ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® reports that the FCC has extended the filing deadline to March 5, 2026, for amateur radio licenses that otherwise were due to expire from October 1, 2025, to March 5, 2026. The announcement is included in an FCC Public Notice (DA-25-943) released on Monday, November 17, 2025. ¹

Although filings that were due during the 2025 Federal Government shutdown—which ended November 17, 2025—were deemed as due by November 18, 2025, the Amateur Radio service is one of a small group of exceptions:

For personal radio licensees (i.e., Amateur, Ship, Aircraft, GMRS, and Commercial Operator Licenses), renewal filings originally due on October 1, 2025, through and including March 5, 2026, are now due on March 5, 2026. Further, we confirm that licensees whose licenses have expired and whose renewal filing deadlines have been extended above may rely on their timely renewal filing (by the extended deadline) to support continued operation pursuant to section 1.62 of the Commission’s rules. ²

Amateur Radio operators whose license became due for renewal between October 1, 2025 and November 17, 2025, are strongly encouraged to file their renewal as soon a possible. A license renewal walkthrough video is available for RRRA members on the club’s groupware server.

There is a discussion in a recent ARRL News article about the sporadic system outages affecting renewal during the resumption of license processing by the FCC.