Fees and charges
Fees and charges for applications made under the Right to Information Act 2009 (the RTI Act) are set out in the Right to Information Regulation 2009. Charges under the Information Privacy Act 2009 (the IP Act) are set out in the Information Privacy Regulation 2009. The Office of the Information Commissioner publishes a detailed guideline on fees and charges.
The application fees and charges usually increase on 1 July each year. On 1 July 2023 the fees and charges were increased in line with the Government’s indexation policy. You can contact us to find out details about specific fees, charges or prices. Below is a summary of the RTI application fee and charges for RTI and IP applications, current from 1 July 2023.
Right to Information
The current application fee for an application under the RTI Act is – $55.75. This fee cannot be waived.
An agency or Minister may impose processing charges on searching for or retrieving documents, and making, or doing things related to making, a decision about an application. An agency or Minister may also impose access charges for providing the documents.
The processing charges for an RTI application are:
- if the agency or Minister spends less than 5 hours – nil
- if the agency or Minister spends more than 5 hours processing the application - $8.65 per 15 minutes or part of 15 minutes.
If the agency spends more than 5 hours processing an application, the processing charge applies to every hour. So, if processing takes 6 hours, the processing charge applies to the 6 hours.
The access charges for RTI applications are:
- for copies of documents provided as a black and white A4 photocopy - $0.25 per page.
Depending on the application, access charges may also include:
- the actual cost incurred to engage another entity to search for and retrieve a document;
- the actual cost of relocating a document (for example, the cost of transporting the document from Cairns to Brisbane to give access to an applicant who lives in Brisbane); and
- the actual cost of transcribing a recording or preparing a written document.
There are no access charges if documents are provided by email or on CD.
The agency or Minister will give you a written estimate (called a charges estimate notice) of how much your application is likely to cost.
Information Privacy
There is no application fee for an application under IP Act, but there may be access charges.
The access charges for IP applications are:
- for copies of documents provided as a black and white A4 photocopy - $0.25 per page
Depending on the application, access charges may also include:
- the actual cost incurred to engage another entity to search for and retrieve the document;
- the actual cost of relocating a document (for example, the cost of transporting the document from Cairns to Brisbane to give access to an applicant who lives in Brisbane); and
- the actual cost of transcribing a recording or preparing a written document.
There are no access charges if documents are provided by email or on CD.
Waiver of charges
Processing and/or access charges may be waived if:
- the agency or Minister considers the likely associated costs would be more than the likely amount of the charge;
- an applicant is in financial hardship (ie holds a specified valid concession card); or
- the applicant is a non-profit organisation and the Information Commissioner has decided the organisation is in financial hardship.
Payment by credit card
Credit card payments are accepted as part of an online application process. Credit card details are not accepted for payment of the application fee via email, facsimile or telephone. Please confirm the preferred payment method with the agency you are applying to.
Payment by cheque
If you are paying by cheque, you should make the cheque payable to the agency to which you are applying and post to that agency. Contact details for Queensland government agencies are available here. Contact the agency you are applying to before submitting your application to check whether that agency accepts payments by cheque.