Meaning & use
membership fee
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Meaning
nouncountable
An amount of money you pay to join a club, gym, or organization, or to keep being a member.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a membership fee' or 'the membership fees' when there are several.
Patterns
- pay a membership fee
- a membership fee of $50 a year
- the annual membership fee
The gym charges a membership fee of $40 a month.
New members must pay the membership fee before they can use the pool.
She forgot to renew her membership fee and lost access to the website.
Word forms
| plural | membership fees |
|---|
Common combinations
- pay a membership fee
- I pay my membership fee by direct debit every January.
- annual membership fee
- The annual membership fee covers all classes and the sauna.
- monthly membership fee
- Students get a lower monthly membership fee.
- charge a membership fee
- The club doesn't charge a membership fee for the first year.
- membership fee increase
- Members voted against the membership fee increase.
Synonyms and how they differ
- subscription
- Often used for regular payments to a service or magazine; 'membership fee' stresses that you are joining or staying in a group.
- dues
- Usually plural and used for money paid regularly to a union, club, or society; more informal and often smaller amounts.
- joining fee
- Refers only to the one-off payment made when you first join, not to regular payments.
Word family
- member noun
- A person who belongs to a group or club.
- membership noun
- The state of being a member, or all the members of a group.
Commonly confused: membership fee or entrance fee?
membership fee vs entrance fee
An entrance fee is paid once to get into a place or event; a membership fee is paid to become or stay a member.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'membership fee' correctly?
Choose one answer.
A membership fee is a regular payment for belonging to a club or organization, so sentence 2 fits. Sentence 1 describes an entrance fee, which is paid once to get in, and sentence 4 is not grammatical.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “membership fee”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.