Trademark Renewal: Deadlines, Fees, and What Happens If You Miss One

Your trademark registration is not permanent. Trademark renewal at the USPTO requires at least two maintenance filings in the first ten years after registration, and missing either one results in cancellation with no path to reinstatement. Here is every deadline, fee, and filing you need to know.

How Trademark Renewal and Maintenance Work

The policy rationale is straightforward. Dead marks (registrations covering goods or services the owner no longer provides) clog the register and block new applicants from registering similar marks. The maintenance system exists to clear them out. If you are not actively using your mark in commerce, the USPTO does not want your registration occupying space on the register.

The lifecycle works like this: you file your application, the USPTO examines and registers your mark, you file a Section 8 Declaration of Continued Use between years five and six, then you file a combined Section 8 + Section 9 Renewal at year ten. After that, the combined filing repeats every ten years for as long as you want to keep the registration alive.

There is also a background threat. Under the Lanham Act (the federal statute governing US trademarks), three consecutive years of non-use creates a presumption of abandonment. A third party can petition to cancel your registration on that basis at any time, not just at the maintenance filing windows. Active use is not just a filing requirement. It is the foundation of your rights.

Section 8: The Declaration of Continued Use (Years 5-6)

Section 8 of the Lanham Act requires you to file a Declaration of Continued Use (or Excusable Non-Use) between the fifth and sixth anniversary of your registration date. Not your filing date, not your publication date. Your registration date, which is the date printed on your registration certificate.

This filing serves a specific purpose: it forces you to prove, under penalty of perjury, that you are still using the mark in commerce for the goods or services listed in your registration. The USPTO does not take your word for it. You must submit a specimen (a real-world example of the mark in use) for each class of goods or services covered by the registration.

Acceptable specimens vary by type of mark. For goods, a specimen might be product packaging, a label, or a screenshot of an e-commerce listing showing the mark on or near the product. For services, it might be advertising materials, a website screenshot, or signage. The specimen must show the mark as actually used in commerce, not a mock-up or a logo file.

The filing fee is $325 per class. If your registration covers three Nice classes (the international system that categorizes goods and services into 45 classes), you pay $975 for the Section 8 filing alone.

There is a narrow exception for "excusable non-use." If you have temporarily stopped using the mark but intend to resume, you can file a declaration explaining the circumstances. The USPTO evaluates these on a case-by-case basis, and the bar is high.

If you do not file Section 8 by the sixth anniversary of your registration date, the registration is cancelled. There is no reinstatement procedure, no appeal, no exception. You would need to file an entirely new application and go through the full examination process again.

Section 9: The Renewal Filing (Every 10 Years)

What people colloquially call "trademark renewal" is technically a Section 9 Application for Renewal under the Lanham Act. It first comes due at the tenth anniversary of your registration date, and it is always filed together with a Section 8 Declaration.

The combined cost at the ten-year mark is $650 per class: $325 for the Section 8 declaration plus $325 for the Section 9 renewal application.

After year ten, this combined Section 8 + Section 9 filing repeats every ten years indefinitely. There is no standalone Section 8 filing between renewal periods (the years 5-6 requirement only applies to the first maintenance window after initial registration). From year ten onward, the only filing obligation is the combined renewal every decade.

This is one of the features that distinguishes trademarks from other forms of intellectual property. Patents expire after 20 years. Copyrights expire after the author's life plus 70 years (or other set terms for works made for hire). But a federal trademark registration can last forever, provided you continue using the mark in commerce and file the required maintenance documents on schedule. Some of the oldest active US trademarks have been continuously registered for over a century.

Fee Breakdown: What Trademark Renewal Actually Costs

The per-class fee structure means costs add up quickly for multi-class registrations. Here is the complete fee table.

For a registration covering three classes, the math looks like this:

• Year 5-6 (Section 8 only): 3 classes x $325 = $975
• Year 10 (Section 8 + 9): 3 classes x $650 = $1,950
• Year 10 with grace period: 3 classes x $850 = $2,550

If you use a trademark attorney (and for maintenance filings, many registration owners do), expect to pay an additional $200 to $500 per filing for attorney preparation and filing services.

Here is a number that surprises most registration owners: over a 20-year period, your maintenance costs will exceed the original cost of obtaining the registration. The initial USPTO filing fee is $350 per class, and examination typically takes 8 to 12 months. By contrast, maintenance filings at years 5-6 and 10 for a single-class mark cost $975 in government fees alone, before attorney costs. Factor in the year-20 renewal and the total maintenance bill reaches $1,625 per class in government fees across two decades.

Grace Periods: What Happens When You Miss a Trademark Renewal Deadline

Both the Section 8 and Section 9 filings have a six-month grace period after the deadline. During this window, you can still file, but the USPTO adds a $100 surcharge per class for each late filing.

For a late combined Section 8 + 9 filing on a single-class mark, that means $650 in base fees plus $200 in surcharges (one $100 surcharge for the late Section 8, another for the late Section 9), totaling $850 per class.

After the grace period expires, the registration is cancelled. The USPTO does not offer reinstatement. Unlike an abandoned trademark application (which can sometimes be revived with a petition if the abandonment was unintentional), a cancelled registration is final. You would need to file a new application, undergo a new examination, survive a new opposition period, and wait for a new registration, a process that typically takes 12 to 18 months if there are no complications.

The practical consequences of cancellation extend beyond losing the registration itself. You lose the presumption of nationwide validity, the right to use the (R) symbol, the ability to record the mark with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to block infringing imports, and the constructive notice that puts the public on alert of your claim. You may retain common law rights based on actual use, but those rights are geographically limited and far harder to enforce.

International Renewals: How Other Offices Differ

The US maintenance system, with its mid-term Section 8 declaration, is unusual. Most other trademark offices use a simpler structure. But a critical trap awaits anyone managing a multi-jurisdiction portfolio: different offices calculate renewal dates from different starting points.

The key difference: the EUIPO and UK IPO calculate the ten-year renewal period from the filing date, not the registration date. Since examination can take months or even years, the filing date is always earlier than the registration date. An EUIPO trademark filed on January 1, 2020 and registered on June 1, 2020 comes due for renewal on January 1, 2030, not June 1, 2030. This distinction catches portfolio managers who apply US timing assumptions to European marks.

The Madrid Protocol (the international filing system administered by WIPO that lets you extend trademark protection to multiple countries through a single application) adds another layer. The international registration is renewed at WIPO, but each country designation remains subject to local cancellation rules. A mark renewed at WIPO can still be cancelled in a specific country if it fails to meet that country's use requirements.

Neither the EUIPO nor the UK IPO requires an equivalent of the US Section 8 declaration during the registration term. You file once, renew at year ten, and repeat. The US system's mid-term proof-of-use requirement is a distinctly American feature. If you want to check whether a mark is still active in any of these jurisdictions, verify the registration status directly with the relevant office.

How to Renew a Trademark at the USPTO (Step by Step)

The filing process itself is not complicated. What trips people up is preparation and timing.

Step 1: Confirm your registration details. Look up your registration on the USPTO's Trademark Status & Document Retrieval system (TSDR) at tsdr.uspto.gov. Verify your registration number, registration date, and the classes and goods/services descriptions currently on file. The registration date is the one that matters for calculating deadlines.

Step 2: Prepare current specimens. You need one specimen per class showing the mark as currently used in commerce. "Currently" means at the time of filing, not when you originally registered. If your packaging, website, or branding has changed since registration, your specimen must reflect the current version. Specimens must be in JPEG or PDF format for electronic filing.

Step 3: File through the USPTO Trademark Center. The USPTO's Trademark Center at trademarkcenter.uspto.gov handles all maintenance filings (it replaced the older TEAS system in 2025). Select the appropriate maintenance filing: Section 8 only (years 5-6) or combined Sections 8 and 9 (year 10 and beyond). The system will walk you through the required fields.

Step 4: Pay the fees. Government fees are due at the time of filing. Credit card, electronic funds transfer, or USPTO deposit account.

Step 5: Receive confirmation. The USPTO will issue a filing receipt. Processing typically takes several months, but your filing date is what matters for the deadline, not the processing completion date.

Common mistakes to avoid:

• Submitting an outdated specimen. The specimen must show current use, not historical use. A product photo from five years ago will not suffice if the packaging has changed.
• Filing for classes you no longer use. If you have stopped using the mark for certain goods or services, you must delete those classes from the registration rather than submit a false declaration of use.
• Confusing the filing date with the registration date. Your deadlines run from the registration date. These are different dates and can be months or years apart.
• Missing the window entirely. The Section 8 filing window opens on the fifth anniversary and closes on the sixth. Filing before the window opens is not accepted. Set calendar reminders for both the opening and closing dates.

Keep Your Registration Alive

Trademark renewal is not complex, but it is unforgiving. The deadlines are fixed, the grace periods are short, and the consequence of missing them is permanent cancellation. Calendar every deadline the day you receive your registration certificate. Consult a trademark attorney for legal guidance specific to your situation.

For teams managing trademark portfolios programmatically, Signa provides an API for trademark monitoring and deadline tracking at signa.so.