FAQs

US Consolidated Tape™ provides real-time consolidated market data for all US National Market System stocks across Tapes A, B and C. The new CT Plan has been mandated by the SEC to replace the legacy CTA and UTP Plans under a new, unified governance structure with a single set of Policies, a single Fee Schedule and a single Administrator — streamlining administration, enhancing transparency and delivering greater efficiency across the industry.

In May 2020, the SEC adopted the Governance Order (SEC Release No. 34-88827), directing US National Market System exchanges and FINRA to file a single new national market system plan. And so, the CT Plan was born with a mandate to replace the separate CTA and UTP Plans with one consolidated governance structure. The order was later amended in September 2023. The CT Plan LLC was approved as the new oversight organization of members which form the Operating Committee in 2024. In 2025 DataCT LLC was appointed as the new Independent Administrator to oversee a new Fee Schedule, filed for approval in December 2025 and approved in June 2026 for implementation from the Operative Date.

The Operative Date is currently planned for April 1, 2027. On that date, the CT Plan Policies will supersede the legacy CTA and UTP policies, and the new CT Plan Fee Schedule will take effect. Before then, registration opens September 1, 2026, the signing window for the new Agreements opens in October 2026, and every firm must be licensed under the new Agreements before March 2027.

Customers will move from two administrators, two policy sets, two portals and two audit programs to one Administrator (DataCT LLC), one policy, one portal and one compliance program across Tapes A, B and C.

Customers will be required to sign and adopt new Agreements for the Usage and Distribution of US Consolidated Tape data — a Data Usage Agreement and/or a Distribution Agreement, each covering Tapes A, B and C, with product-specific Data Licenses attached. Customers receiving US Consolidated Tape data will need to become licensed under the new Agreements before March 2027.

Consolidatedtape.com was launched to support this transition and the ongoing administration of the US Consolidated Tape by DataCT, the new independent Administrator. Consolidatedtape.com is the new digital administrative home for licensing, usage reporting, billing and support and provides a single point of reference for policies, fees and contact information. Day-to-day administration runs through one portal, portal.consolidatedtape.com, on one annual compliance calendar.

No technology changes are required for this transition — there are no associated changes to the Securities Information Processors (SIPs) operated by SIAC and Nasdaq, or to the CTS, CQS and UTDF, UQDF systems they operate. This is a change to the Plan, its Policies, its Agreements and its Fee Schedule — not to the feeds.

Yes. From the Operative Date, your US Consolidated Tape invoice will be sent by DataCT LLC — a single invoice covering Tapes A, B and C in place of separate CTA and UTP billing — and there will be new bank information to remit payment to. Invoices are due within 30 business days. Further details should be available by November 2026.

Your firm's existing Data Licenses for Tapes A, B and C data can be licensed with DataCT simply by confirming that you intend to continue with them. In addition, your Datafeed Requests and Datafeed Approvals will be migrated and your reported inventory for active Data Licenses will be carried forward so that you will not need to re-submit them from scratch. Your Data License inventory is then maintained at portal.consolidatedtape.com as a shared record between you and the Administrator.

There will be a new reporting portal to which you may submit all reporting for Tapes A, B and C. Supported file formats include VRXML, VARS and Excel, though there may be slight differences in format compared to the NYSE and Nasdaq systems. Reports are due no later than the 15th calendar day after month-end, moving to the next business day where that falls on a weekend or market holiday. A sandbox reporting portal will be provided for your testing starting in January 2027 or once your firm has executed its agreement, whichever is later.

These are all public at consolidatedtape.com/agreements.

Yes, we are planning on putting together webinars, training sessions and office hours to help support the transition.

Access to CT Data under the CT Plan is licensed through the new Agreements. A firm that has not executed the applicable Data Usage Agreement or Distribution Agreement before March 2027 will not be licensed to receive or distribute Tape A, B or C data when the Plan becomes operative, so we encourage firms to start legal review now.

Your existing CTA and UTP agreements remain in effect until the transition, and the March 2027 execution deadline is set to give firms that window. After the Operative Date, the Administrator completes licensing verification within 180 days.

The new CT Plan Policies replace the existing CTA and UTP Plan Policies with a number of important modifications designed to improve clarity and simplify CT Plan administration. A single policy now answers every licensing, reporting, billing and compliance question for all three Tapes, using one consistent set of definitions — one administrator, one account team, one portal and one annual compliance calendar, instead of parallel processes for CTA and UTP. The complete Policies and all change notices are published at consolidatedtape.com/policies, with an email subscription option.

The new policy classifies the use, not the person. A registered professional, a bank employee or a day trader managing personal savings can qualify for Non-Professional rates on a personal account, provided the use is genuinely personal and non-business, and an individual can hold a Professional classification through work and a Non-Professional classification at home at the same time. Qualification is simpler too: one standard attestation of just six questions applies across all Tapes, so vendors can run a single sign-up flow for all consolidated data.

The new structure separates common terms from your specific inventory: a Data Usage Agreement and a Distribution Agreement carry the standard terms, while individual Data Licenses define exactly what you are licensed to do — product, use case, Unit of Count, and the reporting and recordkeeping that go with it. Your full Data License inventory is maintained online as a shared record between you and the Administrator.

A uniform 15-minute delayed data license applies across all Tapes, and there is no usage reporting for delayed or end-of-day redistribution. Delayed Data must be distributed through a verified Delay Control System, and every display must be clearly labeled as delayed with the delay period stated.

Attribution moves from screen-by-screen display statements designed for terminals to practical, service-level attribution designed for displays, APIs, feeds, datasets and AI services. The prescribed notice is used verbatim: “Source: U.S. Consolidated Tape Data. Use is subject to applicable CT Plan Policy terms: https://consolidatedtape.com/policies/data-usage”.

They are addressed directly. An AI Service is not itself a licensed-right category — it may implicate several distinct licensed rights — and all outputs of an AI Service are treated as CT Data unless they qualify as Derived Data. Creation of Derived Data is Non-Display Use.

Yes, customers will be required to sign and adopt new Agreements for Usage and Distribution of US Consolidated Tape data. Customers receiving US Consolidated Tape data will need to become licensed under the new Agreements before March 2027. This is a one-time exercise — a full papering of your legacy CTA and UTP agreements: each firm executes the new Data Usage Agreement and/or Distribution Agreement once, covering all three Tapes. Legal review can take time, so start today. The contracts are available at consolidatedtape.com/agreements.

DataCT will leave this as a choice for each Distributor to make, license by license. Distributors may choose Direct Billing of all Subscribers, Indirect Billing of all Subscribers, or a mix (e.g. keep Tapes A and B direct, and Tape C indirect). Direct Billing is the default for any party that reports its own Usage, and Indirect Billing is not available where the Subscriber itself controls Access or participates in the Professional User Netting Program.

Yes, the methodology formerly known as MISU (Multiple Instance / Single User) continues under a new name — the Professional User Netting Program. It lets authorized Subscribers who report User IDs as the Unit of Count net duplicate charges where the same Professional user accesses equivalent CT Data through multiple Redistributor services in the same period. The Netting Report is due by the 20th of the month, and a late report forfeits that month’s netting. The annual MISU audit is replaced by periodic control reviews and attestations.

The new CT Plan Fee Schedule was approved by the SEC in June 2026 and takes effect from the Operative Date. Tape A Professional fees collapse to a single flat fee, Non-Professional fees move to a sliding scale that is lower at every tier, a number of legacy fees are eliminated entirely, and Enterprise Caps and other charges are reconciled into one predictable structure across all Tapes.

Tape A’s four legacy Professional tiers ($45 / $27 / $23 / $19 per device) collapse into a single flat rate of $26 per user, aligned with Tapes B and C, which are unchanged at $23 and $24. Because the overwhelming majority of firms today pay $45 or $27 per device on Tape A, most customers will see their Tape A Professional fees go down. Per Quote pricing is unchanged at $0.0075, now with a uniform definition and monthly caps at the applicable Professional or Non-Professional rate on every Tape.

The flat $1.00 Non-Professional fee is replaced by a sliding scale on every Tape: $0.90 for the first 2,000 individuals, $0.75 from 2,001 to 50,000, $0.60 from 50,001 to 250,000, $0.40 from 250,001 to 1,000,000, and $0.25 above 1,000,000. The scale works like tax brackets — each tier’s rate applies only to the portion of your Non-Professional base within that tier — so every firm pays less from the first subscriber and discounts deepen as your audience grows.

The Tape C delayed redistributor fee ($250 per month), the Tape C delayed annual administrative fee ($250 per year), the Tape C voice-response port fee ($21.25 per port) and single-security Derived Data fee liability are all eliminated, and delayed and end-of-day redistribution is not fee liable on any Tape. The CTA Administrative Usage Credit calculation is retired — qualifying administrative and operational use is simply not fee liable.

All three Tapes keep an Enterprise Cap on Non-Professional fees: $648,000 for Tapes A and C, and $490,000 for Tape B. The caps are now consistent in scope — Non-Professional usage only, as Tape C always was — and the Tape A and B cap levels were reduced (from $686,400 and $520,000) specifically to offset the removal of Professional usage from those caps. Firms at the cap retain headroom before their combined fees exceed today’s levels.

Broadcast fees now follow one household-based rate schedule on every Tape, replacing three television rate cards, minimums and ticker maximums. The Multiple Feed Charge ($200) and the Late or Clearly Erroneous Reporting Charge ($2,500) apply uniformly across all Tapes. One transparency note: because the creation of Derived Data is now uniformly classified as Non-Display Use, firms creating derived products without a previous Non-Display license — for example, index creators — become fee liable, in line with standard industry practice.

Registration should be completed by the person who administers your market data licensing. Every Licensee then designates five contacts — Administrative, Technical, Billing, Reporting and Compliance — so your compliance officer, billing contact, market data administrator and legal contact can each be recorded in the right role.

Yes. More than one user from your organization can be registered, and each of the five designated contact roles can be held by a different person.

Your designated Administrative contact approves and manages portal access for your organization, and DataCT verifies that requests come from an authorized representative of the licensed entity.

Your CT Plan reporting, invoices and correspondence will be held in the portal from the transition forward; records relating to the legacy CTA and UTP Plans remain with their current administrators. Your own recordkeeping obligation continues — records sufficient to reconstruct all Access, Usage, distribution and reporting activity must be retained for no less than three years.

Through portal.consolidatedtape.com. Your System Registry entries must be kept current — changes within 30 days — and attested annually.

Yes. Your migrated Data License inventory will be presented in the portal for confirmation, and is then maintained as a shared record between you and the Administrator. Existing licenses carry over simply by confirming that you intend to continue with them.

Data Licenses are added, modified or terminated through the portal. A new or terminated Data License may trigger an amendment to Exhibit A of your Distribution Agreement, which is where your Data Licenses are incorporated.

Yes. There are no changes to the data itself — the CT Processors continue to operate CTS, CQS and the UTP Market Data Feeds unchanged. What changes is the licensing, reporting and billing framework around them.

Raise it with your account team at support@datact.com. Reporting corrections are permitted, with retroactive credits limited to corrections submitted within two months following the end of the Reporting Period being corrected; later corrections apply prospectively.

Reports are due no later than the 15th calendar day after month-end, moving to the next business day where that falls on a weekend or market holiday. Netting Reports under the Professional User Netting Program are due by the 20th of the month.

No. One portal takes all reporting for Tapes A, B and C. Each report carries the License ID (Reporting Code) corresponding to the prescribed Unit of Count for that Data License; reports submitted without a known License ID are rejected.

A sandbox reporting portal will be available for testing from January 2027, or once your firm has executed its agreement, whichever is later. We also plan webinars, training sessions and office hours, and your account team is reachable at support@datact.com.

Balances arising under the legacy CTA and UTP Plans remain with those administrators; DataCT invoices from the Operative Date.

Yes. From the Operative Date you will receive a single invoice from DataCT LLC covering Tapes A, B and C, in place of the separate CTA and UTP invoices. Further detail on invoicing and remittance should be available by November 2026.

New remittance details will be published with the billing information expected by November 2026. Invoices are due within 30 business days, and balances more than 30 business days past due accrue interest at 1.5% per month.

Yes — one Administrator, one invoice. A single DataCT invoice covers Tapes A, B and C, replacing the separate CTA and UTP invoices you receive today.

Datafeed Requests, Datafeed Approvals and reported inventory for active licenses migrate to the new administration system. Where a legacy determination depends on a policy that has changed, the CT Plan Policies govern from the Operative Date.

Yes. Your existing Prior Approval Requests migrate as Datafeed Approvals under the CT Plan and will not need to be re-submitted. Each Datafeed Service Location is identified by a Location ID (formerly your VAN).

compliance@datact.com for compliance support, licensing@datact.com for licensing enquiries, and support@datact.com for subscriber support and account migration.

You do not re-paper your Subscribers with CT Plan contracts, but your Subscriber agreements must carry the terms prescribed by Exhibit B of the Distribution Agreement, which flows the Data Usage Agreement terms through to each Subscriber.

Yes, to the extent they do not already reflect the Exhibit B terms. Redistributors that rely in good faith on Subscriber representations about Professional or Non-Professional status keep their good-faith protection, provided reasonable qualification procedures are maintained and the representations are retained and producible.

Yes. The Unit of Count is designated for each Data License — Access ID by default, or Usage ID, Datafeed Location, Metered Usage (Per Query) or Public Broadcast — and the billing model is chosen license by license. Usage-based accounting is available only where verified Data Usage Controls are licensed.

Datafeed Requests are submitted through the portal, and a Datafeed Approval is required for each Datafeed Service Location before service is made available. A Datafeed provided without prior approval is an Unauthorized Datafeed, subject to penalties and fees.

Your existing datafeed requests and approvals will be migrated, so you will not need to re-submit them. New locations and changes follow the Datafeed Request process.

CT Plan LLC is the oversight organization; its members, the Authorizing SROs, form the Operating Committee, which holds governance authority, approves the Policies and sets the Fee Schedule. DataCT LLC is the Independent Administrator, appointed by and acting under that oversight, responsible for day-to-day administration: licensing, datafeed approvals, control verification, reporting, invoicing, collections and compliance. In short — the LLC governs, DataCT administers, and the US Consolidated Tape is what the customer sees.

Everything is published at consolidatedtape.com: the Agreements at consolidatedtape.com/agreements, the Policies and all change notices at consolidatedtape.com/policies (with an email subscription option), and the CT Plan Fee Schedule at Exhibit E of the CT Plan. Day-to-day administration runs through portal.consolidatedtape.com.