What MCL 15.234 actually lets you charge: labor categories, the fringe multiplier, the 10-cent page cap, deposits, and the mistakes that draw appeals.
Michigan FOIA does not leave fees to discretion. MCL 15.234(1)(a) through (f) defines exactly six components a public body may charge, and nothing outside that list is chargeable. Broadly: the labor to search for, locate, and examine the records; the labor to separate and redact exempt material; the cost of outside help with redaction when no employee is capable of doing it; the medium the records are delivered on; paper copies; and mailing.
The labor components come with strict arithmetic. Time is billed in 15-minute increments, and partial increments round down: 44 minutes of search time bills as 30 minutes, and a 12-minute task bills as nothing. The rate is the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee capable of performing the work, whether or not that person actually did it. If the deputy clerk could have run the search, the deputy clerk’s wage is the rate, even when the supervisor handled it.
Fringe benefits can be added to labor charges, but only up to 50% of the applicable hourly wage, and never more than the actual cost of those benefits (MCL 15.234(2)). A body whose real fringe cost is 32% of wages charges 32%, not 50%. The 50% figure is a ceiling, not an entitlement.
When a public body has no employee capable of separating exempt from nonexempt material (a village with no one qualified to review law-enforcement records, for example), it may hire the work out and pass the cost through. That pass-through is capped at 6 times the state minimum wage. Michigan’s minimum wage is $13.73 as of January 1, 2026, which puts the cap at $82.38 per hour. If outside counsel bills $250 per hour for the review, the requester can be charged at most $82.38 for each of those hours; the difference is the public body’s to absorb.
Paper copies are capped at 10 cents per sheet. Not per page of content, and not whatever the office copier contract implies: 10 cents per sheet of paper, maximum.
The statute also builds in a $20 reduction for requesters who qualify on indigence grounds and for certain nonprofit organizations (MCL 15.234(2)). It is small, it applies when the requester qualifies, and skipping it is one of the easiest ways to hand a requester a valid complaint.
Every one of these caps is arithmetic, which means every one of them can be checked. Our free Michigan FOIA fee calculator applies the increments, the wage rule, the fringe ceiling, and the statutory caps as you type, and shows the math the way the itemization form expects it.
When the fee estimate exceeds $50, the public body may require a good-faith deposit of up to half the estimate (MCL 15.234(8)). The same subsection attaches a duty that offices routinely miss: the response requiring the deposit must include a best-efforts estimate of when the records will be ready. A deposit letter without a time estimate is an incomplete deposit letter.
There is one situation where the deposit can be 100%: a requester who has not paid the bill on a previous request can be required to deposit the full estimated fee before work begins (MCL 15.234(11)).
Deposits also start a clock of their own. If the requester does not pay, the request is considered abandoned after 45 days (MCL 15.234(14)). Put the abandonment date in your request log the day the estimate goes out; it is exactly the kind of date nobody remembers eleven weeks later.
Three provisions give the fee rules teeth.
For an office sending $60 estimates, losing a fee appeal costs far more than the fee. The itemization form is your defense: a fee that is broken out component by component, with the caps visibly applied, is a fee a court can follow.
Dekree’s fee studio does this math for you. The 15-minute increments, the lowest-paid-capable-employee rate, the fringe ceiling, the contracted-redaction cap, and the 10-cent paper cap are enforced inline as you build the estimate, so an over-cap number cannot leave the office. It produces the itemized estimate on the detailed form the statute requires, and deposits can be collected online through the Payments product, which is free.
Bill only the six components. Count labor in 15-minute increments, rounded down, at the lowest-paid-capable rate. Add fringe at your actual percentage, capped at 50. Cap contracted redaction at $82.38 per hour in 2026 and paper at 10 cents per sheet. Apply the $20 reduction when the requester qualifies. If the estimate tops $50, take up to half as a deposit, include a best-efforts time estimate, and log the 45-day abandonment date. Itemize everything on the required form. Then check the arithmetic against the free fee calculator before the estimate goes out; the requester’s attorney will.
Only the six fee components defined in MCL 15.234(1)(a) through (f): labor to search for and examine records, labor to redact exempt material, contracted redaction help where the body lacks a capable employee, the medium the records are delivered on, paper copies capped at 10 cents per sheet, and mailing. Anything outside the list is not chargeable, and every charge must appear on the detailed itemization form required by MCL 15.234(4).
6 times the state minimum wage. With the minimum wage at $13.73 as of January 1, 2026, the cap is $82.38 per hour, regardless of what the contractor actually bills the public body.
When the fee estimate exceeds $50, the body may require a good-faith deposit of up to 50% of the estimate, and the response requiring the deposit must include a best-efforts estimate of when the records will be ready (MCL 15.234(8)). A requester who left a previous bill unpaid can be required to deposit 100% (MCL 15.234(11)). If the deposit goes unpaid for 45 days, the request is considered abandoned (MCL 15.234(14)).
Yes. MCL 15.240a provides a fee appeal path with a 45-day window to take the dispute to court, and a court that finds the fee violated the act can award $500 in punitive damages to the requester plus a $500 civil fine (MCL 15.240a(7)). A body that has not published its FOIA procedures and guidelines may not charge any fee at all until it complies.
This article is educational information for Michigan public bodies, current as of the publication date. It is not legal advice, and statutes and court decisions change. Confirm specifics with your municipal attorney. Statute text: legislature.mi.gov.