Costs for Records Requests

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows a public body to make reasonable charges not to exceed its actual cost incurred in accessing, duplicating, supplying, or searching for the requested records. No public body shall impose any extraneous, intermediary, or surplus fees or expenses to recoup the general costs associated with creating or maintaining records or transacting the general business of the public body. Any duplicating fee charged by a public body shall not exceed the actual cost of duplication. All charges for the supplying of requested records shall be estimated in advance at the request of the citizen as set forth in subsection F of § 2.2-3704 of the Code of Virginia.

Charges to Produce Records

Prior to submitting a request, you should be aware that you may have to pay for the records that you request from Loudoun County. FOIA allows us to charge for the actual costs of responding to FOIA requests. This would include items like staff time spent searching for the requested records, copying costs, or any other costs directly related to supplying the requested records. It cannot include general overhead costs.

Copying and Material Costs

A schedule of the County's costs per page and material costs are outlined below.
Copying costs shall only be assessed on public records that are printed, not on public records that are provided electronically to requesters. The County may charge for the actual cost of the medium by which the information is provided (e.g., CD, DVD, flash drive, etc.).

Black and White copy
$0.08/page
Color Copy$0.15/page
Large Plats$5.00/page
DVD$1.00/disc
Flash Drive$4.00/drive


Request a Quote

You may request that we estimate in advance the charges for supplying the records that you have requested. This will allow you to know about any costs upfront, or give you the opportunity to modify your request in an attempt to lower the estimated costs. The timeline of the request will be put on hold until the requester indicates whether or not to proceed with the request based on the estimate.  

Deposit

If we estimate that it will cost more than $200 to respond to your request, we may require you to pay a deposit, not to exceed the amount of the estimate, before proceeding with your request. The deposit shall be credited toward the final cost of supplying the requested records.  In the event the actual cost of providing the records is less than the deposit, the difference must be refunded to the requester. The five days that we have to respond to your request does not include the time between when we ask for a deposit and when you respond.

Unpaid Balance

If you owe us money from a previous FOIA request that has remained unpaid for more than 30 days, Loudoun County may require payment of the past-due bill before it will respond to your new FOIA request.