The Trust Administration Fee (TAF) is a $20 fee plus 5% GST that the Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) requires firms to remit for each client matter in which cumulative trust deposits exceed $10,000. It funds the LSBC Trust Assurance Program and is charged once per matter for the life of that matter. Clio Manage can automatically apply this fee, track it across matters, and report it for your quarterly remittance. This article explains how to turn TAF on for your firm, how Clio applies the fee, how to control it per matter, and how to report on it.
Important: The TAF settings are available to accounts with Canada set as the billing country, including firms hosted on US servers. The fee itself is a legal obligation specifically for firms practising in British Columbia under LSBC Rule 2-110.
Understand the fee application
After you enable the setting and apply it to a matter, Clio Manage adds a trust administration fee expense automatically the first time that matter's cumulative trust deposits exceed $10,000, whether the threshold is crossed by a trust deposit or a paid trust bill:
- The expense is $20, plus 5% GST.
- It is added once per matter, for the life of the matter, so duplicate charges are not created.
- It is billable by default and appears on the matter unless you mark the fee as non-billable.
Note: Only trust account transactions created on or after January 1, 2026, count toward the $10,000 threshold, in line with the LSBC transition rule for matters that span the rule change.
Enable Trust Administration Fees
Note: Users with Admin, Settings, and Manage Users permissions can enable TAF.
- Click Settings.
- Click Firm Preferences.
- Click the Compliance tab.
- On the Law Society of British Columbia Compliance card, toggle the setting on. The status updates to Trust Administration Fee is enabled, and a 5% GST tax rate is provisioned for the fee.
After you enable the setting, two options are available in the section:
- Apply to new matters by default: automatically applies the fee to matters created after the setting is enabled. Existing matters are not affected and must be opted in individually.
- Mark fee as non-billable: records the fee but excludes it from client invoices, so your firm absorbs the cost rather than passing it to the client.
Apply or opt out from a matter
Each matter has its own control, so you decide which matters the fee applies to. Enabling the firm setting does not add the fee to existing matters automatically.
Note: The Apply to new matters by default firm option only pre-selects this checkbox on newly created matters. To apply the fee to a matter that already exists, open that matter and select the checkbox.
- Create a new matter, or open an existing matter and click Edit.
- Go to Billing preferences.
- Under Trust administration fee, select Apply a trust administration fee to this matter to apply the fee, or clear it to opt the matter out.
- Click Save.
Report on the fees applied
The Trust Administration Fees report lists the matters where the fee applies and the amounts, so you can prepare your quarterly remittance to the LSBC.
Note: This is the only report you need from Clio for TAF. You remit the fees to the LSBC through the LSBC online portal each quarter, within 30 days of each quarter-end (March 31, June 30, September 30, and December 31).
- Click Reports.
- Open Classic Reports.
- Open the Trust Administration Fees report.
- Set the Date range for the period you are filing.
- Select the Output format.
- Click Generate report.
Tip: Under LSBC Rule 2-110, the fee applies separately to each client matter, so a single client with several qualifying matters may owe more than one fee. The fees you collect support the LSBC Trust Assurance Program and are remitted on the schedule set out in Rule 2-111.
Up Next
- Trust accounting: see Trust Account Management to manage the trust requests, payments, and balances that determine when the fee applies.
- Billing the fee: see Generate Bills in Clio Manage to add the trust administration fee expense to a client invoice.