Summary

  • Fee clause: AFRINIC’s registration-service text allows revocation of previously allocated or assigned number resources, or termination, when any applicable fee is unpaid.
  • Late penalty: the separate late-penalty sentence caps the charge at 15% of the applicable renewal membership fee if that fee remains unpaid 30 days after the invoice date.
  • Renewal and clause 11: renewal requires written notice at least 45 days before expiry plus relevant fees; clause 11 termination requires written notice, a 30-day response period and a discretionary stop if AFRINIC is satisfied.

A resource member deciding how to handle a renewal invoice needs to know which clock matters. Under AFRINIC’s public registration-service text, the answer is not one clock. The fee clause, the late-penalty sentence, the renewal clause and clause 11 attach different consequences to different events.

The fee clause is broad; the 15% penalty is narrower

The fee clause says that if, for any reason, the Applicant does not pay any applicable fee, AFRINIC has the right to revoke number resources previously allocated or assigned, or to terminate the agreement. That is the broad payment remedy. It is not phrased as a penalty for missing a particular invoice deadline.

The late-penalty sentence is different. It provides that AFRINIC shall apply a late penalty charge of a maximum of 15% of the applicable renewal membership fee if that fee remains unpaid thirty days after the invoice date. The 30-day condition belongs to that sentence. Reading it back into the fee clause would collapse a capped monetary charge into a resource sanction.

The agreement does not state that the only route to fee-clause revocation runs through the late-penalty sentence. It also does not spell out how a fee-clause termination would be sequenced against clause 11. Those are separate questions on the face of the text, and a member should not assume that one provision’s clock governs the other.

Renewal is a 45-day notice-and-payment rule

Renewal has its own calendar. A member intending to renew must give written notice to AFRINIC; the notice is effective only if it is given at least 45 days before the expiry date of the agreement still in currency and is accompanied by the relevant fees. If no effective notice is received and the agreement has not been earlier expressly terminated, AFRINIC causes automatic renewal for an additional year on the terms and conditions prevailing for that year.

Fee changes are also renewal-gated. AFRINIC may change the amount of fees or institute new fees, but the changes take effect only upon renewal of the services, and AFRINIC commits to publish fee-schedule changes at least 30 days before their application. The practical implication is planning: a renewal notice and a fee-change notice answer different questions, and a missed 45-day renewal notice can extend the relationship rather than end it.

Clause 11 is a separate termination track

Clause 11 adds a procedural route. AFRINIC must give written notice of its intention and invite the Applicant to show cause why termination should not occur or to take remedial measures to cure a breach particularised in the notice. The Applicant has 30 days to communicate the grounds on which it relies and, where the notice is based on breach, to provide evidence of remedial action. AFRINIC may stop the process if it considers the grounds or remedial action satisfactory.

If termination proceeds or the agreement expires, the effect clause says AFRINIC will immediately revoke the number resources and cease providing the services without incurring liability, the Applicant must pay outstanding fees, and membership rights and benefits lapse immediately. That consequence follows the termination route; it should not be read back into the late-penalty sentence or treated as the automatic effect of every unpaid invoice.

Membership and transfer conditions answer different questions

AFRINIC’s membership page uses good standing as a criterion for ASN, IPv4 and assigned anycast requests. It does not state good standing as a renewal condition. The renewal clause addresses notice and relevant fees. That distinction matters: application-time or further-resource scrutiny is not the same test as renewal billing.

Transfer review is separate again. The policy manual states that AFRINIC must approve the recipient’s need for IPv4 resources; the source must be the current rights holder recognised by AFRINIC and not involved in a dispute over the resources; the recipient must be an AFRINIC member subject to current policies and must sign the Registration Services Agreement; and transferred IPv4 legacy resources will no longer be regarded as legacy resources. Those conditions are not a renewal clock, a late-penalty clock, or a clause 11 notice.

The exhaustion-page inconsistency should be reported narrowly

AFRINIC’s exhaustion page, consulted on 21 October 2026, displays “Current IPv4 Exhaustion Phase: Phase 2” and, on the same page, “Phase 2 - AFRINIC has not yet reached this phase.” That is an observed inconsistency in a public page. The page text does not reconcile the two lines.

The supported conclusion is narrow: the page is internally inconsistent on its face. It does not establish when Phase 2 began, which line is authoritative, what caused the difference, or what market effect followed. It should be treated as a current-document ambiguity, not as a news hook or proof of a policy transition.

What a member should watch

The useful discipline is to match the notice to the clause. An invoice dated 30 days ago raises the late-penalty question; an unpaid applicable fee raises the fee-clause question; an expiry date raises the 45-day renewal question; and a written notice inviting show cause raises the clause 11 question. They can overlap in a real dispute, but the public text does not make them interchangeable.

A member should therefore keep the invoice, renewal notice and any clause 11 notice separate in the record. The contract’s force comes from distinct triggers, and the best reading preserves those distinctions rather than turning four clocks into one switch.