The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has increased location and maintenance fees for mining claims on federal lands. The new location fee is $40, and the new maintenance fee is $165 per lode mining claim or site and $165 for each 20 acres or portion thereof for placer mining claims. The due date for all annual filings is September 3, 2019 (due to September 1 falling on a Sunday and September 2 being a holiday).

The full text of BLM’s Federal Register notice of the fee increases may be viewed here. BLM indicates that it sent a postcard to all federal mining claim owners in July, alerting them to the same information. Many of these postcards were returned as undeliverable. If you did not receive a postcard, please contact your local BLM office to update your address.

Claimants who have already submitted maintenance fees and those who timely pay maintenance fees based on the previous rate, will be notified and given an opportunity to cure by submitting the additional fee within 30 days.

Those claimants who do not have a current address on file with BLM may lose their claim if they do not receive the notification and take advantage of the opportunity to cure.

We encourage you to relay the details regarding fee changes and the upcoming September 3 deadline to other claim owners.