Trademark Maintenance Fees: Every Deadline and Cost to Keep Your Registration Alive

Registration Is Not the Finish Line

Getting a trademark registered is satisfying — after a year or more of waiting, the USPTO issues your registration certificate and you can use the ® symbol. Many business owners file the certificate, update their website, and move on. They don't think about the trademark again until something goes wrong.

That's a mistake that ends registrations. A U.S. trademark registration is not a one-time transaction. It requires periodic maintenance filings and fees to stay alive. The USPTO has a specific schedule of required actions, and unlike many bureaucratic deadlines, these have real teeth: miss them and your registration is automatically cancelled. There's no court, no appeal, no reinstatement process for a missed Section 8 window (beyond a 6-month late filing window with a surcharge).

The Complete Maintenance Schedule

Years 5–6: Section 8 Declaration (Required)

Between the 5th and 6th anniversary of your registration date, you must file a Section 8 Declaration of Continued Use. This filing declares under penalty of perjury that the mark is still in active use in commerce for all the goods/services listed in the registration — or, if not in use for some, that those are being deleted from the registration.

You also need to submit a specimen showing current use — a real example of the mark in commerce today, not the specimen from when you originally filed. If your packaging has changed, your website has been redesigned, or the product looks different, your specimen needs to reflect current use.

USPTO fee: $225 per class (online filing)
Late filing surcharge (months 6–7 after deadline): $100 per class
Miss the window entirely: Registration is cancelled. No recovery.

Years 5–6: Section 15 Declaration (Optional but Important)

Filed during the same window as the Section 8, the Section 15 Declaration of Incontestability is not required to maintain your registration — but it's one of the most valuable things you can do for your trademark at this stage.

After five years of continuous use and registration, you can declare the mark incontestable. An incontestable registration cannot be challenged on the grounds of descriptiveness or lack of distinctiveness — two of the most common attacks on trademark validity. The mark's right to registration becomes conclusive evidence in federal court. Opposing parties can still challenge on other grounds (abandonment, fraud, genericness, functionality) but their strongest weapons are gone.

USPTO fee: $200 per class
Recommendation: File this simultaneously with your Section 8. The combined cost is $425/class and the protection it adds is substantial.

Years 9–10: Section 8 + Section 9 Renewal (Required)

Between the 9th and 10th anniversary of your registration, you must file both a Section 8 (continued use declaration) and a Section 9 Renewal Application. The Section 8 declares continued use; the Section 9 formally renews the registration for another 10 years.

If you only file one and not the other, your renewal is incomplete. Both documents and both fees must be submitted within the window.

Section 8 fee: $225 per class
Section 9 fee: $300 per class
Combined: $525 per class (online filing)
Late surcharge (6-month window): $100 per class per filing

Every 10 Years After That: Section 8 + Section 9

From the first 10-year renewal onwards, the cycle repeats every 10 years on the registration anniversary. Section 8 + Section 9, same fees, same window, same consequences for missing the deadline. A trademark maintained through this cycle can theoretically last forever — the Levi's pocket stitching trademark has been in continuous use since 1873.

The Specimen Problem That Kills Renewals

The single most common reason maintenance filings are rejected: the specimen. The Section 8 requires a specimen showing current use in commerce — the mark as it's actually being used today, not the specimen from the original filing.

Common specimen mistakes at renewal:

• Submitting the original filing specimen without checking if the mark's appearance has changed
• Submitting a mock-up or design file rather than a real-world use example
• The specimen shows the mark but doesn't connect it to the specific goods/services in the registration
• Website screenshots that don't show the mark in a purchasing or use context
• The date on the specimen is unclear or predates the acceptable period

If the USPTO rejects your specimen, you can submit a substitute — but only within the original filing window. If the window has closed, you may be out of options.

Use-It-or-Lose-It: The Partial Cancellation Risk

The Section 8 requires you to declare continued use for each good/service listed in your registration. If you're no longer using the mark for some of what you registered — a product you discontinued, a service you no longer offer — you must delete those items from the registration. Declaring use for goods/services you're actually not using is perjury.

This creates an important housekeeping obligation: periodically review your trademark registration against your actual business operations. What are you actually selling or offering under this mark today? If the answer has changed since you filed, your Section 8 needs to reflect that. A narrower registration is better than a cancelled one — or a perjury problem.

Setting Up Reminders That Won't Fail You

The USPTO's stance on missed deadlines is straightforward and unsympathetic: it's your responsibility to know your deadlines, and missing them has permanent consequences. The USPTO will send courtesy notices by email if you have an active correspondence email on file — but these are not guaranteed, are not legally required, and have been known to go to spam folders. Do not rely on them.

What actually works: calendar reminders set at multiple intervals before each deadline (18 months out, 12 months out, 6 months out, 3 months out). Many trademark attorneys offer docketing services that track deadlines for you — this is often included in the original engagement or available as a small ongoing fee. For valuable marks, paying someone to track the deadlines is cheap insurance.