What do E911 and regulatory fees add to a business phone bill?
Summary
Of the 17 providers whose fee pages we read, only one prints a dollar amount per line: Nextiva charges $1.50 a month for E911 and $3.95 for its Regulatory Recovery Fee. That is $5.45 a line a month, or 36% on top of a $15 Core seat, before any state or local tax.
The rest name the charges and stop there. RingCentral lists an E911 Service Fee, a 911 Fee, a Compliance and Administrative Cost Recovery Fee and a Federal Universal Service Recovery Fee without amounts; Phone.com and 8x8 name an E911 fee and a regulatory recovery fee the same way; Google Voice charges a flat fee per number per month that depends on where you are.
Two providers say the price already carries them. Talkroute adds no separate telecom taxes, USF or regulatory fees, and Microsoft's US Teams Phone calling plans include taxes and fees "including 911 fees". Aircall says it has no administrative recovery fees but does not say whether taxes are included.
The federal Universal Service line has a legal ceiling. For October to December 2026 the FCC's contribution factor is 42.0%, and the line item may not exceed the interstate telecom part of your bill times that factor. On the 64.9% share the FCC lets VoIP providers assume is interstate, that works out to at most 27.3% of the telecom part.
Before you sign, ask for a sample invoice for your number of lines at your address. It is the only way to see the whole stack.
What each provider says it adds
| Provider | E911 or 911 fee | The provider's own recovery fee | Taxes | Provider |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nextiva | $1.50 a line a month ($0.38 per virtual number) | Regulatory Recovery Fee: $3.95 a line a month ($0.99 per virtual number) | State and local taxes on top, linked state by state | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| RingCentral RingEX | E911 Service Fee and 911 Fee named, no amount | Compliance and Administrative Cost Recovery Fee and Federal Universal Service Recovery Fee named, no amount | State and local taxes “may apply” | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Phone.com | E911 Service Fee named, no amount | Regulatory Recovery Fee named, no amount | Vary with the registered device location | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| 8x8 | E911 Service Fee named, no amount | Regulatory Recovery Fee named; rates are “set forth in any quote” | Not stated as an amount | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Google Voice | Flat fee per Voice number per month (E911 and 988), no amount | None named | “Taxes and regulatory fees, depending on your location” | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Quo | 911 fees in the 16 states where Quo collects tax; “per-line fees vary by jurisdiction” | None named | Collected in 16 states, by billing address | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| GoTo Connect | Not stated | Universal Service Fee named; varies with the FCC's quarterly rate | Not stated as an amount | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Ooma Office | Not itemized | Not itemized | “Varies by locale”, with a ZIP-code lookup | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Vonage Business Communications | Not itemized | Not itemized | “Taxes and fees not included” | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Zoom Phone | Not itemized | Not itemized | “Prices shown exclude applicable taxes and fees” | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Dialpad Connect | Not itemized | Not itemized | Terms say taxes are “stated separately on the invoice” | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| CallHippo | Not itemized | Not itemized | “Local taxes will be applicable in addition to the listed prices” | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Aircall | Not stated | “No administrative recovery fees or hidden surcharges” | Not addressed | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| JustCall | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated on the pricing page | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Grasshopper | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated on the pricing page | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Talkroute | Included in the price | None: “We do not add separate charges for … the Universal Service Fund (USF), or other regulatory fees” | Included (“all-inclusive monthly price”) | Check current plansUnpaid link |
| Microsoft Teams Phone | Included in the US calling plans (“including 911 fees”) | None named | Calling plans include them; the phone system part is billed plus sales tax | Check current plansUnpaid link |
Scroll sideways on a phone.
Two different things travel under similar names here. State and local 911 surcharges are set by governments and vary by state and sometimes by county; the provider collects them and passes them on. A provider's own "E911 fee" or "recovery fee" is a price the provider sets to recover its own costs. Nextiva says plainly that both of its fees are "not a tax or charge assessed by any governmental agency", and RingCentral describes its E911 Cost Recovery Fee as "a monthly recurring service fee that RingCentral charges for providing emergency calling services". These are the charges that differ from one provider to the next, and they are the ones a provider could print if it wanted to.
Vonage publishes a figure, but for the wrong product: its $3.99 Regulatory, Compliance and Intellectual Property Fee is on the residential support site, and the business pricing page says only "Taxes and fees not included". It is not in the table for that reason.
What Nextiva's fees add to a seat
| Lines | Core seats a month | Nextiva's fees a month | Seats plus fees a month | Nextiva's fees a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $15 | $5.45 | $20.45 | $65.40 |
| 5 | $75 | $27.25 | $102.25 | $327 |
| 10 | $150 | $54.50 | $204.50 | $654 |
| 20 | $300 | $109 | $409 | $1,308 |
On monthly billing the Core seat is $23, so the same $5.45 is 24% on top instead. For a five-person office the two fees come to $327 a year. Nextiva applies them to "every line of service, including toll free", so a toll-free number on the account adds another line's worth, and virtual numbers are charged at a quarter of the rate ($0.99 and $0.38).
The cheaper the seat, the larger the share. A fixed per-line fee is the same amount on a $15 seat and a $75 seat, which is why it matters most to the small offices shopping at the bottom of the price list.
The federal Universal Service line
Most US business phone bills carry a line for the federal Universal Service Fund. The rate behind it is set by the FCC every quarter; for the fourth quarter of 2026 it announced 42.0%. Under 47 CFR 54.712, a provider that bills the charge as a line item may not charge more than the interstate telecom part of your bill times that factor.
Most cloud phone providers do not publish what part of a seat they count as interstate telecom. The FCC lets VoIP providers assume 64.9% instead of measuring it, and on that assumption the ceiling is 27.3% of the telecom portion. As a worked example, if the whole seat counted as telecom, the most the line could be is $4.36 on a $16 Zoom Phone seat. The real line is often smaller, because a provider can count only part of a bundled seat as telecom, and this is a ceiling worked out from the rule, not a quote from any provider.
The rate moves every quarter, so a bill that was fine in the spring can look different in the autumn without anyone changing your plan.
What to ask before you sign
Ask for a sample invoice for your number of lines at your billing address, and ask which lines on it are government charges and which are the provider's own. The provider's own fees are the part you can compare between providers; state and local charges depend mostly on your address. If a provider offers a discount, ask whether its recovery fees are charged on the discounted price or per line, because a per-line fee does not shrink with the discount.
Where a provider says nothing on its pricing page, as JustCall and Grasshopper do, that does not mean there are no fees. It means you find out on the first invoice. Nobody publishes what the fees add has each provider's exact wording, and Why does the cheapest VoIP plan so often cost more than it looks? covers the other things that sit outside the seat price.
The order of the table follows what each provider publishes, from a printed amount down to nothing. Whether a provider pays this site a referral fee does not affect it.
Sources
Provider statements were read on October 5, 2026, except Dialpad's terms (checked August 21, 2026). Seat prices are from this site's dataset and carry their own check dates on the provider pages.
- nextiva.com/resources/tax-rates.html — "RRF = $3.95" and "E911 = $1.50" per line of service
- ringcentral.com/office/plansandpricing.html — fees that "may apply"
- ringcentral.com/legal/taxes-and-fees/e911.html
- support.phone.com — What taxes and fees are billed to my account?
- 8x8.com/terms-and-conditions/annex3
- knowledge.workspace.google.com — How Voice billing works
- support.quo.com — Plans and pricing
- support.goto.com — Universal Service Fee overview
- ooma.com/legal/rates
- vonage.com/unified-communications/pricing and support.vonage.com — Regulatory, Compliance and Intellectual Property Fee (residential)
- zoom.us/pricing/zoom-phone
- dialpad.com/legal/msaterms
- callhippo.com/pricing
- aircall.io/pricing
- justcall.io/pricing
- grasshopper.com/pricing
- talkroute.com/pricing
- microsoft.com — Microsoft Teams Phone
- fcc.gov — Proposed Fourth Quarter 2026 Universal Service Fund Contribution Factor (DA-26-946)
- ecfr.gov — 47 CFR 54.712
- usac.org — FCC Form 499-Q instructions (2026) — the 64.9% interconnected VoIP safe harbor
Related on this site
- Nobody publishes what the fees add
- What is not in the published seat price
- Why does the cheapest VoIP plan so often cost more than it looks?
- Will 911 know where you are if you call from a VoIP phone?
- What does Nextiva cost if you won't sign a 12-month contract?
- How much does a business phone system cost for 2, 3 or 5 people?
- Compare every US plan at your team size
- Seat cost calculator
Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.