Does It Cost Money to Ask FEMA to Change a Flood Map?

Sometimes. The federal regulation that governs flood map change requests, 44 CFR Part 72, fixes only two dollar amounts directly in its text — and for everything else, it says the actual prices have to be published separately as a notice in the Federal Register, not written into the regulation itself. The most recent such notice this search located is from January 2015, and it lists specific current fees, but it is not confirmed to be the final word — a newer notice could exist.

This original record-reading guide is a general reading aid, not cited evidence. It does not depict a source record; the article text and source links provide the facts.

Key points

• The regulation itself, 44 CFR 72.3(f), says: “Revisions to the fees, if necessary, shall be published as a notice in the Federal Register.” (eCFR, 44 CFR Part 72) The price list lives outside the regulation text.
• Two fees are fixed directly in the regulation: a $5,000 initial fee for certain alluvial-fan structural map-change requests, and a $35 fee for physically revising flood map panels (eCFR, 44 CFR Part 72).
• Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA) requests are on the list of request types exempt from any fee under 44 CFR 72.5(c).
• The newest fee-schedule notice found in this verification, 80 FR 2955 (Jan. 21, 2015), set fees effective February 20, 2015 — including $600 ($500 online) for a single-lot/single-structure CLOMA or CLOMR-F, and $80 for a Letter of Determination Review — replacing a 2010 schedule.
• This 2015 notice is only the newest one this search found, not confirmed to be the current schedule; check the Federal Register or eCFR for anything published since.

What the regulation fixes directly

44 CFR Part 72 sets two specific dollar figures in its own text, rather than leaving them to a separate notice. For structural map-change requests on alluvial fans, the regulation states that “an initial fee of $5,000, subject to the provisions of § 72.4, shall be paid to FEMA” (eCFR, 44 CFR Part 72). Separately, when a map revision requires FEMA to physically update flood maps, the regulation requires “a fee of $35 to cover FEMA’s costs for physically revising affected FIRM and FBFM panels” (eCFR, 44 CFR Part 72).

Everything else is handled differently. The regulation explicitly defers to future rulemaking for its other fees: “Revisions to the fees, if necessary, shall be published as a notice in the Federal Register” (eCFR, 44 CFR Part 72). That is the legal mechanism behind the separate price list discussed below — it is not an oversight that most fees aren’t spelled out in the regulation itself, it’s how the rule is designed to work.

Separately from that fee-revision mechanism, the current text of Part 72 also carries citations to “[62 FR 5737, Feb. 6, 1997]” and “[64 FR 51462, Sept. 23, 1999]” (eCFR, 44 CFR Part 72) — the Federal Register citations marking when the regulation itself was established and later amended through ordinary rulemaking, not instances of the fee-notice mechanism described above.

LOMA requests don’t require a fee

Not every map-change request costs anything. Among the categories the regulation lists, “Requests for a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA);” (eCFR, 44 CFR Part 72) appears on the exemption list under 44 CFR 72.5(c), meaning FEMA does not charge a fee for processing a LOMA request.

Where the price list lives

Because most fees aren’t written into the regulation, you have to look at the separate fee-schedule notice to find current prices. The newest one located in this verification is a Federal Register notice under “[Docket ID: FEMA–2014–0032]” (Federal Register, 80 FR 2955), published as “Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 13 / Wednesday, January 21, 2015 / Notices 2955” (Federal Register, 80 FR 2955).

That notice states its fees took effect on a specific date: “The revised fee schedules are effective for all requests dated February 20, 2015, or later” (Federal Register, 80 FR 2955). It also states what it replaced: “The revised fee schedule supersedes the current fee schedule, which was established on January 13, 2010” (Federal Register, 80 FR 2955).

Among the rates it sets, the notice lists a fee for a common request type: “Single-lot/single-structure CLOMA and CLOMR–F …………………………………………………………………………. $600 $500” (Federal Register, 80 FR 2955) — $600 by mail or $500 if filed online. It also lists a separate, smaller review fee: “LODR ……………………………… $80” (Federal Register, 80 FR 2955), for a Letter of Determination Review.

What this doesn’t tell you

This article answers only which record sets flood-map-change prices and where that price list is published — it does not confirm that the 2015 schedule is still the current one. This search’s Federal Register query returned the January 2015 notice as the newest match, but it was not an exhaustive search of everything published since. Treat “2015 is the current schedule” as unconfirmed rather than established, and check the Federal Register or eCFR yourself for a possibly newer fee notice before relying on any dollar amount here.

This article also doesn’t tell you whether a specific property, request, or map-change case would actually owe these fees, or what a particular requester’s total bill would be — the record here states published rates and one exemption category, not a case-specific cost. It does not address any property-specific flood-zone, hazard, insurance-necessity, or insurance-cost question; that is outside what this record settles. And while the January 2015 notice also sets fees for other request types — such as a CLOMR based on new hydrology or flood-insurance-study backup-data requests — those figures are not part of the claims verified here and aren’t restated in this article.

Source links

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-44/part-72 https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2015-01-21/pdf/2015-00904.pdf https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/01/21/2015-00904/fee-schedule-for-processing-requests-for-map-changes-for-flood-insurance-study-backup-data-and-for