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Mining claimants who wish to retain their mining claims on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands through the 2021 assessment year must pay a maintenance fee or file a maintenance fee waiver certificate on or before September 1, 2020, to prevent the mining claim from being forfeited.

The maintenance fee for an existing lode claim, tunnel site, or mill site will increase to $165 on September 1, 2020. For placer mining claims only, the fees will be $165 for every 20 acres of land or portion thereof. Miners who file a Small Miner’s Waiver on or before September 1 will be required to file an Affidavit of Assessment Work Form on or before December 30, 2020, including the $15 processing fee per claim.

Each payment must be accompanied by a written list of the claim names and BLM serial numbers for which the maintenance fee is being paid. You can find your state BLM office at www.blm.gov.

Please note that new mining claims filed on or after September 1, 2020, will be subject to the new fee schedule. 

It's highly recommended that you send your documents by registered mail or hand deliver them while retaining copies for your records.

Claimants in all states except Alaska may pay their annual maintenance fee online through the Mining Claim Maintenance Fee Payment Portal found at  https://payp.blm.gov/eppcore/home. You can pay your fees with an ACH checking or savings account. There is no dollar limit per transaction, except by the funds available in the account. You can also pay claims for multiple customers within a BLM Administrative State in one transaction. Simply search for claims using different customer names, and add all desired claims to an order until you are ready to pay.

When you get to the claim search page, select the state where your claims are located and enter either the last name of the claimant, the claim serial number, or the lead serial number to search for your claim.

Claimants who file on paper must include a document listing the claim/site name(s) and the BLM serial number(s) assigned to each claim for which the fees are being paid.

Do not forget to file new claim forms or affidavits of assessment with your county recorder as well.

September 1st of every year is a very important date if you own a mining claim, mill site or tunnel site. That's the date your annual maintenance fees, or your Small Miner's Waiver, are due. The following information, appropriate forms, and more details also can be found on the Burea of Land Management website.

Maintenance Fee Payment Waiver Certification (Small Miner’s Waiver)
If a claimant owns 10 or fewer active claims/sites on Federal land nationwide, the claimant may qualify for a maintenance fee payment waiver also known as the small miner’s waiver.  Form 3830-2 must be used when filing a small miner’s waiver request and must be filed or postmarked (if mailed) on or before September 1 every year. There is no processing fee to file a waiver.  By filing a waiver, claimants are certifying that they and all related parties own 10 or fewer claims and sites nationwide and that assessment work has been or will be performed, and that the proper affidavits of assessment or annual labor will be timely filed.

The maintenance fee and small miner’s waiver must be paid or filed in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state office (in Alaska, the Fairbanks District Office also accepts fee payment) of the state where the claim or site is located.  If a claimant owns claims or sites in multiple states, a fee or waiver must be paid or filed in each state where each claim or site is located.  Failure to timely pay the fee or file the waiver in the proper BLM office will subject your claims or sites to forfeiture by operation of law.

Annual Assessment Work
Claimants requesting a small miner’s waiver from paying the annual maintenance fee, must perform assessment work and spend a minimum of $100 in labor or improvements on each claim, and record evidence of such with the BLM on or before December 30 of the calendar year in which the assessment year ended.  The same document that the claimant records with the county must be filed with the BLM.  The BLM processing fee is $10 per claim for recording an affidavit of annual assessment. The assessment work must be performed within the period defined as the assessment year.  Assessment work includes, but is not limited to, drilling, excavations, driving shafts and tunnels, sampling (geochemical or bulk), road construction on or for the benefit of the mining claim; and geological, geochemical, and geophysical surveys. Optional Form 3830-4 may be used for affidavits of assessment filed with the BLM.

Assessment work is not a requirement for owners of mill or tunnel sites; however, a notice of intent to hold (NOIH) the site must be filed on or before December 30. The BLM requires a $10 processing fee per site for filing a NOIH.

Claimants (except those in Alaska) may pay their annual maintenance fee online through the Mining Claim Maintenance Fee Payment Portal.  This site is available 24 hours a day.  The BLM payment portal provides the ability to query eligible mining claims and sites for payment through an interface with the Legacy Rehost 2000 (LR2000) public reporting database; select claims and sites to be paid; and then transfer to Pay.gov for payment of the maintenance fees for the selected claims and sites.  At this time, only credit card payments are accepted and treasury limits apply.

Claimants who file on paper must include a document listing the claim/site name(s) and the BLM serial number(s) assigned to each claim for which the fees are being paid. Form 3830-5 (lode claims) and Form 3830-5(a) (placer claims) may be used to list claims and sites when making payments by check or credit card directly to the BLM state office for the state where the claims or sites are located.