Summary

  • RIPE NCC’s 2027 draft budget reports €2,209 in expenses per LIR, 7% above its 2026 budget. The public announcement instead labels €2,056—the 2026 baseline—as the 2027 amount.
  • The PDF’s total-expense rows and an unchanged count of 20,000 LIRs reproduce the table figures. The mismatch supports a correction request, not a conclusion about intent or an increase to any member’s invoice.

The table gives a reproducible answer

The discrepancy is small enough to miss in a summary sentence and large enough to change what members think the budget says. RIPE NCC’s 30 September announcement says that 2027 expense per LIR is €2,056, a 7% increase over the 2026 budget. The draft Activity Plan and Budget gives a different 2027 value on page 7: €2,209. In that table, €2,056 is the 2026 budget figure, not the proposed 2027 figure.

The calculation is visible. The PDF lists €44.175 million in 2027 total expenses and 20,000 LIRs. Dividing gives €2,208.75, which rounds to €2,209. For the 2026 budget, €41.125 million divided by the same 20,000 LIRs gives €2,056.25, or €2,056. The 2026 forecast is €40.310 million, or about €2,016 per LIR. The table’s own change columns show €153 and 7% from the 2026 budget, and €193 and 10% from the 2026 forecast.

The legal-entity appendix provides a second check. On page 51, RIPE NCC allocates €2,151 per LIR to the Dutch organisation and €58 to RIPE NCC Middle East FZ-LLC, for a combined €2,209. The approved 2026 budget breaks its €2,056 total into €1,996 and €60. The discrepancy is not caused by adding the subsidiaries differently: both totals reconcile.

An expense ratio is not a fee

“Expense per LIR” is a budget ratio. It divides the organisation’s total expenses by the planned number of Local Internet Registry accounts. It is not the price of an account, a charge for an address block, or a bill that each member will receive. RIPE NCC’s separate 2027 Charging Scheme sets member charges; the budget table estimates what the organisation plans to spend per LIR.

That distinction matters because the same draft also changes fee lines and proposes a much larger capital-expenditure programme. The €10.480 million CAPEX figure is printed separately from the €44.175 million total-expense line. It should not be added into this per-LIR arithmetic. The operating-expense comparison is already clear without it.

The plan shows where the €3.050 million budget-to-budget rise comes from at a high level. Personnel costs increase by €1.250 million, or 5%; the remaining expenses rise by €1.800 million, or 12%. Information technology is budgeted at €5.100 million, up €850,000. Depreciation rises from €550,000 to €1.785 million. Consultancy falls by €295,000, and travel falls by €130,000. These are planned line items, not proof of what the final accounts will show or of why each change was chosen.

What the mismatch does—and does not—show

The notice’s €2,056 is not a random figure: it is exactly the 2026 budget amount shown in the draft and in the Board-approved 2026 Activity Plan and Budget. The 7% also belongs to the 2027 comparison, but it is paired with the wrong amount in the public summary. That combination is consistent with a carried-over baseline or a copy error. No reviewed source explains how the sentence was produced, so the cause remains unknown.

The full PDF is public and its table can be checked. This is therefore not evidence that the budget was concealed or that the organisation’s accounts are false. It is a mismatch between the concise announcement and the detailed document that members are asked to review. A reader who relies on the announcement alone is given the 2026 amount as if it were the 2027 estimate, while the rate of increase refers to a different number.

The 2027 plan is still a draft. RIPE NCC says members can comment, that the plan will be discussed at the 28 October General Meeting and Services Working Group, and that the Board intends to consider feedback before publishing a final version in December. That review window makes the correction practical: the summary can be amended while the detailed budget remains open to discussion.

A clear correction would state €2,209 per LIR for 2027, identify €2,056 as the 2026 budget baseline, and keep the €2,016 2026 forecast separate. If the organisation uses a different calculation in the announcement, it should explain the denominator and scope. The evidence supports that narrow request. It does not establish deliberate misstatement, a change in member charges, or a final 2027 cost.

Sources