How Much Does It Cost to Register a Trademark in 2026? The Real Budget
What a French or EU trademark really costs: INPI and EUIPO fees, clearance searches, legal fees and renewal, by an IP lawyer.
"Registering a trademark costs €190." I hear it at nearly every first meeting with a founder. It is the headline figure published by the French trademark office (INPI), it is accurate, and it is the source of most of the budget surprises I see afterwards.
That €190 is the application fee for one class. It is not the cost of your protection. Once you factor in the clearance search most applicants skip, the number of classes that almost everyone gets wrong, an extension to the EU or beyond, and the renewal that lands ten years later, the real budget sits somewhere else entirely. And the gap between the two is sometimes measured in thousands of euros - usually at the worst possible moment, when a competitor files a sign close to yours and you have to react.
This article breaks down the full cost of registering a trademark in 2026: the official fees in France, the EU and internationally, the line items the fee schedules never show you, and the trade-off between filing yourself and getting professional help. The starting point is a legal one: in France, trademark rights are acquired by registration (Article L.712-1 of the French Intellectual Property Code), and that registration carries a price driven by choices you make upstream.
Let's start with the number everyone quotes. Filing a French trademark electronically with the INPI costs €190 for one class of goods or services, then €40 per additional class (INPI schedule in force as of 27 April 2026). Payment is made online at the time of filing, and protection runs for ten years.
The fee is fixed and transparent. The problem is not its amount - it is that it gets presented everywhere as "the cost of a trademark," when it only covers one operation: registering the sign for a single class, assuming everything goes smoothly.
Three things can push that figure up, and none of them appears in the "€190": the number of classes you actually need, what happens before filing (checking availability), and what can happen after (an opposition). These are precisely the points where I watch an upfront saving turn into a much heavier expense. Let's take them in order.
A trademark does not protect "a name" in the abstract. It protects a sign for specific goods and services, sorted into the Nice Classification (45 classes in total). That scope determines both your protection and your budget: €190 for the first class, €40 for each of the next ones at the INPI.
The temptation, to save money, is to file in a single class. It is often a false economy. A SaaS company that files only in Class 9 (software) but forgets Class 42 (IT services - SaaS in the proper sense) leaves a whole part of its activity unprotected. Conversely, filing across ten classes "to be safe" costs more upfront and exposes you to revocation for non-use: a mark not used for the goods it covers can be challenged after five years (Article L.714-5 of the French IP Code; Article 58 of the EU Trade Mark Regulation for an EUTM).
In practice, the right calibration comes down to two or three well-chosen classes. The hard part is knowing which ones, and that depends heavily on what you actually do. I have set out the typical combinations by sector - classes for a SaaS software trademark, mobile apps, fintech, marketplaces - in dedicated articles. The cost of classes is never just an accounting line: it is the financial translation of your protection strategy.
Here is the line item most budgets forget, and the one I recommend never cutting.
Before filing, you need to check that your sign is available - that no identical or similar earlier mark already covers the same goods. The INPI examines the validity of your application on absolute grounds (a descriptive or deceptive sign is refused), but it does not check earlier rights: that is not its job. It is for the owner of an earlier mark to oppose.
Two levels of search exist. The identical search, free on the INPI database, picks up strictly identical marks. Useful, but far from enough: likelihood of confusion is assessed on similar signs too (Article L.711-3 of the French IP Code; Article 8 EUTMR), not just identical ones. The fuller similarity - or clearance - search is a paid service.
Why insist on this item? Because skipping it means gambling your filing. If you file a sign that encroaches on an earlier mark, its owner has two months from publication to file an opposition. An opposition before the INPI carries a €400 official fee for the party bringing it - but for you, on the receiving end, the real cost runs into defence fees, lost time, and often the outright abandonment of the name you had already built your communications around. I have seen startups rebrand entirely after a year in business for exactly this reason. The extra cost of a serious clearance search upfront bears no relation to that risk.
A sign that is too descriptive raises a different but equally costly problem: it will be refused by the INPI, and the fee paid is not returned. Choosing a distinctive name is part of controlling the budget - I explain why in this article on descriptive marks.
This is where the gaps become significant, because official fees vary widely from one office to another.
In France (INPI), as noted: €190 for the first class, €40 per additional class. Protection covers French territory.
At EU level (EUIPO), an EU trade mark (EUTM) protects all 27 member states with a single application. The basic fee is €850 for one class, €50 for the second, then €150 per class from the third onward. For a French SME selling only in France, that is disproportionate. For a SaaS company with customers across several EU countries, it is the rational choice: one EUTM costs far less than five national filings. The decision between a French mark and an EU mark does not come down to price alone - it depends on your actual market, as I set out in this French vs. EU trademark comparison.
Internationally (Madrid Protocol), the system lets you extend protection from a French or EU base mark to more than 130 countries through a single application managed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The cost structure has three parts: a basic fee (653 Swiss francs for a black-and-white mark, 903 CHF in colour), designation fees specific to each country you target, and a supplementary fee per additional class. These amounts are denominated in Swiss francs and revised regularly, country by country, which makes any flat quote unrealistic: the budget depends entirely on the list of countries. For a software company going international, Madrid remains the most efficient route, as I explain in this guide to international trademarks.
Keep the principle in mind: the wider the territory, the higher the base fee - but the lower the cost per country covered. The real question is not "how much does it cost" but "where do I actually need protection within the next three years."
Nothing requires you to use a lawyer to file a trademark in France or the EU. The online procedure is accessible. The real question is the total cost, risk included - not the professional fees taken in isolation.
Here are my fees, so you can think in terms of the full budget. Filing a trademark in France or within the EU, up to three classes, is €600 (excl. VAT), on top of the official office fees. A clearance search up to three classes is €600 (excl. VAT), and the combined search + filing package is €1,000 (excl. VAT). If an opposition arises, handling it - whether bringing or defending one - is €1,500 (excl. VAT) for a French mark and €2,500 (excl. VAT) for an EU mark. Renewal at ten years is €350 (excl. VAT), and watching your mark against third-party filings is €100 (excl. VAT) per month per mark.
What those fees cover is exactly what separates a filing from solid protection: calibrating the classes against your actual activity, running the availability search at the right level, and drafting a precise specification of goods and services - a sloppy specification can weaken a mark for its entire life.
Filing on your own, without support, makes sense when the sign is highly distinctive, the activity simple, and the market purely French. As soon as there is something at stake - an upcoming fundraising round where the IP will be audited, an international rollout, a name close to existing signs - the calculation flips: support costs less than fixing a botched filing.
Two schemes can also ease the bill. The INPI's Pass PI scheme, to which the firm is referenced, provides financial support for companies' industrial-property steps. And the EU SME Fund lets small and medium-sized enterprises obtain partial reimbursement of trademark application fees (up to 75% of EUIPO fees, subject to conditions and the annual budget). These schemes change every year - check the conditions in force before you file.
A trademark is not yours forever. Protection lasts ten years and must be renewed, indefinitely, in ten-year terms (Article L.712-9 of the French IP Code; Articles 52-53 EUTMR for an EUTM).
At the INPI, renewal costs €290 for one class, plus €40 per additional class. It is done in the year before expiry. A six-month grace period exists after expiry, but it carries a surcharge. Beyond that, the mark lapses for good - and anyone can then re-file an identical sign.
It is a simple mechanism, but failing to renew is one of the most ordinary causes of lost marks I come across, particularly in companies that have changed teams or counsel in the meantime. Setting a reminder twelve months before expiry costs nothing and saves you from rebuilding everything. I have set out the procedure and deadlines in this article on trademark renewal.
If I had to sum up ten years of filings in one sentence for a founder in a hurry: the cost of a trademark is not settled by the filing fee, it is settled by everything around it. A serious clearance search and proper class calibration cost a few hundred euros and head off disputes that run into tens of thousands. It is the best protection-to-price ratio in all of intellectual property.
Every situation has its own specifics, and the above is no substitute for an analysis of your case - the right scope depends on your activity, your markets and your name. If you are preparing a filing and want to budget precisely, the trademark filing guide sets out the method step by step, and you can contact me or book a first meeting to validate your strategy before paying a single fee.
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I have been supporting software and SaaS companies for over 10 years, helping them structure their business, protect their intellectual property and strengthen their contracts.
