Patent Maintenance Fees: Schedule, Costs, and Late Payment

Patent maintenance fees are the three payments the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requires to keep a utility patent in force for its full 20-year term. They come due at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after the patent’s grant date, and missing any one of them causes the patent to expire.¹ Total cost across the life of the patent runs from $2,894 for a micro entity to $14,470 for a large entity at current rates.²

When Each Fee Is Due

The three deadlines are measured from the date the patent was granted, not from the filing date:

First fee: due at 3.5 years after grant
Second fee: due at 7.5 years after grant
Third fee: due at 11.5 years after grant

Each due date is really the end of a six-month payment window. Those windows open at 3, 7, and 11 years after grant and close six months later.¹ Pay any time inside the window and you owe only the fee itself.

Miss the window and a six-month grace period follows immediately. The patent stays alive during the grace period, but a surcharge is added on top of the maintenance fee.³ Miss the grace period too and the patent expires at the end of it.

The USPTO sends a courtesy reminder if the fee has not been paid during the first six months of the payment window, delivered to the fee address or correspondence address on file. Failing to receive that notice does not excuse a missed payment. The legal responsibility for tracking these deadlines sits entirely with the patent owner.⁴ Keep your correspondence address current, because an outdated address means the reminder goes to the wrong place with no recourse.

How Much Each Fee Costs

The fees rise sharply at each stage. Current USPTO rates are:

At 3.5 years: $2,150 large entity, $860 small entity, $430 micro entity
At 7.5 years: $4,040 large entity, $1,616 small entity, $808 micro entity
At 11.5 years: $8,280 large entity, $3,312 small entity, $1,656 micro entity

Totals across all three payments come to $14,470 for a large entity, $5,788 for a small entity, and $2,894 for a micro entity.²

The grace period surcharge is $540 for a large entity, $216 for a small entity, or $108 for a micro entity, and that amount is the same at all three payment stages.² The USPTO adjusts fees periodically, so verify the current schedule before each payment rather than relying on numbers you looked up years earlier.

Who Qualifies for Small and Micro Entity Discounts

Entity status controls which column of the fee schedule applies to you, and the savings are significant. Small entities receive a 60 percent discount on most patent fees, and micro entities receive an 80 percent discount.⁵

You qualify as a small entity if you are an individual inventor, a business with no more than 500 employees (counting affiliates), or a nonprofit organization, and you have not assigned or licensed the invention to anyone who fails to meet that same standard.⁵

Micro entity status adds further requirements on top of small entity eligibility. Each inventor on the patent must have been named on no more than four previously filed patent applications and must have had gross income below an annual limit, which was $251,190 as of September 2025. You also cannot have assigned or licensed the invention to anyone whose income exceeds that threshold.⁶ The income figure changes each year, so recalculate before every payment.

Entity status can change between payments. A company that qualified as a micro entity at filing may have grown past the 500-employee threshold or the income cap by the time the second fee is due. Re-evaluate status before each payment, and if the category has changed, pay at the correct higher rate. Paying at a lower rate than you qualify for is treated as fraud on the Office.

Which Patents These Fees Apply To

Maintenance fees apply only to utility patents and reissue utility patents based on applications filed on or after December 12, 1980.¹ Utility patents cover new and useful processes, machines, manufactured articles, and compositions of matter.

Design patents and plant patents are exempt. Federal law prohibits the USPTO from establishing any fee for maintaining those types of patents in force, so they run for their full statutory terms without renewal payments.⁷

How to Pay

Payments go through the USPTO Patent Maintenance Fees Storefront at fees.uspto.gov. Enter the patent number and application number to pull up the record, confirm the correct fee window, and check out.¹ The system accepts credit cards, debit cards, electronic funds transfers, and USPTO deposit accounts.

Anyone can make the payment. The USPTO allows maintenance fees to be paid by the patent owner or by any person or organization acting on the owner’s behalf.¹ Many patent holders rely on outside counsel or an annuity service to track and pay fees across a portfolio. Save every receipt; you may need proof of timely payment years later if a dispute arises over whether the patent was in force during a particular period.

What Happens If You Miss a Payment

If both the payment window and the six-month grace period pass without payment, the patent expires at the end of the grace period. The statute is absolute: unless the maintenance fee is received on or before the last day of the grace period, the patent expires as of that date.⁷

Once the patent lapses, the invention enters the public domain. Anyone can make, use, or sell it without a license, and the former patent holder loses the ability to enforce exclusive rights during the lapse.

Petitioning for Reinstatement

The USPTO may accept a late payment and reinstate an expired patent if the delay was unintentional. The petition must include the overdue maintenance fee, a petition fee, and a statement that the delay was unintentional. The Director may ask for more information if there is any question about whether the delay was truly inadvertent.⁸

The petition fee depends on how quickly you act. Within two years of expiration, the fee is $2,260 for a large entity, $904 for a small entity, or $452 for a micro entity. After two years, those fees rise to $3,000, $1,200, and $600.⁹ Petition fees come on top of the overdue maintenance fee and the grace period surcharge. There is no guarantee a petition will be granted. A deliberate business decision to let a patent lapse, followed by a change of heart, would not meet the unintentional standard.

Intervening Rights

Even a successful reinstatement does not fully restore your pre-lapse position. Federal law protects anyone who began making, using, selling, or importing your patented invention during the period between the end of the grace period and the acceptance of the late fee. Those third parties gain intervening rights and can continue those specific activities after your patent is reinstated.⁷

A court may go further. If someone made substantial preparation to use or manufacture the invention during the lapse, the court can allow them to follow through under terms it considers equitable.¹⁰ A competitor who invested in tooling or production during your lapse could end up with a permanent right to practice your invention for the specific products or processes they started during that window. That is the real cost of a missed payment: not the petition fee, but a permanent crack in your exclusivity.

1
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Maintain Your Patent
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. USPTO Fee Schedule
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Manual of Patent Examining Procedure Section 2506 – Times for Submitting Maintenance Fee Payments
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Payment General Information
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Save on Fees With Small and Micro Entity Status
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Micro Entity Status
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 35 US Code 41 – Patent Fees; Patent and Trademark Search Systems
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Manual of Patent Examining Procedure Section 2590 – Acceptance of Delayed Payment of Maintenance Fee in Expired Patent to Reinstate Patent
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eCFR. 37 CFR 1.17 – Patent Application and Reexamination Processing Fees
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United States Patent and Trademark Office. Manual of Patent Examining Procedure Section 2591 – Intervening Rights in Reinstated Patents