Michal,

The flat fee structure is in place because the membership of the RIPE NCC, i.e. the LIRs, voted this into place some years back, and have consistently voted to keep flat fees for LIRs in place since then.

Here's the history.

Years ago, the fees paid by members roughly reflected the amount of address space they were allocated. A lot of LIRs grumbled about it at the time, so the Exec Board set up a charging scheme task force with volunteers from the membership in order to get more detailed feedback from the membership about what they might want from a charging model. This Task Force wrote a report, and in Sep 2012, the membership were given a choice of three charging schemes based on the recommendations from the task force. The membership voted in favour of the option for identical fees for all LIRs, in preference to the other two options presented, one of which was to keep the resource-based charging scheme.

https://www.ripe.net/documents/924/Options_for_RIPE_NCC_Charging_Scheme_2013.pdf

This flat fee structure was kept in place for several years, but due to LIRs grumbling, an option was put to the members in 2019 to change the charging model from a flat fee structure back to a resource-based charging scheme. This was rejected by the membership, who voted to keep the flat fee charging structure

https://www.ripe.net/documents/816/RIPE_NCC_Charging_Scheme_2020_Overview_wLp4WWY.pdf

The flat fee was again maintained for a couple of years until May 2023, but LIRs kept grumbling about the charges. So the Exec Board again put different charging options to the membership for 2024 onwards. Once again, the membership voted to keep the flat fee charging option in place.

https://www.ripe.net/membership/gm/meetings/may-2023/documentation-and-archives/supporting-documents/

As some LIRs were unhappy with the output of these votes, the Exec Board then created a new Charging Scheme Task Force, again populated by volunteers from the membership, to create a set of principles which could be used to create a charging scheme:

https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/member-and-community-consultations/charging-scheme-task-force-2024/

You can follow the progress of this TF on that web page. The final report is well worth reading.

The RIPE NCC is now following the recommendations from that Task Force report.

This is why Simon-Jan talked about task forces, and member input. It's because the RIPE NCC is a member-owned organisation, and the Exec Board /  the RIPE NCC is going to a lot of effort to give the NCC membership - i.e. member LIRs like your company or my company - meaningful input into what set of principles should be used to create a long term sustainable charging model, and then based on that, what exact charging scheme options should be created.

At some point in the near future, the membership of the association will be able to vote on different options based on this consultation process. I.e. keep the flat fee structure that is currently in place, or replace it with something else. As a LIR, you'll be able to vote on this. As a LIR, you're also welcomed to provide input.

Simon-Jan's email is part of this process of soliciting input from members.

If you want to provide input to this process, a good starting point would be to read the report written by the Charging Scheme Task Force. A second point to consider will be that no matter what the outcome of this process is, some - and probably many - organisations will be unhappy with that outcome. There is no such thing as a charging scheme that everyone will be happy with.

Briefly, in answer to your two questions about the charging structure:

Michal Krajčírovič via members-discuss wrote on 04/02/2026 15:13:

Because the RIPE NCC membership voted in favour of identical fees for all LIRs in 2012 and since then has consistently voted to keep this in place.


Same as the previous answer. It's like this because the RIPE NCC membership voted for this, repeatedly, even when presented with options to change back to a resource-based charging scheme.

Your other questions are about what membership fees are spent on. This is a separate discussion about the annual RIPE NCC Activity Plan. Here's the plan for 2026, which was presented to the members in May 2025:

https://www.ripe.net/documents/4132/Draft_Activity_Plan_and_Budget_2026.pdf

This is a different topic for a different thread. But just like the charging scheme discussion, people have differing opinions on what should or should not be in the Activity Plan.

Nick