Online safety fees: what the duties are and how to comply with them

Fees cover our costs for regulating online safety in the UK

Total fees are calculated to meet but not exceed Ofcom’s costs of regulating online safety. Ofcom’s tariff tables, including budgeted costs to be recovered by fees, are published here.

In line with the Act, any over or under-recovery of our costs will be carried forward and considered in determining fees in relation to the next charging year.

We use a single percentage approach to ensure fees are proportionate

The single percentage fee paid by each provider is calculated as the total Ofcom cost to be recovered divided by the total QWR base (for example, the total QWR of all providers liable to pay fees).

We have shared an indicative 0.02 - 0.03% tariff for planning purposes

However, a precise annual tariff can only be published once the notification window for charging year has closed, and Ofcom has processed QWR notifications received.

Ofcom will then publish the online safety tariff and calculate the fees due. For the 2026/27 charging year, we expect to issue invoices by September 2026. Thereafter, we expect the tariff to be published and invoices to be issued in April each year.

A provider can estimate their fee by multiplying their QWR by the tariff figure. It will only be an estimate until Ofcom has processed and verified all QWR notifications received for the relevant charging year. 

Our Statement of Charging Principles consultation provides further detail on this process.

Over 40 providers of regulated services submitted an Online Safety fees notification for the initial 2026/27 charging year (“Year 1”). As part of our review of these notifications, we issued statutory requests for information (“RFI”) to some providers where further information was required by us to understand their notifications.   

This process identified some common themes, including areas where some providers did not provide the evidence or information recommended in our Notification Guidance and/or did not explain why they had not followed our guidance. We are therefore publishing this reminder to highlight providers’ obligations and our expectations under the legislative framework and published guidance. The common themes are as follows:

• Provision of information on regulated services.
• Provision of details and evidence of QWR.

We expect that the reminders in this update will be relevant to all providers who are required to submit a notification under section 83(1) of the Online Safety Act 2023 (“the Act”) or respond to a Rolling RFI where they have previously notified us that they are a fee-payer.

The details, supporting evidence, documents and other information that must be included in Online Safety fees notifications are specified in the Act and the Online Safety Act 2023 (Fees Notification) Regulations 2025 (“Notification Regulations”).[1] Ofcom’s Notification Guidance also provides practical guidance on the details and substantiating evidence that should be included in a notification pursuant to section 83(1) of the Act.

Providers should note that where their submission appears to diverge from the expectations we have set out in our published guidance, they may receive a statutory RFI seeking further details or clarity on their approach. Where providers fail to meet their obligations under the legislative framework, we reserve the right to consider taking enforcement action.

Please note that this update does not provide an exhaustive list of required information, nor is it intended to be a substitute for the Act, the Notification Regulations or our guidance. 

[1] Part 6 of the Act. The Online Safety Act 2023 (Fees Notification) Regulations 2023.

Section 83(3) of the Act stipulates that all types of notification “must include details of all regulated services provided by the provider”. When notifying for the first time (making an “initial notification”) or notifying after being exempt in the prior charging year(s) (making a “new fee cycle notification”), providers also need to submit evidence substantiating such details of its regulated services.[1]

In our Notification Guidance, we set out the details that we consider all providers should include about each of their regulated services.[2] Whilst we expect providers to include all the details listed in our Notification Guidance (where relevant), we want to remind providers of the following, in particular:

• A provider must include details of all its regulated services. Therefore, where it is the provider of two or more regulated services, this should include details of a regulated service even where the provider does not consider that any revenue is referable to that regulated service in the qualifying period.
• In our Notification Guidance, we explained that, where the relevant parts only represent a proportion of the regulated service, we consider that a provider should include a description of “the relevant parts”.[3] This should include an explanation of what features or functionality of these parts makes them relevant parts (i.e. user-to-user, search, part 5 pornographic or combined part). Therefore, we expect a provider to include such a description, or at least to explain why it has not done so (for example, because it does not consider that the relevant parts only represent a proportion of the regulated service(s)).
• Paragraph 4.14 of our Notification Guidance notes that “Where a provider considers any of its regulated services also include non-relevant parts, it should provide a breakdown of regulated service revenue between the relevant parts (which count towards QWR) and non-relevant parts (which will not count towards QWR)”. This information is important to help us understand the relative contribution of relevant parts of regulated services to total provider QWR and, where providers are not able to provide such a breakdown, they are expected to explain why.
• Paragraph 4.5 of our Notification Guidance states that a provider should provide “other details that the provider considers will help us understand the nature of the regulated service”. By way of example, case study 3 of our QWR Guidance considered the scenario of a global provider that operates multiple (distinct) services, some of which are regulated services as they have links with the UK and some of which are not.[4] Our QWR Guidance suggested that providers “should carefully consider in each case whether their services constitute a single service or multiple services”.[5] Where a provider considers that it operates multiple services, and that not all of these services are regulated, we have found it helpful to receive an explanation of the reason for this as part of the “other details” that may help us to understand the nature of a regulated service.

[1] As per Section 83(3)(b) of the Act and Regulation 3 of the Notification Regulations.

[2] Paragraphs 4.5 and 4.6.

[3] Relevant parts: Those parts of a regulated service on which (a) regulated user-generated content may be encountered (in the case of user-to-user services and combined services), (b) search content may be encountered (in the case of search services and combined services), and (c) regulated pornographic content may be encountered (in the case of a service within Section 80(2) of the Act). See Section 4(3) of the QWR Regulations.

[4] Page 15-16.

[5] Page 16.

The Notification Regulations require providers to submit evidence substantiating their QWR. While the Notification Guidance recognises that the evidence provided will depend on the approach taken to calculate QWR, the evidence should be sufficient for us to understand (and where necessary examine) the provider’s QWR calculation. The Notification Guidance also explains that we would generally expect providers to submit a spreadsheet showing how QWR has been calculated, alongside a commentary explaining the QWR calculation and the reasoning for key assumptions made.[1] In Year 1, we found that where a spreadsheet and commentary had been included, it helped us understand how the provider had determined its QWR and minimised the number of clarification questions we needed to ask, especially for providers of multiple regulated services with multiple revenue streams. The following bullets relate to information which we would generally expect to be set out in either this spreadsheet or commentary.

[1] Paragraphs 4.20(i) and (iii) of our Notification Guidance.

We would like to remind providers of the following:

• Providers need to identify the revenues brought into account for the purposes of the QWR calculation and explain how they have been treated. Providers should clearly set out the amount and type of revenue that has been brought into account for the QWR calculation and explain how each type of revenue has been treated, i.e. as wholly referable, partially referable (and therefore requiring apportionment) or not referable to relevant parts of the regulated service.
  
  
• QWR is defined as the worldwide revenues arising in connection with the relevant parts of regulated services. Our QWR Guidance explains that providers must therefore aggregate all the worldwide revenues that arise in connection with the relevant parts of their regulated services.[1] At paragraph 4.20(iii)(a) of the Notification Guidance, we further set out our expectation that a providers’ commentary should generally explain how it has satisfied itself that the QWR figure has been prepared in accordance with the QWR Regulations and, in particular, “that QWR includes worldwide revenue referable to all regulated services provided by the provider”. It is helpful if providers explain the geographic scope of the revenues they have brought into account for the purposes of their QWR calculation, especially where they operate multiple services not all of which are considered regulated for the purposes of the Act.
  
  
• Providers need to identify the source of revenue data and provide a reconciliation. The Notification Guidance says that providers should submit details of the sources of data used to calculate QWR and explain why these sources were chosen.[2] This should include the source of the revenue data alongside relevant extracts, where possible, from the underlying source, e.g. financial statements. Where the final QWR figure notified to us differs from the revenues reported in financial statements, providers should set out and explain the key differences or explain why this is not practicable.[3]
  
  
• Providers need to ensure revenues brought into account conform to applicable accounting standards. Regulation 5(2) of the QWR Regulations provides that, as far as reasonably practicable, revenue amounts brought into account for the purposes of determining a provider’s QWR calculation must conform to applicable accounting standards (such as UK GAAP, US GAAP or IFRS). As such, in our QWR Guidance we explained that “providers must include in QWR, amounts that they would account for as revenue in the ordinary course of business”.[4] We noted in particular that, in the ordinary course of business, providers may recognise revenue on either a gross or net basis in financial statements depending on, among other things, the nature of the customer relationship and said that “the provider should treat the revenue amounts to be included in the QWR calculation on a gross or net basis depending on how the provider recognises these amounts in the ordinary course of business and in its financial statements”.[5] We therefore expect providers to include confirmation that the revenues brought into account for the purposes of calculating their QWR are consistent with how revenue is routinely reported in their financial statements and have not been inappropriately adjusted to, for example, deduct from revenue amounts routinely treated as costs of sales or other expenses.

Apportionment of revenues

All revenue arising in connection with provision of the relevant parts of a regulated service should be included in a provider’s QWR. Where revenue comprises amounts arising partly in connection with provision of relevant parts of a regulated service and partly in connection with other things (i.e. non-relevant parts of the regulated service and non-regulated services), providers should apportion that revenue to the relevant parts of their regulated service(s) on a just and reasonable basis.[6] Providers are therefore reminded that our Notification Guidance says that, where apportionment has been used for any revenue, we would generally expect providers to include supporting calculations and explain the method that was used, why that method was chosen above any other methods considered, and why this method is considered just and reasonable.[7] Providers should also explain the source of the data used to make the apportionment and provide relevant extracts, where possible, of the underlying source.[8]

We recognise that it may not always be straightforward to assess if a revenue stream arises in connection with the provision of a relevant part of a regulated service. However, providers should note the expectation set out in paragraph 3.32 of our QWR Guidance, that:

“where some or all of a type of revenue would not have been earned if the relevant parts of a regulated service had not been provided, we consider it would be reasonable to assess that some or all of that revenue ‘arises in connection with’ those parts. Where only some of a type of revenue is assessed to arise in connection with relevant parts, it should be apportioned on a just and reasonable basis”.

This means, for example, that some revenue earned by a non-regulated service may need to be apportioned to relevant parts of a regulated service if some or all of that revenue would not have been earned without the relevant parts of the regulated service. Where providers have omitted significant revenue streams from their QWR calculation they should be prepared to justify this.

Exchange Rates

Regulation 5(3) of the QWR Regulations requires providers to convert revenue to GBP and using a just and reasonable exchange rate for the purposes of determining their QWR.[9] We therefore generally expect that, where revenue amounts brought into account were not recorded in GBP, providers specify the exchange rate(s) (including the source of the exchange rate(s)) used to convert those amounts into GBP.[10] The QWR Guidance says that “In most cases, we expect this will mean using an average exchange rate over the qualifying period or relevant period from a source such as a central bank, such as the Bank of England”.[11] Consequently, we would not generally consider a spot exchange rate to be just and reasonable.

[1] Paragraph 3.39 of our QWR Guidance.

[2] Paragraph 4.20 (ii)

[3] Paragraph 4.20iv)

[4] See paragraph 3.34.

[5] Paragraph 3.37 of our QWR Guidance.

[6] See Regulation 4 of the QWR Regulations.

[7] Paragraphs 4.20 (i)(b) and (c) and (iii)(d) of our Notification Guidance. Section 5 of our QWR Guidance provides further guidance on apportionment, including a non-exhaustive list of examples of possible apportionment methods that providers could use.

[8] Paragraph 4.20 (ii)(d) of our Notification Guidance

[9] See also from paragraph 3.49 of our QWR Guidance and paragraph 4.12 of our Notification Guidance.

[10] See paragraphs 4.20(i)(d) and (ii)(e) of our Notification Guidance.

[11] Paragraph 3.50 of our QWR Guidance.

Year 2 submissions

For the 2027/28 charging year (“Year 2”), QWR will be based on revenue generated during the 2025 calendar year (the “Year 2 qualifying period”). Submissions should be provided via the MID portal.

Existing fee-payers: We have sent Rolling RFIs to providers that submitted notifications in Year 1, seeking updated details relating to regulated services and QWR for the Year 2 qualifying period. Providers have until 30 September 2026 to respond.

If a provider notified for Year 1 but does not believe they are liable to pay fees in Year 2, there is a process, outlined in the Rolling RFI, to submit a non-fee-paying notification through the MID portal and submit the required supporting evidence.

New fee-payers: New fee payers in Year 2 are required to notify Ofcom in accordance with section 83(1)(a) of the Act and the Notification Regulations. To do so, they will need follow the process of portal registration (if not previously completed) and notification set out in our Notification Guidance.

Providers notifying for the first time should register for the Ofcom Online Service Portal (see below for info) promptly and certainly no later than two weeks before the notification deadline of 30 September 2026. This is because we require time to validate and process registrations and deal with any technical issues encountered by providers. This will help to ensure that the process of registration and notification can run as smoothly as possible, and that any technical issues can be resolved promptly within the notification window.

Online Service Portal

Providers are now able to set-up, manage and request changes to their organisation details, contact details and MID permissions via Ofcom’s Online Service Portal (referred to in our Notification Guidance as the OS fees version of our “Community Portal”). Please note that this is separate to the MID portal, where providers are required to submit their QWR notification.

Providers who have previously completed the portal registration process for Online Safety fees will already have access to the Online Service Portal, using the same login details they use for the MID portal.

New fee-payers should register for the Ofcom Online Service Portal, which will allow them to set up their Online Safety fees contacts and request access to the MID portal, where they can submit their QWR.

Updated User Guide for MID Portal

We recommend that providers consult our updated user guide for the MID Portal, as certain aspects of the MID portal have changed since Year 1.

The most significant change is that users are now prompted to select a “return type” when submitting a return via the MID portal. Providers responding to a Rolling RFI will need to respond by selecting “RFI response” as their return type. They can then select the appropriate “RFI response type” based on their circumstances within a given charging year.

Please refer to pages 18-19 of the MID portal user guide for an overview of these changes and which option a provider should select when submitting a return. Providers may also find Figure 3.1 of our Notification Guidance helpful, which illustrates how providers may assess their fees duties and which, if any, type of return is required.

For any queries related to either Ofcom’s Online Service Portal or the MID Portal please contact OSFeesMID@ofcom.org.uk.

For any other queries or questions, please contact us at osfeesregime@ofcom.org.uk.