Rules and Regulations Governing Fees for Electronic Payment for Registrations, Licenses, Certificates and Permits

The RI Department of Environmental Management, Division of Agriculture and Forestry, Agriculture Branch is proposing new regulations. These proposed regulations follow enabling legislation passed by the RI Legislature that became effective in July of 2023. This legislation allows any fees related to the registration, license, permit and certification fees collected by all programs within the purview of the Agriculture Branch to be required to be collected by electronic means. This legislation places a cap of 5% of the statutory fees established by the legislature to be collected by the electronic payment service provider to be collected for electronic payments. This fee is in addition to the fee for registrations, licenses, permits and certifications and is not retained by DEM. All such fees are retained by Tyler Tech, the company that processes electronic payments. The legislation requires the fees collected by the service provider to be established in regulation.