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IDR fees explained: what federal arbitration costs in 2026
Every federal IDR dispute carries two government fees. Each party pays a $15 non-refundable administrative fee (for disputes initiated on or after June 11, 2026), and each party deposits the certified IDR entity fee, typically $600 to $800 for a single determination and $800 to $1,200 for a batched one. The prevailing party's deposit is refunded after the decision, typically within about 30 business days. So the lasting government cost of a won dispute is usually $15, and providers won 85.8 percent of decided disputes from 2023 through 2025.
The No Surprises Act's fee structure confuses people because the two fees behave differently, one changed dramatically in 2026, and the refund mechanics mean the cash you front is not the cash you spend. Here is each piece in order.
The administrative fee: $15, non-refundable, each party
The administrative fee goes to the federal government to fund the dispute portal and its oversight. For most of the program's history it was $115 per party, which meant a provider arbitrating a $300 claim started $115 in the hole before any arbiter was even selected. A rule finalized in May 2026 cut the fee to $15 per party for disputes initiated on or after June 11, 2026. Neither side gets this fee back, win or lose. The reduction quietly changed which claims are worth arbitrating: at $15, small-dollar lines that were previously written off can clear the math, particularly once they are batched.
The IDR entity fee: deposited by both, refunded to the winner
The certified IDR entity is the arbiter, a private organization certified by the federal government to decide disputes. Each IDR entity publishes its own fee schedule within ranges CMS permits, which is why you will see a range rather than a single number: typically $600 to $800 for a single determination and $800 to $1,200 for a batched determination.
Both parties deposit the full fee shortly after the IDR entity is selected. After the arbiter picks one of the two offers, the prevailing party's deposit is refunded, typically within about 30 business days, and the losing party's deposit is kept as payment for the arbitration. In effect, the loser pays the arbiter. But note what this means for cash flow: the provider fronts the deposit on every dispute, and gets it back only on wins. At filing volume, those deposits function as a rolling float. For a group winning at the market rate, nearly all of that float cycles back.
What a dispute actually costs, all in
Take a batched dispute with a $1,000 IDR entity fee. The provider pays $15 and fronts $1,000. If the provider prevails, the $1,000 returns and the total government cost of arbitrating that batch, which can contain up to 25 claim lines today and up to 50 for disputes initiated on or after November 1, 2026, is $15. If the provider loses, the cost is $1,015 and the payer's original payment stands. Spread over a book of claims at the 85.8 percent provider win rate, the average government cost per batch stays low, which is why the serious money in IDR is not the government fees. It is what you pay whoever prepares and files, and that ranges from a flat fee per filing to 15 to 35 percent of every award. We lay that comparison out on our pricing page.
Where the numbers come from
Fee amounts come from the federal IDR rules and current CMS guidance, including the May 2026 rule effective June 11, 2026. Win rates come from the CMS federal IDR public use files, 3.39 million disputes from 2023 through 2025, which we analyze at idrexplorer.com. Related reading: how batching changes per-claim cost and the full deadline timeline.
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