T-Mobile Increasing a Fee It Already Increased Less Than a Year Ago

Now that T-Mobile no longer includes taxes and fees in their newer plans, they’ve realized that increasing them is a thing they can do much more frequently. You may recall a late payment fee increase at the end of last year. You may also remember in April when they increased one of their supposed regulatory fees by $0.50 per line. That same fee is seeing another increase later this month, less than a year since the previous increase.

I’m referring to the “Regulatory Programs & Telco Recovery Fee,” a fee that T-Mobile clearly describes as “not a government tax or imposed by the government,” but is instead a fee “collected and retained by T-Mobile to help recover certain costs we have already incurred and continue to incur.” This is a fee with a really fancy name that sounds super official that is really just there to help cover some of their expenses.

Last year, T-Mobile increased this fee by $0.50 per line for both voice and mobile internet lines. Starting January 21, they will once again increase this fee by another $0.50 per line. Within a year, your “Regulatory Programs & Telco Recovery Fee” is now a full $1.00 per line higher per month.

Below we’ve captured the new text they added this morning:

• Voice lines: $3.99 ($4.49 effective January 21, 2026) per line every month (Regulatory Programs $0.50; Telco Recovery $3.49)
• Mobile Internet lines: $1.60 ($2.10 effective January 21, 2026) per line every month (Regulatory Programs $0.12; Telco Recovery $1.48)

It should be noted that those lines used to end with a breakout of the cost between the fee going to either Regulatory Programs or Telco Recovery. While they increased the fee, they did not update that breakout with the newest $0.50 increase.

I would also point out that if you have a plan that still has taxes and fees included in the price, this increase should not affect you. When this fee went up last year, T-Mobile made sure we shared that with you.