What happens if my deposit account does not contain enough funds for all my debit orders or all of the fees in my debit order?

Short answer: the EPO only processes debit orders and debits fees as long as there are enough funds in the deposit account. 

How debit orders are processed

If a debit order covers fees for several applications, the EPO processes them in ascending order of application number:

• PCT before EP before UP

For Euro-PCT applications and European patents with unitary effect, the EP application number is used.

How individual fees are debited:

• Appeal fee 011 and opposition fee 010 are debited first.
• Other fees are debited in ascending order of their fee codes.
• The additional page fee 501/520 is treated as part of the filing fee 001/020 and is booked together with it.
• If the debit order cannot be executed in full, no further debit orders are booked until funds are transferred to the account. No partial fees are booked.

Example of debiting individual fees
A debit order is submitted via Online Filing 2.0 for fees 001, 501, 002, 005 and 006. The account balance is EUR 857.

The fees are booked in this order: 001, 501, 002, 005 and 006, until the funds are exhausted. Once the account is topped up, outstanding fees are debited with effect from the date of fund transfer.

Important: if funds are not transferred to the account in time, or if the debit order was filed on the last day for payment, further processing may be required. Deposit account holders are responsible for ensuring that their account contains enough funds to cover all debit orders submitted.

Legal basis: point 7.3 ADA