If your license has expired and is still within the allowable grace period, may you continue to transmit on the amateur radio bands?

In amateur radio, your operating privileges end exactly on the expiration date printed on your license. Even if you are within the official two-year grace period, transmitting on the amateur bands with an expired license is illegal. The two-year grace period exists solely to allow you to renew your license without having to retake the examination, and it reserves your specific call sign so nobody else can claim it. It is an administrative grace period, not an operational one. If you let your license expire, you must immediately cease all transmissions. You cannot go back on the air until your renewal application has been fully processed and your active status is updated in the FCC's Universal Licensing System (ULS) database.