The Social Security Administration will charge $65 for a Field Operations Headquarters Certification and $30 for a Central Processing Certification, two separate line items in a fee table that applies to requests received on or after October 1, 2026. Both are flat prices per request, printed as single figures rather than ranges. They sit in a schedule for information requested outside the programs SSA runs, and the benefit services themselves are not part of it.
Two certification lines, two flat prices
The table appears in a notice titled “Charging Standard Administrative Fees for Non-Program Information,” filed as Federal Register public inspection document 2026-19250. It lists the Field Operations Headquarters Certification at $65 per request and the Central Processing Certification at $30 per request. Nothing in the printed lines turns either figure into a ceiling or an average. A request that triggers the headquarters certification is priced at $65, and one that triggers the central processing certification is priced at $30.
The two names matter because they are the only certification entries the notice gives, and the table keeps them apart. The headquarters line is the larger of the two. The notice does not explain the difference in a sentence of its own, and it does not say which office handles which type of request, so the pricing gap is all the table itself establishes.
Mark Steffensen, the agency’s General Counsel, signed the notice. It carries a publication date of September 21, 2026, which gave about ten days of lead time before the schedule began to apply on October 1.
What the notice says the fees are for
The agency states the purpose in one sentence: “Standard fees provide consistency and ensure we recover the full cost of supplying information when we receive a request for a purpose not directly related to the administration of a program under the Social Security Act.” That is a cost-recovery rationale, and it is tied to the purpose of the request rather than to who is asking.
The wording draws the boundary of the schedule. A request made for a purpose directly related to administering a Social Security program falls on the other side of that line, and the standard fees are built for the requests that do not. The fee table is aimed at information supplied for those other reasons.
Where the program line is drawn in the regulation
The same distinction exists in SSA’s disclosure rules. Under 20 CFR 402.80, the agency treats a request as program related if the information must be disclosed under the Social Security Act, or if it “will be used for a purpose which is directly related to the administration of a program under the Act.” The section also covers charging the full cost of information supplied for non-program purposes under section 1106(c) of the Social Security Act.
Read together, the regulation and the notice give the same sorting rule. Program-related business stays outside the standard fee table, and the $65 and $30 certification charges, along with the other lines in the schedule, apply to the remainder. The notice does not publish a list of which requests land on which side. It leaves that classification to the agency’s rules, which is why the fee table by itself cannot answer whether a particular request will be charged.
A schedule that must be revisited
The notice adds a timing detail that goes beyond October 1. In its words, “We are required to review and update standard administrative fees at least every two years.” The cost analysis behind the current figures is referred to as “the most recent cost analysis,” although the notice does not publish the analysis itself or the earlier fee levels, so the document gives no basis for describing how far the new certification prices moved.
The review requirement means the $65 and $30 are the figures for this schedule, not a permanent rate. The next scheduled look at the table is, by the notice’s own rule, no more than two years away, and the agency can revise the lines when it does. For anyone budgeting for a certified record in the meantime, the printed schedule is the figure that applies to requests received from October 1, 2026.
What the notice does not say
Several things a reader might assume are absent from the document. It does not define what a certification covers, and it does not say who is eligible to submit a request. The notice is a price list with a stated rationale, not a how-to guide for ordering records.
For questions about the schedule itself, the notice names Stephen Hull of the agency’s Accounting office at 6401 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, Maryland 21235-6401, telephone (410) 966-1890. That office is the contact the Federal Register notice prints for the fee action, and it is the only one the document provides.
The two printed figures
The facts that survive a careful read are short. The Field Operations Headquarters Certification is $65 per request. The Central Processing Certification is $30 per request. Both apply to requests received on or after October 1, 2026, both are flat charges, and both belong to a table of standard administrative fees for non-program information that Mark Steffensen, the agency’s General Counsel, signed in the September 2026 notice.
Records requests and benefit paperwork run on separate tracks
A certification fee belongs to the records side of Social Security, where a request is made for information rather than for a benefit decision. The paperwork that governs a payment, a withholding or an overpayment notice is handled on the program side and keeps its own forms and response windows.
The Social Security Check Protection Kit includes the 2026 payment calendar and the three SSA forms that stop or pause collection (SSA-561, SSA-632 and SSA-634).
Sort a certification fee from the benefit paperwork with its own deadlines →
Drafted with AI assistance from the Social Security Administration’s Federal Register fee notice and 20 CFR 402.80, then checked against those sources before publication.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
