The Copyright Office has submitted notice that it wants to raise the fee for group registration from $55 to $85, a 55% increase. The office sent the new schedule to Congress in July 2026 and plans to enforce it in mid-November unless Congress intervenes. If it goes through, this will be the first fee change since 2020.

Professional photographers know how much time, talent, and passion it takes to create a body of work. Under the Copyright Act, you must register that work with the U.S. Copyright Office before you can get the full protection. For most photographers, group registration makes the most sense: up to 750 published or 750 unpublished photographs in a single application.

Why It Matters

A higher registration fee would leave more photographs unprotected. The only damages you can usually seek when a photograph is unregistered before an infringement are actual damages, such as the lost license fee. Registered works can qualify for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement (plus attorney’s fees). Registration is also required to access the Copyright Claims Board. Ultimately, there is a stark difference in both protection and leverage.

Cost already discourages photographers from pursuing that protection. PPA’s 2026 Copyright & Income Study, fielded from August 27 to September 21, shows how wide the gap already is. Among the photographers surveyed:

• 25% have ever registered work with the Copyright Office
• 44% know their work has been used without permission
• 39% named cost as a reason they do not register more images, either because the fees are too high or because the images do not feel worth filing

A higher fee would widen this gap even further.

Among photographers who registered images in the past year, 41% said they would register only their most commercially valuable images and leave the rest unprotected. Twenty-six percent would register fewer photographs, and 8% would stop entirely.

Among the photographers who are currently not registering, and those who said they would find a registration option useful, 56% said the increase would make them less likely to register. This includes the 1 in 10 who said they would not register at all.

The dollar impact is large due to the volume of images produced by photographers. For example, the average photographer in the study captures about 42,600 images a year. At the 750-image cap, that results in 57 separate applications.

If the price is raised to $85, registering a year’s work would cost $4,845, up from $3,135 today. That’s $1,710 more a year. The full $4,845 is just over 10% of average net income from photography.

What Can You Do?

PPA is a member of the Copyright Alliance, and the Alliance is asking individual creators to tell the Copyright Office what this increase would mean for them. 

A letter template has already been created for you to use! All you have to do is:

1. Access the Alliance’s email template via the link below.
2. Fill out the template with your business information.
3. Add a sentence or two about your own practice, how many images you create, what you spend to register, or how a higher fee would change what you file. 
4. Click “Generate Letter” in the bottom right corner.
5. Copy and paste the generated letter into your email.
6. Email the letter directly to the Office address listed on the page.

Write the Copyright Office and Ask to Reconsider the Increase

If you have images ready file, the current $55 group fee is still available until the new schedule takes effect. Note that published and unpublished photographs still must go in separate groups.

Your Creativity Deserves Protection

The goal is simple. More photographers in the system means more work that can actually be defended and protected. A fee that drives people away does the opposite and leaves creatives vulnerable.

For more information on registration, statutory damages, and the steps to protect your work, visit PPA’s copyright resources.