Program Fees

RPRA charges fees to regulated parties to recover costs for building and operating RPRA’s registries, providing service to registrants, and for undertaking compliance and enforcement activities for producer responsibility programs. As an administrative authority of the Government of Ontario, RPRA does not receive government funding and operates on a cost-recovery basis.

On this page, you will find answers to the questions:

How much are program fees?
Why does RPRA collect fees?
Who pays fees?
What happens if fees are not paid?
How are fees determined?
How are fees used?
Does RPRA have other sources of funding?

How much are program fees?

See our current fees by program, below:

To see fees from past years, visit our Current and Past Program fees page.

Why does RPRA collect fees?

RPRA operates on a cost-recovery basis and is not funded by the provincial government.

RPRA charges fees to cover the cost of building and operating RPRA’s registries, providing service to registrants, and for undertaking compliance and enforcement activities for producer responsibility programs.

These programs and services fall under two categories: producer responsibility programs and digital reporting services.

Producer responsibility programs

Digital reporting services

Who pays fees?

Producer responsibility programs

Producers of materials regulated under the RRCEA are responsible for paying fees to RPRA. The fee each producer pays is determined by several factors, including the program they participate in and the volume of material they supply to the market. Producers deemed “small producers” are charged a nominal flat fee. A “large producer” is a producer with a minimum management requirement (specific tonnage or units vary by program) in the previous calendar year. RPRA does not charge fees to service providers or producer responsibility organizations (PROs).

Excess Soil and Hazardous Waste Program registries

Fees charged to digital reporting service registrants go towards building, maintaining, and operating the Registries, and to provide ongoing support to registry users. The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) is responsible for undertaking compliance and enforcement activities for the excess soil and hazardous waste programs and therefore assumes the cost of these activities.

RPRA fees vs PRO fees

Producers with management requirements are required to fund and operate a collection and management system for obligated materials. Producers can fulfil these obligations individually or contract directly with a producer responsibility organization (PRO) and pay the associated PRO fees (also referred to as material management fees).

RPRA fees are distinct from fees producers pay to PROs to meet their management requirements. RPRA program fees are used to fund the cost of building and operating RPRA’s registries, providing service to registrants, and for undertaking compliance and enforcement activities.

What happens if fees are not paid?

Registrants with outstanding fees are considered non-compliant and subject to enforcement action for non-payment. In addition to meeting other regulatory obligations, registrants are responsible for paying any required fees.

If you are a registrant, invoices can be accessed from the dashboard of your registry account.

Fees can be paid using various payment methods. For more information on how to pay fees, see our fee payment method FAQs.

How are fees determined?

There are four main steps to determining program fees:

Annual budget setting
Allocation of costs to individual programs
Subtraction or addition of programs’ prior year surplus or deficit
Application of the program fee model

Annual budget and surplus/deficits

RPRA establishes an annual budget and cost recovery target for fees during the business planning process.

Program surpluses or deficits occur when revenue for the program (the amount of fees collected from registrants) is more or less than the program’s cost recovery target. Surpluses and deficits for each program are applied to their cost recovery target two years after they occur, and are recovered over the span of one or more years, with a goal of minimizing annual fee fluctuations for the program.

Cost allocation methodology

The cost allocation methodology distributes RPRA’s annual total cost recovery target between programs to fairly recover costs related to each program, and to avoid registrants from one program subsidizing the cost of another program. The cost recovery target for each program is an input into that program’s fee model, which determines the fee rates for registrants.

RPRA’s cost allocation methodology divides RPRA’s overall costs into two categories: direct and common. Direct costs are attributable to a specific program. Common costs cannot be directly attributed to a program as they are either indirect costs or shared service costs. Common costs have multiple different allocation methods, which are based on data that intends to reflect the cost drivers of that particular expense.

Direct costs, forecasted to each program:
- This includes registry amortization and interest, registry foundational costs and interest, professional fees, and certain IT and registry-related expenses.
Common costs include:
- Indirect costs such as board remuneration, non-registry amortization, leadership and certain administrative salaries, and office supplies
- Shared service costs such as staff salaries and benefits, IT services and support, and software licenses
Common costs are divided up among the programs using key cost drivers, including:
- Number of registrants
- Number of producers
RPRA’s reserve recovery is allocated to each program based on the program’s share of total budgeted cost recoveries
RRCEA start up recovery is allocated equally to each active RRCEA program

Fee models

Producer responsibility programs under the RRCEA

The fee models for producer responsibility programs for tires, electronics, batteries, hazardous and special products (HSP), and lighting divide the program’s cost recovery target by the weight of materials estimated to be supplied by producers in the year the fees will be applied.

Below is a simplified formula that displays the cost allocation methodology:

Total program revenue target – (total small producers x flat fee*) = fees to be recovered from large producers

Fees to be recovered from large producers / kilograms of materials supplied by large producers

= $ / kilogram** for large producers

*Flat fees are uniform across all programs. The amount is reviewed annually to determine whether an increase is warranted.
**For tires producers, the cost recovery target is divided by the number of units predicted to be supplied, rather than the weight, and the fee rate is charged per tire rather than per kilogram, consistent with the Tires Regulation.

The fee model for the HSP program includes secondary divisions of the cost recovery target to producers of different materials, resulting in different fee rates for each producer group, and includes flat fees for producers of mercury-containing products, fertilizers, and refillable propane containers.

The fee model for the batteries and electronics programs combines the cost recovery targets from both programs, as well as the predicted weights of materials supplied, to result in one fee rate for large producers in both programs.

Excess soil and Hazardous Waste Program registries

Excess soil:

Fees are assigned to each activity type and tied to soil volume. Fees can be either flat or variable. Variable fee rates increase from a de minimis up to a ceiling. Registrants will pay a fee for each initial project area, reuse site, and residential development soil depot notice filed, based on total estimated soil volume. Registrants may also pay a fee upon updating their notice at the completion of a project if the final soil volume is different than the initial estimated soil volume.

Hazardous waste:

Generators of hazardous waste pay:

Manifest fee* (flat rate per manifest)
Hazardous waste tonnage fee**

*Excludes manifests for waste subject to manifest fee exemptions in the Subject Waste Program Regulation under the RRCEA
**Excludes waste subject to tonnage fee exemptions in the Subject Waste Program Regulation under the RRCEA

Objectives, principles and rules of fee setting

As a self-financing organization, RPRA sets fees to recover its costs according to the objectives, principles and rules as outlined in RPRA’s General Fee Setting Policy.

Consultations

Before setting fees, RPRA engages in public consultation for at least 45 days and posts the fees on its website for 30 days before they come into effect, as required under the RRCEA. Fee consultations take place annually to determine and set fees before January 1st of the following year.

Learn how to participate in our current and upcoming consultations or find information about our past consultations.

Fee rate increases

RPRA aims to set reasonably predictable fee rates, but yearly variation is common. Annual compliance costs per program fluctuate and external factors like inflation affect RPRA’s expenses due to registry builds and RRCEA program start-up costs.

In some years, certain programs may see fee rate increases that are higher than the overall budget increase. These increases may be the result of additional resources required under specific circumstances, a deficit or surplus in the program budget from a previous year, or a decline in the total volume of obligated material being reported by registrants.

How are fees used?

RPRA uses fees to build and maintain registries and registry services, support our compliance activities, and publicly report on waste and resource recovery in Ontario

For details of expenses for each year, please consult the annual Business Plan.

Does RPRA have other sources of funding?

RPRA’s primary source of funding is fees and charges established under section 41 of the RRCEA, paid by those obligated by regulation to register with RPRA (outlined above).

Other revenue sources may include:

Recovery of costs incurred by RPRA in exercising its powers and carrying out its duties as they relate to industry funding organizations (IFOs) as set out in section 33(5)(vi) of the WDTA.
Fees established by RPRA under section 34 of the WDTA to monitor the effectiveness of an industry stewardship plan and perform other functions related to the plan.
Administrative penalty (AP) revenue from APs issued by the Registrar under the RRCEA and the WDTA, subject to the provisions of each AP regulation.
Funding may also be transferred to RPRA from legacy programs following. Funds transferred from any legacy program will be allocated to the respective RRCEA program (e.g., funds from the legacy electronics program will be allocated to the corresponding RRCEA electronics program).

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