Filers dealing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2026 are working under the fee schedule that took effect January 19, 2025 for patents and January 18, 2025 for trademarks, per the agency's fee schedule page. The schedule raised patent fees roughly 7.5 percent across the board, shifted costs toward the front end of prosecution, and adjusted 28 trademark fees. A further set of changes covering petition-related fees in patent applications takes effect August 14, 2026.
What changed?
The fee-setting final rule, issued November 20, 2024 under authority Congress granted in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act and the SUCCESS Act, was the agency's first comprehensive fee adjustment since 2020. On the patent side, the across-the-board increase came with targeted moves: higher fees for filing and for continuing applications, and increases to requests for continued examination, with some offsets on later-stage and excess-claim fees. On the trademark side, the base application fee sits at $350 per class, and applications that do not use the agency's identifications in its ID manual carry an added $200 per class. Maintenance and renewal fees for registrations also rose, including a $150 electronic filing component in the Section 8 and 9 fees.
Who is affected?
Every patent applicant, trademark applicant, and registrant paying fees to the agency is affected, but the burden lands unevenly. Small and micro entities still receive discounted rates, so independent inventors and small businesses pay a reduced share of the new schedule. Serial filers of continuation applications and repeated RCEs saw the sharpest per-case cost increases, which was the agency's stated intent: discouraging practices that extend prosecution without adding examination value.
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What should you do?
Before filing anything in 2026, check the current fee schedule at uspto.gov rather than relying on an older form guide, because several rates changed on January 1, 2025 and more shift on August 14, 2026. If you are preparing a trademark application, using the ID manual's accepted wording avoids the $200-per-class surcharge. If you have a filing planned near the August change date, confirm which fees apply to your submission date.
What this means for you
For a single-class trademark application filed with ID-manual wording, the total government fee remains straightforward at $350 per class; sloppy or novel wording can nearly double it. For inventors, the roughly 7.5 percent average increase means a full prosecution, with multiple office actions and continuations, can now cost meaningfully more than the same path would have in 2024, so budgeting on old fee tables risks underfunding a case. Unpaid or incorrect fees delay filings, and in trademarks a mistaken application fee is not refundable once the application is processed.
SOCIALGOV is an independent publication and is not affiliated with the USPTO. The authoritative rates are published on the agency's fee schedule page at uspto.gov, and the agency offers reduced fees for qualifying small and micro entities.