On September 15, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) Office of Managing Director (“OMD”) released a Public Notice announcing that the proposed universal service contribution factor for the fourth quarter of 2025 will be 0.381 or 38.1%. Per FCC rules, during the fourth quarter of 2025, carriers may not recover through a federal universal service line item an amount that exceeds 38.1% of the interstate telecommunications charges on a customer’s bill. The contribution factor for the third quarter of 2025 was 0.360 or 36.0%.
As a reminder, the FCC calculates the quarterly contribution factor based on the ratio of total projected quarterly costs of the universal service support mechanisms to contributors’ total projected interstate and international end-user telecommunications revenues, net of projected contributions. The total projected collected revenue amount for the fourth quarter of 2025 is $7.870473 billion. The adjusted contribution base (the projected collected revenues decreased by the projected revenue requirement to account for circularity and decreased by one percent to account for uncollectable contributions) is $5.659892 billion.
The proposed contribution factor will be deemed approved 14 days following the release of the Public Notice, unless the Commission takes any action regarding the projections for demand and administrative expenses and/or the proposed contribution factor.
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