Central Fee Payment can be accessed on the EPO website at the link below. Note that you will need an EPO deposit account linked to your smart card to use the service for submitting debit orders. Additionally, your company's My.epoline administrator must grant you access to your deposit account.
No. The EPO does not provide support for any kind of emulation on Linux.
Please submit a signed written request (see point 2.2 of the Arrangements for deposit accounts (ADA) valid as from 10 September 2022). For this, please use the online form and select the option "close".
To update your details, please use the online form, which you can also access directly in Central Fee Payment from the Overview tab under Deposit account management.
For this, please contact support@epo.org.
Yes.
Yes. If you are not the deposit account holder, you will need a signed written authorisation from the deposit account holder. Please send this authorisation to support@epo.org.
You need a smart card for authentication to be able to submit debit orders in Central Fee Payment.
Yes, if you already have a smart card linked to a deposit account, you can use it also for Central Fee Payment.
Close your browser and start again, making sure to select the correct certificate.
The EPO has recently upgraded its authentication services. Central Fee Payment is the first service to use the new back end. This is why the login screen looks different.
No. To replenish your deposit account please make a bank transfer, entering the number of the EPO deposit account concerned (eight-digit number starting with 28) in the reference field, preceded by the word "replenishment" (or "repl", if the payment-reference field is too small) or "deposit".
No. 3 338 800 00 (BLZ 700 800 00)
IBAN DE20 7008 0000 0333 8800 00
BIC* DRESDEFF700
Commerzbank AG
Leopoldstrasse 230
80807 Munich, Germany.
*Please use COBADEFFXXX if DRESDEFF700 is not recognised.
Further information can be found under point 3.2 of the Arrangements for deposit accounts (ADA).
No. Only users with a smart card linked to an EPO deposit account who have been assigned the relevant user rights can access Deposit account management in Central Fee Payment.
You can generate your own custom statements for a period of your choice of up to a maximum of two years prior to the current calendar date. For this, use the date filter available in the Transactions tab under Deposit account management
Note: Account statements are not generated automatically in Central Fee Payment.
Account statements can be generated in XML, CSV and PDF format.
Transactions relating to a company’s deposit account are visible to all smart card users who have been granted the necessary user rights.
Automatic debit orders will be processed at the end of the day.
Any other debit orders
Any fee payments made via Central Fee Payment that have been rejected can be found in your Rejected fee payment history.
N.B. The Rejected payments folder in Online Fee Payment has not been transferred to Central Fee Payment.
Yes. You can filter and see all pending orders scheduled for the next 40 days that have not been processed immediately. Please be aware that, even if you filter for the entire 40-day period, you may not see pending orders up to the last date in that period, i.e. your last pending order may be =/< 40 days.
Select Pending in the drop-down menu available in the Transactions tab under Deposit account management to filter for orders with this status.
Yes, you can filter and see all transactions booked over the last 24 months.
Select Booked in the drop-down menu available in the Transactions tab under Deposit account management to filter for orders with this status.
You can filter booked transactions by date, reference, payment type, procedure type and amount. When filtering by amount, if you enter zero in the Amount from box, the search will return all debits from your account; if you enter zero in the Amount to box, the search will return all credits to your account.
You can generate an account statement for any period up to a maximum of two years prior to the current calendar date.
Yes. You can generate an account statement for any period up to a maximum of two years prior to the current calendar date, including periods during which no transactions occurred.
No. This is user-specific information and can only be seen by you.
If you deferred payment to a later date, you can revoke your debit order in Central Fee Payment by clicking the Revoke button (in the list of orders in status Pending in the Transactions tab under Deposit account management). Debit orders without a deferred payment date can only be revoked as per point 13.1 ADA, i.e. by submitting a signed written notice of revocation either as an attachment to an email to support@epo.org or via the EPO contact form.
You can (partially) revoke a debit order with a deferred payment date in Central Fee Payment up to one day before the date you specified as the execution date. You will still be able to revoke it on the specified execution date but you then need to follow the procedure under point 13.1 ADA (see How can I (partially revoke a debit order?). Please note that debit orders without a deferred payment date can only be revoked on the date of their receipt (please see point 13.1 ADA)
There are two different views depending on the authentication you use to sign in.
If you sign in with your smart card, you will see all payments (credit card, bank transfer and deposit account) that were submitted using the smart card.
If you sign in with your email address and password, you will see all payments (credit card, bank transfer) that were submitted using this authentication method.
The same applies for rejected payments.
There are two different carts depending on the authentication you use to sign in.
Payments that you prepare when signed in with your smart card are not visible in your cart when you sign in with your email address and password.
Please make sure you sign in using the same authentication method as before to find your preselected payments.
The payment date according to point 10.1 ADA is the date on which the EPO receives the debit order, provided there are sufficient funds in the deposit account. This date normally corresponds to the date the debit order is submitted via Central Fee Payment. The submission date is displayed on the order confirmation that is automatically generated by Central Fee Payment. Once the fees have been effectively debited from your deposit account the status of the order will be changed from submitted to paid.
Yes, once the fees are debited from the deposit account you will automatically receive a payment confirmation in pdf format.
The pdf is stored in the Fee order history in Central Fee Payment but not in Online Fee Payment.
Note: In the case of insufficient funds, the pdf will only be generated once all fees relating to the debit order have been processed. The pdf will display the different payment dates.
The EPO processes debit orders immediately, provided there are sufficient funds in the deposit account. If you are paying fees for a single application by debit order, these fees are booked in ascending order of their fee codes, with the exception of the appeal fee (011) and the opposition fee (010), which are booked first.
If you are paying fees for multiple applications by debit order, the fees for the application with the lower application number are booked first (ascending order of application number ("PCT" before "EP")) (point 7.3 ADA).
The EPO books fees in this order as long as the funds allow. If the account does not contain sufficient funds to cover all the fees you intend to pay for an application (shortfall), no other debit order is booked until the account is adequately replenished (point 7.4.1 ADA).
Upon replenishment of a deposit account, the EPO processes debit orders in the following order (point 7.4.2 ADA):
Outstanding payments are considered to have been made only on the date on which a deposit account is duly replenished. So please ensure that your account always contains sufficient funds to cover all the fees you intend to pay by debit order.
Example 1:
There is EUR 1 400 in your deposit account. You submit a debit order to pay the following fees for application EP 21xxxxxx.x:
Result: The filing fee is booked, the search fee is not. Fees are booked in ascending order of their fee code.
Example 2:
There is EUR 200 in your deposit account. You submit a debit order to pay the following fees for the following applications:
1) EP 22xxxxxx.x
2) EP 21xxxxxx.x
Result: No fees will be booked owing to the shortfall. As fees for applications are booked in ascending order of their application numbers, the first fee that would be booked is the examination fee of EUR 1 750 for EP 21xxxxxx.x. But as the funds in the deposit account are insufficient to book this fee, no other fee is booked either until the account is duly replenished.
Example 3:
There is EUR 1 800 in your deposit account. You submit a debit order to pay the following fees for the following applications:
1) EP 21xxxxxx.x
2) PCT/US2022/xxxxxx
Result: Only the search fee for PCT/US2022/xxxxxx is booked. In debit orders to pay for multiple applications, fees for PCT applications are booked before fees for EP applications ("PCT" before "EP"). Following the booking of the search fee for PCT/US2022/xxxxxx, there is a shortfall and no other fee is booked until the account is duly replenished.
Example 4:
On 30.06.2022 there is EUR 10 in your deposit account. An automatic debit order is triggered in respect of EP 20xxxxxx.x to pay the following due fee:
On the same day, a debit order is submitted to pay the following fees for the following applications:
1) EP 21xxxxxx.x
2) EP 22xxxxxx.x
Since the funds in the deposit account are insufficient, neither the automatic debit order nor the other debit order can be executed on 30.06.2022.
Example 5 (follow-up to example 4):
On 11.07.2022 the deposit account is replenished with EUR 3 500.
On this date the following fees are booked:
1) As per automatic debit order: fee 033 for application EP 20xxxxxx.x. Although the automatic debit order and the debit order of 30.06.2022 have the same date of receipt / decisive payment date, automatic debit orders are processed before any other debit orders of the same date.
2) As per debit order of 30.06.2022: fees 005 and 006 for application EP 21xxxxxx.x. Since payments for multiple applications are booked in ascending order of application number, the fees for EP 21xxxxxx.x are booked first.
All of these fees are booked with a decisive payment date of 11.07.2022. As there are insufficient funds in the account to also book the appeal fee for EP 22xxxxxx.x, neither this fee nor any other fee can be booked until the account is adequately replenished.
Example 6 (follow-up to example 5):
On 20.07.2022 the account is replenished with EUR 5 000.
The appeal fee for EP 22xxxxxx.x is booked with a decisive payment date of 20.07.2022. For further information, please also refer to the Arrangements for deposit accounts (ADA).
Yes. You can upload a batch payment file in csv or xml format.
To make a batch payment you need to create a file in xml or csv format containing the relevant application numbers and payment details.
When you have saved your file:
The system will automatically recognise the different fields and calculate the total amounts. You can then either go directly to the checkout or add other fees to the cart.
The most likely reason is that you are not using the required format batch-payment-v2-00.dtd. Please consult the technical information to find out more.
This new feature was introduced to improve the payment service and help users pay fees correctly and on time. It shows the procedural fees due for a selected application or patent based on the information available on file at the time.
The date indicated as the due date corresponds to the last day of the period for making the payment.
You can edit the fee amounts if you have made changes which have not yet been updated in the file but which would lead to different amounts. You are responsible for the correctness of any edited amounts.
Certain fees are not displayed in the Fees due fee group. These include the opposition and appeal fee as well as some administrative fees. For more information, see OJ EPO 2020, A130.
It is not mandatory to pay the fees in the Fees due fee group. However, we recommend using this feature.
Yes. However, you are responsible for the completeness/correctness of any edited amounts.
Please select another fee group.
The validation functionality detects and automatically rejects the following:
The automatic rejection of payments reduces the administrative work involved in refunding invalidly paid fees, for both users and the EPO.
The functionality only rejects double payments of fees that are payable only once in the proceedings, e.g. the filing fee or the third/fourth/fifth/etc. renewal fee. Fees that can be paid several times during the proceedings, such as the fee for further processing or the additional search fee in the event of non-unity, are excluded from double-payment validation.
After validation, you will receive a message, generated by the system, indicating that the payment could not be carried out. The message can be printed or downloaded at any time and is stored in your Rejected fee payment history, which can be found by going to Fees in the main navigation bar. This enables both you and the EPO to retrace the issue. If it turns out that a payment has indeed been erroneously rejected, the date of the attempted payment will be accepted as the payment date and any loss of rights which might have occurred as a result of the rejection will be remedied.
This means that you did not complete the checkout and payment process after the fee validation.
The validation of fees takes place during checkout, and rejected fees are automatically removed from your cart. However, you must continue the checkout, select a payment means and submit your order for the rejected fees to appear in your Rejected fee payment history.
If you do not check out, but instead go back to check the fees again or add additional fees, the rejected fees have already been removed from your cart and so will not be validated again. Therefore they will not appear in your Rejected fee payment history.
If all fees are rejected, you will not be able to complete the checkout and so these fees will not appear in your Rejected fee payment history.
You will receive a printable and downloadable order confirmation once you have completed the checkout process. It can also be found in your Fee order history.
Once your debit order is processed you will likewise find a payment confirmation in the Fee order history. It includes the payment date and all other relevant details, such as the application numbers, fee codes and fee amounts. There is a separate page for each application for which fees have been paid.
Your payment may also be found on the Transactions page under Deposit account management (status: Booked) and under Transactions and on your statements in Online Fee Payment.
The Fee order history in Central Fee Payment is user-specific. This means you will only see debit orders submitted via your user account.
At present, Central Fee Payment issues PDF payment confirmations in the language set in Online Fee Payment, which is where all smart card-related settings continue to be managed. To change your language preference, go to Online Fee Payment and choose the language you want. Once synchronisation takes place – which occurs every hour – you will be able to make a fee payment in Central Fee Payment and have the PDF displayed in your chosen language.
Note: The current configuration is transitional. Central Fee Payment will be reconfigured in the coming months so that PDF confirmations are issued in the web language you selected. This change will be implemented in September 2022 at the earliest.
No. The automatic debiting procedure in Central Fee Payment can only be requested for a particular application; it cannot be restricted to specific types of fees or to a specific period of time.
Yes. To do this, click the Batch request/revocation button in the Automatic debiting management tab.
Yes. To do this, select Request/revocation history in the drop-down menu available in the Automatic debiting management tab.
You can do this via EPO Online Filing, Online Filing 2.0, PCT-SAFE or ePCT, using Form PCT/RO/101, Form PCT/IPEA/401 or PCT-SFD or via Central Fee Payment (under Automatic debiting management) in Online services. A separate section in these tools allows you to select automatic debiting as your means of payment.
You can revoke your automatic debit order in Central Fee Payment by selecting Automatic debiting management in the navigation bar. Select the deposit account that the automatic debit order you want to view is taken from. Click Revocation next to the application for which you want to revoke automatic debiting.
If an automatic debit order is filed via one of the online filing tools, the request will not be stored in the request/revocation history. Only requests submitted via Central Fee Payment will appear in the history.
Yes, since the request to revoke an automatic debit order can only be submitted in Central Fee Payment, you will see all your revocations in the request/revocation history.
Yes, from October 2022 you can find evidence of your failed attempts in the request/revocation history by filtering for the status "Failed".
Only those for international applications processed by the EPO as Supplementary International Searching Authority (point 2.4 AAD); all other fees falling due in the international phase are included.
If on the decisive payment date there are insufficient funds in the deposit account to cover the fee(s) due on that day, the automatic debit is not carried out and the account holder is informed accordingly by email.
Where more than one application is affected by the lack of funds, fees are debited in ascending order of application number and fee code. Please note that as a general rule, the EPO processes debit orders immediately upon their receipt, provided there are sufficient funds in the deposit account. Automatic debit orders are processed at the end of the day marking the decisive payment date in accordance with point 4.4 AAD.
If the deposit account is sufficiently replenished to enable each fee to be paid, the EPO debits each fee automatically. The payment is considered to have been made on the date on which the deposit account is duly replenished (point 7.2 AAD).
As a general rule, on the last day of the time limit for paying them (point 5.1(a) AAD). There are, however, a few exceptions to this rule, namely:
These fees are considered to have been received on the date of receipt of the request for the service concerned (point 5.1(c) AAD).
For administrative reasons, if the request for a certified copy is submitted before the fees under Rules 14.1, 15.2 and 16.1 PCT have been debited, the administrative fee payable is debited together with those fees. In all other cases it is debited within seven days of receipt of the request for the certified copy.
Also for administrative reasons, the fee payable for an additional copy of the documents cited in the ISR or IPER is likewise debited within seven days of receipt of the request.
In non-unity cases the EPO will invite you to pay additional international search or preliminary examination fees. Unless you inform the EPO otherwise, it will debit all such fees on the last day of the one-month time limit (in case of fees 002 and 003, booking will take an additional 10 days).
As a courtesy service, the EPO will inform you separately via email that it has issued such an invitation.
You can see the list of applications for which automatic debiting has been set up under Automatic debiting management in Central Fee Payment.
The fees that the EPO is going to debit within the next 40 days are listed in the Transactions tab under Deposit account management in Central Fee Payment. To view the relevant fees, select "Pending" in the Status drop-down list and "AAV" in the Filed via list.
Your company administrator has not granted you the necessary rights in the system. This can be done in the Administration section under Online services on the EPO website or under Manage deposit account user rights in Central Fee Payment.
Payment of the fee concerned is considered to have been received on that day (point 4.1 AAD).
No more fees will be debited automatically as from (and including on) the date of receipt of your notice of revocation, and the EPO will correct any debits already made.
No, automatic debiting ceases to be effective on the day on which the international or European patent application is withdrawn or finally deemed withdrawn or the European patent application is finally refused. No fees will be debited after this date (point 11.1 AAD).
No, you have to file a separate one for the European phase (points 2.2 and 11.2 AAD).
Yes, this functionality is available 24/7.
To terminate the automatic debiting procedure, the party withdrawing from the proceedings must explicitly revoke the automatic debit order under Automatic debiting management in Central Fee Payment (point 10.3 AAD).
You must therefore do that at the same time as you request the transfer of rights.
Agents must not only notify the EPO of their withdrawal; at the same time, they must also explicitly revoke their automatic debit order under Automatic debiting management in Central Fee Payment (point 10.3 AAD).
Yes, simply file an automatic debit order for the EPO proceedings.
No.
You can submit single debit orders using the EPO's online filing tools. However, batch payments can only be made by uploading a CSV or XML file in the required format via Central Fee Payment.
Yes.
This will happen on an hourly basis, provided that you have enough funds in your deposit account.
Yes, this is still possible.
Yes.
No. You can continue using your existing deposit account.
Debit orders submitted via the online filing tools can be seen as pending or booked transactions in the Deposit account management section in Central Fee Payment.
