PACER fees in 2027: $0.12 per page and a $40 quarterly exemption

Editorial review: October 22, 2026. Official sources cited. Text updated: October 22, 2026.

Juricio is not an official court website and is not affiliated with the U.S. Courts or PACER. This guide is general information, not legal advice: for a decision about a case, talk to a licensed attorney, and confirm each detail in the official sources cited below.

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From January 1, 2027, PACER, the federal courts' online records service, charges 12 cents per page instead of 10 cents, and no fee is owed for a quarter in which an account's charges are $40 or less, up from $30. The federal judiciary announced this temporary increase on June 26, 2026; it stays in place for 5 years.

What changes on January 1, 2027?

Two numbers: the fee per page and the quarterly exemption.

Sources: the Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule in force since January 1, 2020, and the federal judiciary's announcement of June 26, 2026. The 2027 cap is 30 pages at the new per-page fee.

As of this guide's review, the fee schedule posted on uscourts.gov is still the one in force since January 1, 2020, with $0.10 per page and the $30 exemption. The new numbers come from the judiciary's announcement and from court notices such as the one the Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey posted on July 14, 2026.

Who will pay more?

Only accounts whose charges in a quarter go over $40. The judiciary says the higher exemption means that the vast majority of individual users, those who use $40 or less of PACER in a quarter, will continue to pay no fee and no increase. PACER reports that 75 percent of its users pay no fee in a given quarter.

In pages: 300 pages a quarter come to $30.00 at today's fee, and 333 pages come to $39.96 at the 2027 fee, both within the exemption. Above it, a document or docket report billed at the full 30 pages costs $3.00 today and $3.60 from January 1, 2027.

What stays the same?

The announcement changes the fee per page and the exemption. It also recalls the caps that keep fees down: docket sheets and any single document other than a transcript are billed for at most 30 pages. Under the current fee schedule, these are free:

• court opinions;
• viewing case information and documents on the public access terminals of a courthouse;
• for parties in a case, including those without an attorney, and for attorneys of record, one electronic copy of each document filed electronically, through the court's notice of electronic filing.

Courts may also exempt people from the fee on request, for example indigent people, pro bono attorneys, nonprofit organizations and researchers at educational institutions. Being allowed to proceed in forma pauperis in a case does not by itself give free PACER access: that takes a separate request to the court.

Why are the fees going up?

To pay for replacing the judiciary's case management system, CM/ECF, with a modern and more secure one, which the judiciary says is also necessary to improve public access to its electronic records. It is the first change of the PACER fee in nearly 15 years: in 2012 it went from 8 cents to 10 cents a page.

How can you keep PACER costs down?

• Search by case number instead of party name when you have it: a common name can return many pages of results, and every page is billed, even when the search finds no matches.
• Limit a docket report to the dates since your last visit, and leave out the parties and attorneys if you do not need them.
• Read the court's free RSS feed for new entries (see PACER RSS feeds), and use the free public access terminals at the courthouse.
• Look for opinions on GovInfo, where many federal courts' opinions are free and text-searchable.

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