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

You can use the Regulation Checker tool to check if you provide an online service that is in scope of the Act.

You will need to calculate your QWR to check whether you meet or exceed the QWR threshold of £250 million in respect of a particular charging year.

How to calculate QWR

The concept of QWR is defined in the Online Safety Act 2023 (Qualifying Worldwide Revenue) Regulations 2025 (the QWR Regulations).

Broadly speaking, service providers must aggregate revenue from the relevant parts of all their regulated services for the purposes of calculating QWR. Relevant parts refers to those parts of a regulated service where user-to-user generated content, search content, or pornographic content may be encountered. 

If your QWR in the qualifying period for a particular charging year meets or exceeds the threshold, you will be liable to pay fees in respect of that charging year unless you are exempt from the fees-related duties.  

For example, if your QWR in respect of the period between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024 was £250 million or more, you will be liable to pay fees in respect of the initial 2026/27 charging year. 

If your QWR in the relevant qualifying period is lower than the threshold, or you qualify for a UK referable revenue exemption, you will not have to pay fees.  

Our Guidance on qualifying worldwide revenue (PDF, 425 KB) has information for service providers on how to determine their QWR. 

In accordance with section 83(1) of the Act, providers must notify us in relation to a charging year in the following circumstances: 

1. The initial charging year; 
2. A new fee cycle (after a previous non-fee-paying year); and  
3. A non-fee-paying year (after a previous fee-paying year). 

  Threshold Regulations,

Initial charging year notifications

For the initial 2026/27 charging year, in accordance with the Threshold Regulations providers were able to notify us for a period of 4 months from December 2025. The notification window closed on 11 April 2026.

Providers who submitted a notification in the initial charging year should expect to receive a rolling Request for Information (RfI) at a later date requesting updating information for the next charging year.

Subsequent charging year notifications 

Providers who did not submit a notification in the initial charging year but consider themselves to be liable for fees in the second year must submit an initial notification. 

Initial fee-paying notifications should include:

• details of the providers’ regulated services and QWR, with supporting evidence; 
• a declaration from a senior manager affirming the accuracy and completeness of the evidence; and 
• where relevant, a statement that this is the first fee-paying year. 

Providers who submitted an initial notification in the initial charging year but consider themselves as no longer liable for fees in the second year (as their QWR has dropped below the QWR threshold), must submit a non-fee-paying notification. 

For subsequent charging years, you must notify at least six months before the beginning of the relevant charging year.

Register for the online fees portal 

To notify Ofcom, providers need access to the fees portal. To get access to the fees portal, service providers must register for an account. You can register for the portal using our Online Safety fees registration form.

For guidance on how to use the online fees portal, you can use the user guide.

Once the notification window has closed in respect of a charging year, Ofcom will work to verify notifications, calculate the tariff and issue invoices. If necessary, Ofcom will contact providers for further information. 

Further guidance

Our final Notification guidance (PDF, 623 KB) provides further details about when to notify, what your notification will need to include, and how to submit.

The Notification Regulations specify the evidence, documents and other information required in the notifications and the way notifications must be provided.

Invoices for the initial 2026/27 charging year are expected to be issued by Ofcom to fee-liable providers by September 2026. Due to exceptional timings, this is only for the first year.  

From the second year onwards, invoices will be issued in the April of each year. For larger invoices, we have proposed in our Statement of Charging Principles consultation that providers will have the option to spread the cost by instalments over the remainder of the financial year if required.