Methods, systems, and devices are described for wireless communication. A base station may configure a set of timing adjustment groups (TAGs) and a set of PUCCH cell groups for a user equipment (UE). The serving cells in the TAGs may be associated with different PUCCH cell groups. The UE may initiate a time alignment timer for each TAG, and if the timer expires prior to receiving a timing adjustment command, the UE may initiate a timing alignment procedure for a subset of serving cells based on the association between the TAGs and the PUCCH cell groups.