge was found in roughly the last three years by either research pass. The form revision dates reflect form and instruction updates, not rate changes.
Because no effective date is published, the window carries an evidenced-from date of 2024-10-01 and the engine prices no period beginning before it. That date is the earliest on which a document held here shows both amounts: Form 54-102 (Rev. 11-18/8) has carried the six-cent surcharge since November 2018, but the fifty-cent emergency service fee is evidenced by Form 54-100, whose revision label is 10-24 — October 2024. A revision label names a month rather than a day, so the first of that month is taken, and the later of the two revisions governs, because a window is evidenced only from the date every amount inside it is. This is a bound on what the engine will price. It is not an effective date, it is never displayed as one, and Texas publishes none.
Flagged for review: How the equalization surcharge is calculated

Zero-report rule

A period with nothing collected still gets filed

The state requires the return for a period in which nothing was collected. The product prepares that period like any other, and the state's own words are below.

“You must file a report, even if no 9-1-1 emergency service fee is due.”

Form 54-100

“The report must be filed each month, even if no equalization surcharge is due.”

Form 54-102

Both forms must be filed every month, including months with no liability. There is no sworn statement and no notarization; the forms carry only the standard signature certification. The product generates and reminds on a filing for a zero-liability period rather than skipping the month.

Record retention

not published

Record retention · not on record

Texas publishes no record-retention period for 911 fee and surcharge records. Health and Safety Code §771.076 establishes that a provider’s collections and disbursements are the subject of an audit but states no period in the text obtained, and the Administrative Code’s own host has migrated, blocking verification of any retention clause in the Commission’s rules.

Searched: The Comptroller’s 911 pages, all four forms, Publication 94-167, and the telecommunications audit manual. Both research passes reached the same absence.

Registration

Registration is not 911-specific. The same Comptroller permit application that covers sales tax covers 911 surcharge and fees.

https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/permit/

The permit page lists “911 Surcharge and Fees” among the taxes and fees the standard application covers. It does not spell out a 911-specific onboarding sequence beyond that.

The state’s own form

Form: Forms 54-100 and 54-101 (9-1-1 Emergency Service Fee), and Form 54-102 (9-1-1 Equalization Surcharge)
Title: 9-1-1 Emergency Service Fee Report with Regional Planning Commission Supplement, and 9-1-1 Equalization Surcharge Report
Revision: 54-100 Rev. 10-24/8 · 54-101 Rev.9-25/9 · 54-102 Rev.11-18/8
Published at: https://comptroller.texas.gov/forms/54-100.pdf
Portal: https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/file-pay/

The forms may be mailed with a check payable to the State Comptroller, or filed electronically through the Comptroller’s eSystems and Webfile with payment by TEXNET. Both forms state that electronic reporting and payment options are available around the clock.

Remit to

Hybrid, state plus local

Agency: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Payee: State Comptroller
Address: Comptroller of Public Accounts, P.O. Box 149356, Austin, TX 78714-9356
Contact: 1-800-252-5555
Rate set by: The Commission on State Emergency Communications is the program authority and the fund recipient; the Comptroller collects. Rate-setting for the equalization surcharge sits with the Commission under 1 Tex. Admin. Code §255.1.

Out of scope

Texas has a local component this product does not cover.

Two charges go to the Comptroller: the equalization surcharge on every Texas line, and the emergency service fee for lines in areas administered by a regional planning commission, allocated across individual districts on Form 54-101 so the Comptroller can redistribute. A third obligation bypasses the Comptroller entirely: in an independently created emergency communication district under Health and Safety Code chapter 772, the local fee is set, billed and enforced by the district against the provider directly. District rates and per-district processes are out of scope for this product beyond naming the obligation.

Emergency communication district fees under Health and Safety Code chapter 772
Rates are set locally and the fee is billed and enforced by the district against the provider directly, with no Comptroller form and no state remittance. Individual district schedules and processes were not researched. The product records the line count so the obligation stays visible, and prices nothing.
Form 54-103, the wireless 9-1-1 Emergency Service Fee
Fifty cents per wireless telecommunications connection statewide, due the twentieth of the following month. A different remitter class, and its due date must not be confused with the thirtieth-day rule on the forms this record covers.
Form 54-104, the prepaid wireless 9-1-1 fee
Two percent of the purchase price, collected by the point-of-sale retailer and filed quarterly. A different remitter entirely.

Everything else this record does not know

Rate history · not on record

The effective date of the fifty-cent emergency service fee and the six-cent equalization surcharge is not published anywhere Texas puts it. One research pass surfaced a non-primary indication that the six-cent rate dates to a Commission order around March or April 2012; the scan of that notice was behind a challenge page and it is not recorded as fact. The rate window therefore carries no start date.

Searched: Both forms, the Comptroller’s 911 pages, and the Manual of Accounts revenue-object pages for both charges.

Rate history · not on record

No prior-rate table was located for either charge. A back period is priced at the current amounts because no evidence of any change in roughly the last three years was found, and any period reaching further back should be confirmed with the Comptroller before filing.

Searched: The Comptroller’s publications, the forms archive, and the Manual of Accounts.

Counting rule · not on record

The text of 1 Tex. Admin. Code §255.4 could not be retrieved — the Administrative Code’s official host has migrated and the old per-rule URLs now redirect to a landing page. That rule is the one both forms defer to for the undeterminable-line-count case, including enterprise interconnected VoIP and burstable trunks. The engine implements no formula for that case, and a human must read the rule through the Secretary of State’s new portal before any such logic ships. The rate-setting mechanism in §255.1 is unverified for the same reason.

Searched: The Administrative Code’s former host and the Secretary of State’s replacement portal, by both research passes.

Citations · not on record

No statutory text in this record comes from the state’s own statute site. Texas publishes its statutes through a client-side application that returns no server-rendered text to any automated client, so the statutory content here comes from the Comptroller’s forms and Manual of Accounts, which quote and paraphrase it, plus third-party mirrors used strictly as pointers. This particularly affects the verbatim text of §771.076 on audits, whose text here has not been read from the state’s own site.

Searched: Every chapter page, guessed document path and search endpoint on the state statute site, under both automated fetch methods.

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.

Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts — Form 54-100 (Rev. 10-24/8), with Form 54-101 (Rev. 9-25/9)

The fifty-cent rate, the regional-planning-commission limitation, interconnected VoIP named in “who must file”, the per-channel counting example, the one percent administrative fee, the thirtieth-day due date, and the zero-report sentence.