The PCT application: timeline, fees and national phase

What a PCT application does, and what it does not

A PCT application has the effect of a national application in every contracting state from its international filing date. It is searched once, published once, and can be examined once on a non-binding basis. It never becomes a patent. At 30 or 31 months you enter the national or regional phase in each country or region you still care about, and each office examines under its own law.

The value is time and information. You pay the large costs (translations, local attorneys and national fees) a year and a half later than you would on the Paris Convention route, and you pay them knowing what the search found. The cost is the PCT fees themselves and a slightly longer road to grant. If you only want a US patent and an EP patent, filing both directly within 12 months is often cheaper.

The international phase, month by month

Every PCT time limit counts from the priority date: the filing date of the earliest application you claim, or the international filing date if you claim none. A period in months ends on the same day number in the later month, or on that month's last day if it has no such day (Rule 80.2).

You can withdraw the whole application at any time before 30 months (Rule 90bis.1), which is how applicants keep an application out of print when the search report is bad and they have decided not to proceed.

Where to file: the receiving Office

You file with a receiving Office (RO). Under Rule 19.1, that can be the national office of a state where any applicant is resident or a national, or WIPO's International Bureau (RO/IB), which accepts applications from any PCT applicant. In practice:

• US applicants usually file with the USPTO through Patent Center. Filing there needs no foreign filing license, because the USPTO acting as receiving Office is carved out of 37 CFR 5.11(a). Filing with the EPO or RO/IB is a foreign filing and does need one for an invention made in the US. See the foreign filing license guide.
• European applicants can file with the EPO as receiving Office or with their national office. Some states require residents to go through the national office for national security screening; the foreign filing license guide lists the French, German and UK rules.
• Indian applicants can file with IP India as receiving Office, which charges no transmittal fee for electronic filings. Filing directly with RO/IB through WIPO's ePCT is a filing outside India, so section 39 of the Patents Act applies: you need the Controller's permit unless you filed in India at least six weeks earlier.

PCT fees, and choosing the International Searching Authority

Three fees are due to the receiving Office within one month of filing: its own transmittal fee, the international filing fee for WIPO, and the search fee for the International Searching Authority (ISA). The international filing fee is fixed in Swiss francs at CHF 1,330, plus CHF 15 per sheet over 30; WIPO publishes the equivalents each office collects. It is reduced by CHF 100, 200 or 300 depending on how much of the application is filed electronically in character-coded form, and by 90% for applicants from certain states who meet WIPO's criteria (WIPO fee reductions).

WIPO PCT Fee Tables, amounts on September 1, 2026, Tables I(a) and I(b); USPTO amounts also in 37 CFR 1.445(a). Equivalents in currencies other than CHF move with exchange rates.

The ISA choice is mostly about cost and about who you want to hear from first. A US applicant can choose the USPTO, the EPO, the Korean, Japanese or Australian office and a few others. ISA/US costs $2,400 for a large entity but only $960 for a small entity and $480 for a micro entity; the EPO charges $2,237 to everyone. Choosing the EPO buys a European examiner's opinion before you commit to Europe, and a Euro-PCT application searched by the EPO pays no supplementary European search fee on entry (see the EPO fees guide). Choosing the USPTO gets you a reduced US national stage search fee: $150 instead of $580 (US national stage guide).

Worked example: a US large entity

A 40-sheet application filed with the USPTO, USPTO as ISA: transmittal $285, international filing fee $1,667 plus 10 sheets over 30 at $19 ($190), search fee $2,400. That is $4,542 before the e-filing reduction (up to $251 at RO/US for a character-coded request). The same company as a small entity pays $114 + $1,857 + $960 = $2,931. With the EPO as ISA, the search fee line becomes $2,237 for either.

The search report and written opinion

The ISA issues the international search report (ISR) with a written opinion on novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability (Rule 43bis.1). The deadline is 3 months from receipt of the search copy or 9 months from priority, whichever is later (Rule 42.1). When you file at month 12 claiming priority, that usually lands the report around month 15 or 16.

Read the written opinion as an early office action. Each citation is marked X (relevant alone), Y (relevant in combination) or A (background). A clean opinion with only A documents is worth having in hand at the national phase; several offices offer accelerated examination on the back of a positive PCT work product. If nothing more happens, WIPO reissues the opinion as the international preliminary report on patentability (Chapter I) and sends it to the designated Offices at 30 months (Rule 44bis).

Article 19 amendments

After the search report you get one chance to amend the claims before the International Bureau (Article 19). The deadline is 2 months from transmittal of the ISR or 16 months from priority, whichever is later, and the amendments go to WIPO, not to the ISA (Rule 46.1). You file a complete replacement claim set with a letter that shows the differences and the basis in the application as filed, and you may add a statement of up to 500 words. Only the claims can be amended, and not beyond the original disclosure.

Article 19 amendments are published with the application, so they are a way to put a narrower, cleaner claim set on the public record before publication. They are not examined. If you want an examiner to look at amendments, the route is Chapter II.

Chapter II: the demand for preliminary examination

A demand starts international preliminary examination. It is due by 3 months from transmittal of the search report and written opinion or 22 months from priority, whichever is later (Rule 54bis.1). With it you can amend the claims, description and drawings under Article 34, argue with the examiner, and receive an international preliminary report on patentability (Chapter II) by 28 months (Rule 69.2).

It costs a preliminary examination fee and a handling fee: EUR 2,010 plus EUR 215 at the EPO; $705 at the USPTO when it was also the ISA ($880 otherwise), plus a $251 handling fee, with small and micro entity reductions (WIPO Fee Table II). The demand no longer delays national phase entry for the offices in the table below, because Chapter I already gives 30 or 31 months. File it when you want a positive report to carry into several national offices, or when the written opinion is wrong and you want that fixed before 30 months. Otherwise, save the fee and amend in each national phase.

A related option is supplementary international search by a second authority, requested by 22 months (Rule 45bis.1). It is useful when the main ISA does not search well in a language or document collection that matters to you.

National and regional phase deadlines

The treaty sets 30 months (Article 22 and Article 39), and any office may allow longer. These are the time limits WIPO lists for the offices our readers file in most:

From WIPO's national phase time-limit table, checked October 26, 2026. Remedies for a missed deadline differ by office and are in the national chapters of the PCT Applicant's Guide.

Several European states, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland among them, have closed the national PCT route, so a PCT application reaches them only through the EPO. Germany and the UK keep both doors open. For the European phase steps and fees, read how to file a European patent application; for the US, the US national stage guide covers the section 371 entry requirements and the bypass continuation alternative.

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