28 U.S.C. § 3011
Section 3011 · Assessment of surcharge on a debt
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 35 court decisions — leading case Sluys v. Hand (1993)
Most recently applied in United States v. Susan Pioch (July 2021)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Surcharge Authorized.—In an action or proceeding under subchapter B or C, and subject to subsection (b), the United States is entitled to recover a surcharge of 10 percent of the amount of the debt in connection with the recovery of the debt, to cover the cost of processing and handling the litigation and enforcement under this chapter of the claim for such debt.
(b) Limitation.—Subsection (a) shall not apply if—
(1) the United States receives an attorney's fee in connection with the enforcement of the claim; or
(2) the law pursuant to which the action on the claim is based provides any other amount to cover such costs.