FINRA Hikes Trade Reporting Fees: Wallet Watchers Alert
Published Date: 12/10/2025
Notice
Summary
FINRA is changing the fees for reporting trades through the FINRA/NYSE Trade Reporting Facility starting right away. This affects anyone who uses this system to report stock trades, and the new fees might change how much they pay. The update is effective immediately, so users should check the new costs now.
Analyzed Economic Effects
5 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 1 costs, 3 mixed.
Tiered Monthly Reporting Fees Introduced
FINRA/NYSE TRF will replace its $1,000-plus-per-report base fee model with a tiered monthly fee based only on the number of Tape Eligible Trade Reports you submit. Tiers run from $5,000 per month for 1–4,999 reports up to $50,000 per month for 20,000,000 or more reports, and participants with no reports still pay $2,000 per month. The new structure applies to tape-eligible reports aggregated across Tape A, B, and C.
Example: Large-Reporter Fee Cut
FINRA provided a specific example: a participant that reported 21,000,000 reports in a month would have paid $116,500 under the old structure but would pay $50,000 under the new tiered schedule, a 57% reduction for that hypothetical month.
Inactivity Fee and New-Participant Waiver
If you submit no Tape Eligible Trade Reports in a calendar month, you will be charged the unchanged inactivity fee of $2,000. New Participants who submit no trade reports in their first one or two months will not be charged for those initial months.
Historic Data: Who Wins and Who Pays More
Using September 2025 data, FINRA found that the proposed fee change would have left fees the same for more than half of Participants, decreased fees for 12 Participants, and increased fees for 6 Participants. Applying 12 months of data (Oct 1, 2024–Sept 30, 2025) would have produced fee decreases for about 12 Participants and fee increases for 11 Participants, with increases ranging up to $40,750 and decreases up to $261,860.
Clear Attribution Method for Fees
The rule explicitly states that a transaction is attributed to a Participant if that Participant is identified as the executing party in a tape report. This attribution method will determine which Participant's tier and monthly fee apply.
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Key Dates
Department and Agencies
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