Registration fee

A registration fee is payable by project proponents in order to have a project considered for registration (EB 5, paragraph 23).

The registration fee is an upfront payment of the estimated amount due for the Administration Share of Proceeds for the first year of the project. In other words, the registration fee is calculated based on the number of CERs that is expected to be generated by the project during its first year.

The COP/MOP decided at its first meeting that the Executive Board could propose lower fees for small-scale CDM project activities:

The Executive Board, in proposing the share of proceeds to cover administrative expenses and registration fees to recover any project related expenses, may consider proposing lower fees for small-scale CDM project activities (4/CMP.1, Annex II, paragraph 21).

The Executive Board has confirmed that no registration fee is payable by projects with an expected annual emission reduction of less than 15 kilotonnes:

No registration fee has to be paid for CDM project activities with expected average annual emission reduction over the crediting period below 15,000 t CO2-equivalent (EB 23, Annex 35, paragraph 4).

In addition, an exemption is available for project activities conducted in least developed countries. At its 3rd meeting, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP) decided to exempt least developed countries from paying the registration fee and share of proceeds at issuance:

The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol ...

Decides to abolish the payment of the registration fee and share of proceeds at issuance for clean development mechanism project activities hosted in least developed countries (2/CMP.3, paragraph 31).

In response to this decision, the Executive Board has clarified that:

No registration fee and share of proceeds at issuance have to be paid for CDM project activities hosted in least developed countries. The exemption from these payments is determined at the date of registration of the project activity. In the event a country which hosts a project activity is categorized as a least developed countries after the date of registration, no share of proceeds is to be paid at any subsequent issuance (EB 37, Annex 20, paragraph 5).