USCF Tournament Memberships?

At an upcoming tournament, (Shameless plug time:  October 2, Auburn Hills, MI.  http://gamesinmichigan.com/chessforcharity)  I intended to offer unrated players the option of playing in a rated section by purchasing a single event, or tournament, membership from the USCF.  However, I can't find any information about doing this on the USCF site.  I know the option used to be available.  Does anyone have any information on how to do this or how much it costs?

The information is in the TD Support area of the USCF website. See their FAQ at https://secure2.uschess.org/TD_Affil/faq.php . The relevant section reads:

I have a non-member in my tournament. How do I do a tournament membership?

First, does this player have a USCF ID yet? If not, see the answer to the previous question (dealing with a player who does not have an ID yet) and follow the first step to get a USCF ID for this person.

Once you have an ID, you can use it in the rating report. When you validate the rating report, this person will be flagged as a non-member, causing an error.

Players who are under 25 qualify for the a $7 Junior Tournament Membership, all others qualify for the $12 Adult Tournament Membership. $5 of a $7 Junior TM fee and $10 of a $12 Adult TM fee can be applied towards a USCF membership if purchased within 60 days. If at all possible, please supply us with an email address for Tournament Members so that we can notify them and give them a chance to apply that credit towards a USCF membership.)

When you go to edit the rating report, there should be a checkbox to purchase a tournament membership for this player. (Tournament Memberships are not applicable to USCF National Events.)

Once you check the tournament membership box, have the rating report checked for errors again.

The tournament membership fee will be added in to the total fee when you submit the rating report, along with the rating report fee and any other fees, such as Enhanced Grand Prix fees or FIDE fees.

Please note that the member must already have a USCF ID, if there is no USCF ID associated with that member this will generate an error that must be corrected before the Tournament Membership box will be displayed.

Also see Tournament Membership Program.

Thanks much.

What's the current status?

There's a two month adult membership for $20 and one issue of the magazine. I believe that's the only real option now. For anyone else, it's a membership.

They do have a voucher program for kid memberships but there's a minimum purchase of those. Price depends on how many you get.

According to https://www.uschess.org/two-month-memberships.html, the two-month membership was discontinued in 2014.

That's a discontinuation of the three-month membership, replacing it with the two-month one.

This is directly from the Affiliate/TD membership submission process.

Thanks. 

Is there any other form of membership for someone who might play one tournament per year? Maybe a single event membership. 

USCF’s websites frustrate me

Not really. There's a correction fee that a TD can pay for a member that doesn't have a membership but that's not supposed to be used often and can get a TD in trouble if used often.

Certainly not to be used for a large state elementary event with hundreds of players lacking USCF membership because until this year (April 2025), USCF was not required in our elementary state championship.

There's a special consideration for K-3 I believe where state affiliates can rate a state championship event for that section without previous membership. However, it's only for that lowest section, not anything else.

There's also the JTP program but I don't know the specifics on it other than I think it requires a qualifying school affiliate to run them.

Some members of our group are looking into that.

That’s a good tip. We’ll look into that.

Each of our grades will be two sections with the championship section dual rated—NWSRS and USCF. USCF membership is not required for our qualifying events, so we are looking at how best to get a bunch of memberships for those participating in the championship.

Our state uses the voucher system since we starred rating the state scholastic championship. That included a slight increase in entries to help offset costs. If you can afford to get enough, I believe the lowest price is $9 each.