A dual‐band subharmonic mixer is demonstrated that is capable of down‐converting RF signals in two different bands using second and third harmonic components of the local oscillator (LO) signal. As the mixer requires only one LO, a simple and cost‐effective structure is achieved. The drain bias (VDS) is switched to maximize the gain in each RF band. For demonstration purposes, a dual‐band mixer is designed for RF signals at 2.41 and 3.61 GHz with single LO frequency at 1.2 GHz. The measured results show maximum conversion gains of −6.4 and −7.1 dB at 2.41 and 3.61 GHz, respectively. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:2848–2851, 2014