A lode claim is a federal mining claim on minerals still in solid rock, like gold in a quartz vein. It gives the holder the right to mine that deposit, but it doesn’t make the land theirs.
A lode is another word for a vein: a band of minerals running through rock. Gold in a lode has to be dug, drilled or blasted out, then crushed. That’s very different from the loose gold on a placer claim, which you can wash out of gravel with a pan.
What a lode claim covers
BLM says lode claims cover “classic veins or lodes having well-defined boundaries.” They also cover other mineral deposits locked in rock. The test is simple: if the mineral is still in the rock where it formed, it’s a lode. If it has broken loose and moved, it’s usually a placer.
How big a lode claim can be
A lode claim can be up to 1,500 feet long, following the vein, and up to 600 feet wide, which is 300 feet on each side of the vein. That works out to a bit over 20 acres. It’s measured out from the discovery point, the spot where the vein was found, so lode claims are often long rectangles laid out at an angle to the survey lines.
What a lode claim costs
A new lode claim costs $274 to file with BLM: a $25 processing fee, a $49 location fee and a $200 maintenance fee, plus what your county charges to record it. Your paperwork is due at BLM within 90 days of staking the claim. Your state may set its own, shorter deadline for recording it at the county.
The holder then pays $200 per claim on or before September 1 each year. People who hold 10 or fewer claims can file a waiver and do at least $100 of work on the claim instead. BLM keeps the current numbers on its mining claim fees page, so check there before you pay.
Where the lode claims are
Lode claims are by far the most common kind. About 85% of active claims in the 12 western states are lode claims, and about half of those are in Nevada. Many are held by large mining companies, and they aren’t all for gold. Arizona’s biggest claim holders, for example, are mostly copper companies.
| State | Active placer claims | Active lode claims |
|---|---|---|
| Nevada | 20,166 | 245,728 |
| Arizona | 6,582 | 55,915 |
| Idaho | 2,911 | 37,712 |
| Wyoming | 6,555 | 34,642 |
| Utah | 13,361 | 28,243 |
| Montana | 2,779 | 15,467 |
Counts: Gold Maps Online analysis of BLM mining claim records, October 2026. Claim records don’t say which mineral a claim is for, so these are mining claims of all kinds, not only gold.
Why lode claims matter to placer prospectors
Placer gold starts out as lode gold. Over a very long time, rock wears away, and creeks carry the gold downstream and drop it. So a cluster of lode claims or old hard rock mines is a good reason to look at the creeks below them. Staying off the claims themselves still matters, because the right to mine there belongs to the holder.
How to spot lode claims on our maps
Active lode claims are the yellow boxes on our Google Earth maps. Click a box to see how many claims are in that section, then use our guide on how to check a mining claim to look up the record. Pick your state below to see what’s on its map.
More words explained in our gold prospecting glossary.