How Much Does It Cost to Trademark a Business Name in the UK?

If you’re asking how much does it cost to trademark a business name in the UK, here’s the short answer: £170 for one class of goods or services if you apply online yourself, plus £50 for each additional class. That’s it. No solicitor required, no hidden IPO charges. For the legal ownership of your brand name — the thing customers will remember you by — £170 is genuinely one of the best-value purchases in business.

But the headline fee is only part of the story. The real cost of trademarking includes the classes you need, the searches you should do first, and the expensive mistakes people make by filing badly. Let me walk you through all of it, because a rejected application still costs you the fee.

The Official Fees: What the IPO Charges

Applications go through the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO). Current fees:

• Online application, one class: £170
• Each additional class: £50
• Paper application, one class: £200 (don’t do this — apply online)
• Right Start application: £100 upfront, then £100 if your application passes examination (a cheaper way to test the waters, though you can’t oppose others’ marks during the process)

Most small businesses need one or two classes. A café selling coffee and branded merchandise might need Class 30 (coffee), Class 43 (café services) and Class 25 (clothing) — that’s £170 + £50 + £50 = £270. A purely online consultancy might need just one class. The official guide to registering a trade mark on GOV.UK explains the class system and links to the classification search tool.

Once registered, your trade mark lasts 10 years and can be renewed indefinitely. Renewal currently costs £200 for one class plus £50 per additional class. So the lifetime cost of protecting your brand name is a few hundred pounds per decade — less than most businesses spend on coffee in a month.

Choosing the Right Classes (Where Money Gets Wasted)

The Nice Classification system has 45 classes — 34 for goods, 11 for services. You only get protection in the classes you register, so choosing matters. But there’s a trap in both directions:

• Too few classes: you register for clothing but not for the retail services selling that clothing, leaving a gap a competitor could exploit.
• Too many classes: every extra class costs £50 and, worse, a registration can be challenged for non-use if you’re not actually trading in a class after five years. Registering “just in case” across ten classes wastes money and weakens your position.

My advice: register for what you do now plus what you have concrete plans to do within the next two to three years. You can always file new applications later as the business grows.

Do the Search Before You Pay

This is the step people skip, and it’s the most expensive mistake in trademarking. Before filing, search the IPO trade mark database for identical or similar marks in your classes. It’s free and takes twenty minutes. You’re looking not just for identical names but for anything confusingly similar — “Kwik Koffee” will have problems if “Quick Coffee” is registered for café services.

Also search Companies House, domain registries, and a general web search. A clear IPO search doesn’t help if someone’s been trading unregistered under the name for years — they may have “passing off” rights that could still cause you grief. If the search throws up anything close, that’s the moment to consider a different name or take professional advice, before you’ve paid the fee.