A duty to announce that nothing changed — the yearly inflation review of civil penalty maximums
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that the maximum civil monetary penalties under the securities statutes would not be adjusted for inflation in 2026. Because the law requires every agency to make that adjustment annually and publish it in the Federal Register, a year with no adjustment still has to be announced.
Document overview (primary data)
- Document typeNotice
- AgencySecurities and Exchange Commission
- Citation91 FR 41722
Key points
- A 2015 statute requires every agency to adjust civil monetary penalties for inflation each year and publish the amounts in the Federal Register.
- Following guidance of 17 April 2026 from the Office of Management and Budget, no inflation adjustment is made for 2026.
- The maximums published in January 2025 continue to apply to penalties imposed after 15 January 2025 for violations occurring after 2 November 2015.
- The statutes covered are the Securities Act of 1933, the Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Advisers Act of 1940 and certain Sarbanes-Oxley penalties.
- The Commission leads 669 of the 7,023 records this site holds as of 2026-09-04 (9.5%), yet rules and proposed rules are 1.3%, while 462 records involve self-regulatory organization filings.
1Announcing that nothing changed is also required
Penalty maximums are written into statute as figures. Left alone, they lose weight in real terms as prices rise. A law passed in 2015 therefore requires every agency to adjust the civil monetary penalties under the statutes it administers each year for inflation, and to publish those amounts in the Federal Register. The duty covers both the adjusting and the publishing.
So a year in which the conclusion is that nothing changes still produces a notice saying so.
- 1The dutyStatute requires every agency to adjust annually and publish in the Federal Register
- 2The guidanceThe Office of Management and Budget issues guidance on how that year is handled
- 3The decisionFollowing guidance of 17 April 2026, no adjustment is made for 2026
- 4The publicationThe conclusion that nothing changes is itself published as a notice
2Open the Commission pages and rules are scarce
Third by volume, and only 1.3% of it is rulemaking. What fills the rest is largely filings from self-regulatory organizations, meaning exchanges and similar bodies submitting changes to their own rules. Of the 7,023 records this site holds as of 2026-09-04, 462 are such filings, 6.6% of the whole Federal Register.
Much of the regulatory work in this area flows not as rules the authority writes but as filings the regulated side submits.
3Which violations, and which maximums
The detail worth noticing in this notice is how the dates are split. What applies are penalties imposed after 15 January 2025 for violations occurring after 2 November 2015. The moment of the violation and the moment the penalty is imposed are specified separately, and neither alone determines whether the maximum applies. Even in a year when the figures do not move, conditions like these remain visible in the annual notice.
Why it matters
Writing a figure into statute means its real weight drifts with prices. Requiring an annual adjustment, and requiring publication even when there is none, is the mechanism that keeps that drift from going unattended. Counting the Federal Register also shows that the agencies filing most often are not necessarily the ones issuing most rules, and that in some areas the regulatory work moves as filings from the regulated side.
FAQ
Why publish in a year with no adjustment?
Which violations does it apply to?
Does the Commission not publish rules?
Sources (primary)
Source: Federal Register (federal documents, public domain). Links go to the official site.