How Much Does It Cost to Trademark a Business Name in 2026?
The headline number is easy: $350 per class. That is the base fee the United States Patent and Trademark Office charges to examine a trademark application in 2026. The reason people get an unpleasant surprise is that almost nothing about a real filing stops at the base fee — and the costs that hurt most arrive years after the application is approved.
This guide sets out what each stage actually costs, which surcharges are avoidable, and the one misunderstanding that regularly costs businesses their brand name entirely.
The mistake that costs the most: an LLC is not a trademark
Registering a company or a DBA with your Secretary of State reserves the name in that state's business register. That is all it does. It does not stop a business in another state — or in the same state, in a different industry — from using the same name, and it gives you no federal rights to enforce.
Plenty of owners discover this only after two years of trading, a website, printed material and a customer base built on the name. At that point the choice is an expensive dispute or a rebrand. Both cost far more than $350. If the name matters to your business, the state registration and the trademark are two separate jobs.
The base fee, and the surcharges that inflate it
On 18 January 2025 the USPTO scrapped the old two-tier TEAS Plus / TEAS Standard structure and replaced it with a single base application fee filed through the Trademark Center. The current structure is one base fee plus surcharges for anything that makes the examiner's job harder:
| Item | Fee (per class) |
|---|---|
| Base application fee | $350 |
| Surcharge — required information missing | +$100 |
| Surcharge — custom (free-form) description of goods or services | +$200 |
| Surcharge — each additional 1,000 characters of description | +$200 |
Two things follow from that table. First, fees are charged per class, not per application. If you sell software and also run training workshops, that is two classes and two base fees. Second, the surcharges are largely self-inflicted: writing your own description of goods and services instead of picking pre-approved wording from the USPTO's ID Manual turns a $350 class into a $550 one. A long, custom description can push a single class past $650.
One more rule worth knowing before you file: you cannot add a class to an application once it is pending. If you leave one out to save money, the only way back is a second application at full price.
What professional help costs
There are three realistic routes, and the right one depends on how contested your name is likely to be.
Filing it yourself
$350–$500 for a single class. Viable if your mark is distinctive, you have checked the register properly, and your goods and services map cleanly onto the ID Manual. You carry the risk of a refusal, and the fee is not refundable.
Using a filing service
Typically $99–$399 on top of the government fee. You are buying form-filling and deadline tracking, not legal judgement. Useful for a straightforward mark; no help at all if the application is refused.
Using a trademark attorney
Professional fees commonly run $400–$1,200 for a single-class application, putting the realistic out-of-pocket total at roughly $750–$1,750. A separate clearance search — checking whether anything conflicting already exists — usually costs $300–$800 and is the part most worth paying for, because it is the cheapest point at which to discover a problem.
One rule is not optional: applicants domiciled outside the United States must be represented by a licensed US attorney. If your business is based in the UK, Pakistan, Australia or anywhere else outside the US, budget for that from the start.
The refusal risk nobody budgets for
Roughly a third of applications receive an office action — a formal objection from the examining attorney, most often because the mark is too descriptive or is considered confusingly similar to an existing registration. Responding costs $300–$1,500 in professional fees depending on how substantive the objection is.
The important detail: USPTO fees are not refundable. If your application is refused, the $350 is gone. This is precisely why a clearance search before filing is a better use of money than a cheap filing followed by an expensive argument.
The costs that arrive years later
A registration is not permanent unless you maintain it, and the maintenance fees rose in the 2025 restructure:
| Filing | When | Fee (per class) |
|---|---|---|
| Section 8 declaration of continued use | Between years 5 and 6 | $325 |
| Combined Section 8 & 9 renewal | Between years 9 and 10, then every 10 years | $650 |
| Grace-period surcharge | Within 6 months of the deadline | +$100 per section |
| Section 15 declaration (optional) | After 5 years of continuous use | $250 |
The Section 15 declaration is optional but often worth it: it makes the registration incontestable, which significantly narrows the grounds on which someone can later challenge it.
What catches businesses out is that the USPTO does not send reminders. Miss the window and the grace period, and the registration is cancelled — you start again from scratch, at full price, with no guarantee the name is still available. Put the dates in a calendar the day the certificate arrives.
State trademarks: cheap, and much smaller
State trademark registration costs somewhere between $15 and $125 depending on the state. It is genuinely inexpensive, and genuinely limited: protection stops at the state line. It can make sense for a single-location business with no plans to expand or sell online. For anyone trading nationally or on the internet, it is not a substitute for federal registration — and it is not the same thing as an LLC registration either.
A realistic budget
- Lean, one class, self-filed: $350–$500.
- Typical, one class, with a search and professional support: $750–$1,750.
- Two classes with attorney support: add roughly $350–$700 in government fees plus additional professional fees.
- Years 5–6: $325 per class, plus $250 per class if you file Section 15.
- Year 10 and every decade after: $650 per class.
Set against the cost of rebranding an established business, those numbers are modest. The expensive path is almost always the one where nobody checked.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to trademark a business name in the USA?
The USPTO base filing fee is $350 per class of goods or services in 2026. A clean single-class application filed without professional help therefore costs $350. Most businesses spend more once surcharges, a clearance search or an attorney are involved, with a typical single-class total landing somewhere between $750 and $1,750.
Is registering an LLC or a DBA the same as trademarking a name?
No. Registering a company or a DBA with a state only reserves the name in that state's business register. It does not stop another business from using the same name, and it gives you no federal trademark rights. This is the most expensive misunderstanding in the whole process, because businesses often discover it only after building a brand around the name.
Do I need an attorney to file a US trademark?
US-domiciled applicants may file without one. Applicants domiciled outside the United States are required by USPTO rule to be represented by a licensed US attorney. Even when it is optional, an attorney is worth the cost if your mark is descriptive, close to an existing registration, or already facing an objection.
What does it cost to keep a trademark registered?
A Section 8 declaration of continued use is due between the fifth and sixth year at $325 per class. At the ten-year mark a combined Section 8 and Section 9 renewal costs $650 per class, and it repeats every ten years. Filing in the six-month grace period adds $100 per class per section. The USPTO does not send reminders, and missing a deadline cancels the registration.
Where Zenesa Tech fits
Zenesa Tech is not a law firm and this article is general information, not legal advice. What we do is the preparation work around a filing: checking the register for obvious conflicts, getting your goods and services described in ID Manual language so you are not paying surcharges, preparing specimens, and keeping track of the deadlines that arrive years later. Our trademark services page explains how that works in practice. If your mark is contested or you receive a substantive office action, you need a licensed trademark attorney, and we will tell you so rather than take the work.
Most of the businesses we file for are also naming themselves for the first time, which is the right moment to think about whether the name and the logo and brand identity are distinctive enough to protect at all — a descriptive name is cheaper to register and much harder to defend. If you are budgeting a whole launch, our guide to what a business website really costs covers the other half of the bill, and our pricing page sets out our design and marketing packages.
For a figure specific to your mark — how many classes you actually need, and what the search will involve — tell us the name and what you sell and we will come back with a straight answer.
