Membership & Chartership

Our Membership calendar runs from January through to December each year. Membership renewal invitations are sent two months prior to your Membership expiry date, with details of existing subscriptions and Membership option (e.g. Chartership) and how to pay.

When the calendar year ends, we offer a generous 'grace period', during which Members can still renew their Membership and regain access to their Membership benefits.

The grace period for renewing Membership will end six months after the expiry date. This final deadline is set in accordance with the Society's Regulations.

If your Membership expired less than 12 months ago, please contact our Membership Team to discuss your options by emailing [email protected] or calling +44 (0)207 434 9944 (Mon–Fri 9.30am-5pm).

If your Membership expired over 12 months ago, you will need to reapply using our online form and be re-elected.

If you are unable to access the Member Portal, please first attempt to reset your password. Select 'Login', then 'Forgotten Password'.

Enter your email address and select 'Request Password Reset'. You will receive an email with instructions on how to set a new password.

Still unable to login? Please contact [email protected] to ensure that we have your correct email address on record.

To notify us of any changes to an address or name, you can log in to the Member Portal and update your details.

Email the Society at [email protected]. If your payment method is Direct Debit, you should do this immediately so we can stop your instalment(s) from being collected.

• Read about benefits of Membership
• Read about Fellows' access to the Lyell Collection

To make changes to your journal or subscription choices, please email [email protected].

Fellows can sign up to receive emails alerting them to the publication of each new issue in the Lyell Collection.

Follow the instructions on the online journal alerts page for more information.

The Geological Society's owned and co-owned journals moved to electronic-only publication from January 2021. This means that the Journal of the Geological Society, Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, Petroleum Geoscience, Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis and Geo-Energy are now only available online. Print copies will continue to be produced for other journal titles and books, including Geological Society of London Special Publications.

The popularity of the Society's journals continues to increase and the restrictions of a print-led publication model are adversely impacting the service and experience for authors. The removal of print will be accompanied by a move to a continuous publication model that will allow the authoritative version of articles to be published more quickly. Alongside modernisation of the Society's publications and improvements to author service, there are compelling environmental reasons to cease printing journals and so help to reduce the Society's carbon footprint.

We appreciate that this might be disappointing to those Fellows who prefer a print copy. Information on how to access your chosen online journal(s) can be found on our Fellows' access page.

Yes, you will receive a receipt by email. This will normally be sent once your payment is processed, to the email address attached to your Membership record.

You will need to pay for any amendments after renewal separately by card. These amendments will be saved in your Fellowship record and will be incorporated into your Direct Debit payment for next year's renewal.

Please contact the Membership team with your new account details at least 15 days prior to the collection date.

Please contact the Membership team at least 15 days before the first collection date.

We are working towards aligning your first Direct Debit renewal payment to the start of your Membership, which needs to be done in two stages. Last year, we moved the first collection from 10 November to 5 December. This year, we are moving to 1 January, which will align to the start of your Membership.

You may need to update your personal details in the Member Portal to ensure that you do not receive an incorrect invoice. To update your personal details, visit our information page.

You may also have been sorted into a new price category according to our Membership fee structure.

Fees for 2025 are calculated using your employment status and the year in which you completed your first degree in Earth sciences or related subject. Where we do not hold this information, we automatically apply the full Membership fee (£247).

If the information we hold is incorrect, please email [email protected].

You can find out more about fee categories on our fees page .

If you are retired and not offering services, you are eligible for a discount – To apply the discount, please update your employment status in the Member Portal to 'retired and not offering services', then email [email protected] to request an updated payment link.

Our current fees for retired Fellows are:

• Retired and not offering services are: £131.00
• Retired and not offering services plus with 40 years' continuous Membership: £84.00

We can offer the following reduced fees for Fellows:

Please email [email protected] with your details and income if appropriate.

Please contact [email protected].

Please add a note to tell us what you are studying, where you are studying (including the department), and the date you expect to finish.

If you are retired and no longer practising, you may qualify for a reduced CGeol fee (£23).

Please update your employment status in the Member Portal and email [email protected] requesting a change to your renewal invoice.

If you are a Direct Debit payer, please email at least 15 days before the first collection date.

At the AGM on 25 June 2021, Council approved the proposal to introduce new Fellowship categories for 2022. The new approach looks at a career-based categories model, rather than the previous age-based categories model. Initially proposed in April 2021, we have introduced these changes in response to the Fellowship Survey undertaken in 2018, the 2020 Strategic Options review and an online survey carried out in December 2020.

Our aim is to modernise the Society, reduce barriers and stimulate growth with the goal of becoming a fairer Society for all. For any further enquiries relating to your Fellowship fee, please contact [email protected].

These rates have been discontinued as most of the benefits are now available online and it ensures that the fees are applied fairly to all (overseas rates were only available to full fee-paying members living outside Europe).

Retired Fellows fees will no longer be automatically applied based on age. Fellows will be able to apply for the reduced retired fellows rate if they are retired and not offering services (on a professional level), irrespective of their age.

The demographics of our Membership has changed over the last 20 years. Many people are graduating and starting employment later. Many more are changing careers, some are retiring early whilst others are working later, and so the old fee categories were failing to accommodate a growing number of people within our community. These new fee categories aim to address this and make it fairer. We appreciate that some may pay a higher fee than before, but these fees still represent great value.