Verizon already charged a $40 fee for customers upgrading to a new phone on contract, but now they are bringing a similar fee to its no-contract phone upgrades as well. The new $20 fee will apply not only to those who buy a new phone on an installment plan, but also those who purchase their phones from Verizon outright.

Basically, this means that Verizon is charging you an extra fee for the right to use your data and voice plan a newly purchased Verizon-compatible phone. That would be like if you bought an unlocked GSM phone and AT&T or T-Mobile charged you just for the rights to put the SIM in it.

Verizon’s official reason for making the move is that this helps cover “increased costs associated with customers switching devices”. Here’s the full statement from Verizon, courtesy of Droid Life:

“The upgrade fee helps cover our increased support costs associated with customers switching devices. Customers can pay the charge when they upgrade, bill it to their account or trade in an old device to offset the cost. The fee for upgrading on device payment is still half of the two-year contract upgrade fee.”

The new upgrade fee goes into affect on April 4th, so if you are on Verizon and have the opportunity to upgrade before then – we’d take advantage. Sure, $20 isn’t a ton of money, but why pay your carrier any more than you have?