Mining Claim Fees Going Up Again

Clay Diggins

Silver Member
🥇 Charter Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2010
Messages
4,958
Reaction score
14,522
Golden Thread
0
Location
The Great Southwest
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
The BLM posted a notice to the Federal Register at 1 am on Saturday morning raising the maintenance and location fees... effective today July 1. :BangHead:
You can read and download the notice here:

Mining claim annual fees are now $200 per year for each lode, millsite or tunnel site claim and $200 per each 20 acres of placer claim. A single 160 acre placer claim now has $1600 in fees due annually! Until 1993 the same placer claim was only $15.

Location fees are going up as well. The base location fee is now $49 plus the $25 filing fee. A single mining claim location now requires a mandatory $274 fee payment to BLM (no small miner waiver in the first year of a mining claim).

If you already paid your annual maintenance fee for mining year 2025 you will need to pony up the additional $35 by August 31 or you will receive a deficiency warning notice and could lose your claim if you don't respond timely. If you are locating a claim today you will need to pay the full $274 location fees, your county recording fees plus the cost of staking.

This time of year Land Matters distributes their Annual Federal Mining Claims Filing Requirements instructions with a flow chart to guide you. We did update the fee requirement on that handout to help claim owners understand the current requirements. You can download a copy of the PDF file here. Please feel free to share this and help educate your fellow miners. :thumbsup:

Heavy Pans
 

Attachments

Last edited:
Upvote 3
You need to find some gold just to break even. And this seems to push recovery into the the hands of bigger operations. Less puttering around for fun.
 

You need to find some gold just to break even. And this seems to push recovery into the the hands of bigger operations. Less puttering around for fun.
Small miners (those with 10 or fewer mining claims) can hold their claims for $15 per year plus the cost of a county recording after their first year.

Puttering around for fun is perfectly OK on a mining claim as is camping and picnicking - not just for the claim owner but for the public as well. None of that has anything to do with the fact that the mining claim is only legally held on the force of it's discovered potential mineral value. If the claim doesn't have enough valuable minerals to pay the fees it's not a valid mining claim.

You don't need a mining claim to putter around for fun. Most of the public lands are open to the public for prospecting. IF you find a valuable mineral deposit while prospecting open public land that is when a mining claim might be a good choice.

The bigger operations will be paying to their BLM State offices about 22 million MORE dollars each year with this new fee. Mining fees don't go into the general fund but are kept at the BLM State office for their use. $$$

Heavy Pans
 

Side Note:
Clay said:
“Puttering around for fun is perfectly OK on a mining claim as is camping and picnicking - not just for the claim owner but for the public as well……”

Just for the folks new to mining that might read this some time later, I don’t think Clay is saying that the public can putter around prospecting for fun on a valid mining claim. They obviously cannot.
 

Last edited:
Thanks for the heads up. That extra fee is going to mess a bunch up folks up this year probably. So to be clear..folks that claimed a small miner waiver will not be owing an extra $35?
 

Thanks for the heads up. That extra fee is going to mess a bunch up folks up this year probably. So to be clear..folks that claimed a small miner waiver will not be owing an extra $35?
This doesn't affect the small miner costs it's only the location and maintenance fees that are going up.

Small miners only pay the $15 filing fee. :thumbsup:
 

Did anyone expect the fee's to be lowered ???? Not hardly !
The fees are inflation adjusted every 5 years. Until inflation goes down the fees will continue to go up. Since inflation has never gone down I wouldn't be holding my breath for lower fees. :BangHead:

By my rough calculations this new fee will bring into the BLM state offices about 110 million dollars this year. Unlike other government programs miners pay the costs of the government minerals program directly. Claim owners pay the BLM directly and the BLM State office is allowed to keep those funds.:icon_scratch:
 

Last edited:
The fees are inflation adjusted every 5 years. Until inflation goes down the fees will continue to go up. Since inflation has never gone down I wouldn't be holding my breath for lower fees. :BangHead:

By my rough calculations this new fee will bring into the BLM state offices about 110 million dollars this year. Unlike other government programs miners pay the costs of the government minerals program directly. Claim owners pay the BLM directly and the BLM State office is allowed to keep those funds.:icon_scratch:

How close, if at all, have past presidents or congresses come to lifting the moratorium on patenting mining claims that Clinton declared in 1993 or 1994? I’m guessing there must be zero incentive for the multibillion dollar mining corporations to lobby to have the moratorium lifted, right?
 

How close, if at all, have past presidents or congresses come to lifting the moratorium on patenting mining claims that Clinton declared in 1993 or 1994? I’m guessing there must be zero incentive for the multibillion dollar mining corporations to lobby to have the moratorium lifted, right?
The reason patents are not being processed is because Congress continues to limit the funds used to process the patent applications. Congress has never voted to eliminate mining patents.

Presidents don't control the budget Congress does. Every federal budget bill has to include the moratorium on funding for processing patent applications or the moratorium automatically expires. There is no permanent moratorium.

To get mineral patents back doesn't require any action by Congress. All they have to do is NOT vote to restrict those funds.
 

Maybe now that it is a election year everyone should send a letter to their own Congress person and ask / beg / plead them to bring up restoring the funding for the patent program . This would help pay for all the projects that are going on !
 

Maybe now that it is a election year everyone should send a letter to their own Congress person and ask / beg / plead them to bring up restoring the funding for the patent program . This would help pay for all the projects that are going on !
At a payment of $2.50 (250 cents) per acre I don't think the gov has made money off patents in a long time. :laughing7:
 

Speaking of your rules, thanks for changing your America flag profile pic to something non-political 👍🏻
You are new here, I change my profile Pic fairly often and will fly flag again in profile.
 

It woulkd be nice to see just how many people Break even or do better !!
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom