What is the current PACER fee schedule and are there fee waiver programs for researchers?
Executive summary
The baseline PACER fee schedule charges $0.10 per page for electronic access to case documents and case-specific reports, with most documents capped at $3 (the 30‑page cap), while some items (like audio files and transcripts) have separate rates or caps [1] [2] [3]. Multiple partial waivers exist: a routine quarterly waiver ($30 or less per quarter is not billed) and discretionary court-level exemptions for defined researchers, indigents, non‑profits and other classes — researchers can apply via single‑court requests or a multi‑court form [4] [5] [6] [1].
1. How PACER charges work now — the headline numbers and oddities
Accessing a document through PACER generally costs $0.10 per page, with a statutory cap that limits most documents to 30 pages or $3; transcripts and some non‑case reports may be priced differently and audio files are priced at $2.40 per file [1] [2] [3]. Search activity itself can generate billable “pages” — even a search that returns no matches counts as billable pages — and there is no per‑search maximum, which has been a frequent source of confusion and complaint [3] [1]. The fee schedule and explanations on the official PACER site and the Judiciary’s Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule are the controlling sources for these rates [3] [1].
2. The quarterly $30 waiver — who this helps and how often it applies
Since January 1, 2020 the Judicial Conference doubled the usage threshold that triggers an automatic waiver: if a PACER user accrues $30 or less in billable charges in a calendar quarter, the bill for that quarter is waived; the courts report that roughly three‑quarters of users pay nothing in a given quarter under this rule [5] [4] [7]. This rule effectively protects light or occasional users and ensures that most individual users won’t be billed routinely, but it does not exempt heavy users or data‑aggregators who generate large volumes of page counts [5] [8].
3. Fee exemptions for researchers — eligibility, process, and limits
Individual academic researchers working on defined, scholarly research projects can request fee exemptions from one or multiple courts, using either single‑court procedures or a downloadable multi‑court exemption form submitted to the Administrative Office email address provided by PACER (Multi‑CourtExemptions@ao.uscourts.gov) [6] [2]. Courts consider requests on a case‑by‑case basis and typically expect the project to be limited in scope, intended for scholarly work, and not aimed at commercial redistribution; exemptions granted to individual academics do not automatically extend to research assistants and often carry conditions [9] [6] [10].
4. Who else can be exempted and the discretion courts exercise
The Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule allows courts to exempt classes such as indigent litigants, Chapter 13 trustees, pro bono attorneys, certain non‑profits, and individual researchers associated with educational institutions, but these are discretionary exemptions rather than universal entitlements and procedures vary by district [1] [9] [11]. The PACER FAQs and court pages emphasize that exemptions are not automatic — indigent status, for example, does not automatically translate into free PACER access without a court petition — so applicants must follow local rules [4] [11].
5. Debate, hidden incentives and the practical landscape for researchers
Advocates and watchdogs argue that PACER’s paywall has been misused to subsidize other court programs and that fee rules historically advantaged large commercial data‑miners while burdening independent researchers; Fix the Court and other critics document how fee revenues were redirected and how historical fee changes produced outsized revenues [12] [10]. Conversely, the Judiciary defends the fee framework as a user‑pays model and points to targeted exemptions and the $30 quarterly waiver as mitigations; in practice, researchers who prepare narrow, well‑documented exemption requests have had success but must accept local variation, redistribution restrictions and judicial discretion [5] [6] [9].