37 CFR 1.16: Patent Filing Fees, Entity Discounts, and Surcharges

Under 37 CFR 1.16, patent application fees are broken into three charges collected up front — a basic filing fee, a search fee, and an examination fee — with the totals varying by application type and by whether you qualify as a large, small, or micro entity. For a standard nonprovisional utility application, a large entity pays $2,000 combined. A small entity pays $800. A micro entity pays $400. Design, plant, and provisional applications cost less, and several extra charges can raise the total depending on how your application is drafted.¹

Utility Application Fees

A nonprovisional utility application triggers all three fees at filing. For a large entity, the basic filing fee is $350, the search fee is $770, and the examination fee is $880. Small entities pay $140, $308, and $352. Micro entities pay $70, $154, and $176.¹

Those amounts assume a standard-sized application with no more than three independent claims and twenty total claims. Cross either line and additional fees apply, covered below.

Design Application Fees

A design patent covers the ornamental appearance of a manufactured article and carries a single claim, so there are no excess claim charges to worry about. The combined filing, search, and examination fees are:

Large entity: $1,300 ($300 + $300 + $700)
Small entity: $520 ($120 + $120 + $280)
Micro entity: $260 ($60 + $60 + $140)

Plant Application Fees

Plant applications, which cover asexually reproduced plant varieties, are priced separately:

Large entity: $1,450 ($240 + $485 + $725)
Small entity: $580 ($96 + $194 + $290)
Micro entity: $290 ($48 + $97 + $145)¹

Provisional Application Fees

A provisional application locks in an early filing date but never gets searched or examined on its own, so the only charge is a filing fee: $325 for a large entity, $130 for a small entity, and $65 for a micro entity.² The provisional expires after 12 months. If you want a patent, you have to file a nonprovisional application claiming priority to it before that date, and then you’ll owe the full set of nonprovisional fees.

Who Qualifies for the Small and Micro Entity Discounts

Small entity status cuts the fees by 60%. You qualify if you’re an independent inventor, a nonprofit, or a business with no more than 500 employees.³

Micro entity status cuts the fees by 80%, but the bar is higher. You first have to qualify as a small entity. Then, under the income-based path, you and any co-inventors must not have been named on more than four previously filed patent applications, excluding provisionals and certain international filings.⁴ Your gross income in the prior calendar year also cannot exceed three times the median household income reported by the Census Bureau, currently $251,190, and the same cap applies to anyone you’ve assigned or licensed the application to.⁵

There’s a second path through higher education. If your employer is an institution of higher education, or you’ve assigned the application to one, you can qualify as a micro entity without meeting the application-count or income limits.⁶

Extra Charges That Raise the Total

Excess Claim Fees

A utility application is priced to include up to three independent claims and twenty total claims. Anything more costs extra, whether the claims are in the application when filed or added later:

Each independent claim over three: $600 large, $240 small, $120 micro
Each claim over twenty: $200 large, $80 small, $40 micro
Any application containing a multiple dependent claim: $925 large, $370 small, $185 micro²

The multiple dependent claim fee is a flat charge triggered once whenever any claim depends from more than one other claim.

Application Size Fee

If your application runs longer than 100 sheets of paper (specification, drawings, and sequence listings combined), you owe an extra $450 for a large entity, $180 for a small entity, or $90 for a micro entity for each additional 50 sheets or fraction of that.² Biotechnology applications with long sequence listings can rack this up quickly. Sequence listings between 300 MB and 800 MB carry a separate electronic filing fee of $1,140 for a large entity. Listings over 800 MB cost $11,290.

Late Fee Surcharge

If you file the application but don’t pay the basic filing fee, search fee, examination fee, or submit the inventor’s oath or declaration on time, the USPTO adds a surcharge of $170 for a large entity, $68 for a small entity, or $34 for a micro entity. The same surcharge applies if the application arrives without at least one claim.¹

Non-Electronic Filing Fee

Filing a nonprovisional utility application on paper rather than through Patent Center adds $400 for a large entity and $200 for small and micro entities. Design, plant, provisional, and reissue applications are exempt.²

Fixing an Entity Status Mistake

Claiming a discount you didn’t actually qualify for isn’t automatically fatal to your patent, as long as the claim was made in good faith. The fix is a deficiency payment: you pay the difference between what you owed at the full rate and what you actually paid, and you submit an itemized list of every affected fee. Each application or patent has to be handled separately.⁷ Deliberately claiming a discount you know you’re not entitled to is a different problem, and it can put the enforceability of the resulting patent at risk.

Going the other direction, if you paid at the large entity rate and later established small entity status, you can request a refund of the difference, but only within three months of the payment date. Micro entity status doesn’t work that way — the certification has to be on file before or at the time of payment, so a late claim of micro entity status won’t get you a refund.⁸

1
eCFR. 37 CFR 1.16 – National Application Filing, Search, and Examination Fees
2
United States Patent and Trademark Office. USPTO Fee Schedule
3
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Save on Fees With Small and Micro Entity Status
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 35 USC 123 – Micro Entity Defined
5
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Micro Entity Status
6
eCFR. 37 CFR 1.29 – Micro Entity Status
7
eCFR. 37 CFR 1.28 – Refunds When Small Entity Status Is Later Established; How Errors in Small Entity Status Are Excused
8
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Refund Information