Application Processing & Turnaround

Annual throughput of Amateur Radio applications through the FCC ULS processing pipeline: receipts, grants, and dismissals.

19 Days Median
Application Dismissal Latency

90% of dismissals occur within 21 days. Fee payment expiration or dismissal.

Measured over applications of every purpose received from 2020-01-01 to 2026-09-07, dismissed; median, and nearest-rank 90th percentile.

New license NE

Year Received Granted Dismissed Withdrawn Pending Dismissal Rate
2026 YTD 23,686 22,941 613 0 132 2.8% receipts to 2026-09-07
2025 Outage* 25,889 25,019 857 0 13 3.3%
2024 32,199 31,270 908 0 21 2.8%
2023 26,149 25,396 733 0 20 2.8%
2022 28,122 27,446 656 0 20 2.3%
2021 32,806 32,708 75 0 23 0.2%
2020 30,410 30,319 68 0 23 0.2%
2019 30,487 30,374 71 0 42 0.2%
2018 32,125 32,005 94 0 26 0.3%

Renewal RO

Year Received Granted Dismissed Withdrawn Pending Dismissal Rate
2026 YTD 33,995 31,667 2,129 0 199 6.2% receipts to 2026-09-07
2025 Outage* 37,258 34,508 2,722 0 28 7.3%
2024 42,894 39,791 3,076 0 27 7.2%
2023 39,754 36,259 3,470 0 25 8.7%
2022 30,368 28,643 1,707 0 18 5.6%
2021 26,176 25,762 386 0 28 1.5%
2020 34,542 34,127 408 0 7 1.2%
2019 38,295 37,833 462 0 0 1.2%
2018 46,896 46,553 340 0 3 0.7%

Modification MD

Year Received Granted Dismissed Withdrawn Pending Dismissal Rate
2026 YTD 19,285 16,495 2,350 0 440 13.0% receipts to 2026-09-07
2025 Outage* 21,642 18,572 3,070 0 0 14.2%
2024 26,815 23,041 3,773 0 1 14.1%
2023 23,874 20,867 3,003 0 4 12.6%
2022 24,779 20,748 4,025 0 6 16.2%
2021 30,508 24,515 5,990 0 3 19.6%
2020 28,399 22,828 5,570 0 1 19.6%
2019 28,433 22,835 5,593 0 5 19.7%
2018 30,212 23,133 7,072 0 7 23.4%

Other (administrative updates, renewals with modification and so on)

Year Received Granted Dismissed Withdrawn Pending Dismissal Rate
2026 YTD 36,349 33,585 1,520 1,056 188 4.7% receipts to 2026-09-07
2025 Outage* 40,071 37,462 1,315 1,262 32 3.3%
2024 34,291 31,505 1,507 1,245 34 4.4%
2023 27,708 25,119 1,432 1,139 18 5.2%
2022 33,026 30,601 1,170 1,233 22 3.5%
2021 43,976 42,083 563 1,301 29 1.3%
2020 39,322 37,649 426 1,245 2 1.1%
2019 34,130 32,416 400 1,310 4 1.2%
2018 37,121 35,242 434 1,445 0 1.2%

Received counts every application by the year it arrived; pending ones have no outcome yet. A dismissal rate counts only receipts at least 60 days old, so recent applications that haven't had time to be dismissed don't pull it down: where a row's rate stops short of the year's end, the cut-off is shown beneath it. * 2025 totals are depressed by an upstream gap: FCC ULS offline during the federal government shutdown beginning 2025-10-01. October has no receipts at all; November is partially recovered and is published as observed.