SEC Announces Decreased Filing Fees for Fiscal Year 2021

On August 26, the SEC announced that the fees public companies and other issuers (including mutual funds) pay to register their securities with the SEC will decrease nearly 16% from $129.80 per million dollars to $109.10 per million dollars. The change will be effective this year on October 1. The fee rate change will apply not only to registration fees payable under Section 6(b) of the Securities Act of 1933, but also to fees payable under Section 13(e) and Section 14(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in connection with securities repurchases and certain proxy solicitations and statements in corporate control transactions, respectively. The Section 6(b) rate is also used to calculate fees payable with an Annual Notice of Securities Sold Pursuant to Rule 24f-2 under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Because a mutual fund is required to pay its annual registration fee within 90 days after its fiscal year end, funds with fiscal years ending July 31 or August 31 have the flexibility to pay such fees after the lower fee rate takes effect. Any such fund that ordinarily would make its annual fee filing after October 1 may be able to achieve meaningful cost savings by choosing to do so after 5:30 p.m. EDT on September 30, 2020 (i.e., the last business day under the current rate). The SEC filing fee estimator is available here.