Nasdaq PHLX Digs Up Old CAT Costs for New Fees
Published Date: 5/15/2026
Notice
Summary
Nasdaq PHLX is setting new fees for industry members to cover leftover historical costs from the National Market System Plan for the Consolidated Audit Trail. These fees, called Historical CAT Assessment 1A, will collect about $39 million for costs before 2022 that weren’t billed before. The fees kick in right away and are charged per share traded, so traders should get ready to chip in!
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Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 0 benefits, 3 costs, 0 mixed.
Who Pays and Who Is Exempt
The remaining $38,964,855.34 of Historical CAT Costs 1 will be recovered from CAT Executing Brokers, split equally so CEBBs collectively owe $19,482,427.67 and CEBS collectively owe $19,482,427.67. Participants (the exchanges and FINRA) will not be invoiced for these Historical CAT Assessments; instead their one-third share of Historical CAT Costs will be satisfied by cancellation of loans made to CAT LLC.
New Per-Share CAT Fee
If you are a CAT Executing Broker (the Industry Member identified on trade reports), you will be charged Historical CAT Assessment 1A to recover $38,964,855.34 of past Consolidated Audit Trail costs. The fee rate is $0.000002 per executed equivalent share and the first monthly invoices will be sent in June 2026 (based on May 2026 transactions).
How Shares Are Counted for Fees
The fee is calculated using "executed equivalent shares": each executed share of an NMS Stock counts as 1, each executed Listed Option contract is counted based on its contract multiplier (for example, 100), and each executed share of an OTC Equity counts as 0.01 executed equivalent share. The Historical CAT Assessment for each transaction is calculated by multiplying the executed equivalent shares by one-third and by the Historical Fee Rate.
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