What does it cost to register a mark?
There is no fixed amount for a mark registration. The costs always consist of two parts: the official fee you pay directly to the BOIP or the EUIPO, and a service fee for guidance when filing. The total depends on the territory in which you seek protection, Benelux or the entire European Union, on the number of product classes you need, and on whether you choose guided assistance or work through everything yourself.
For most SMEs, the total, fee plus guidance combined, falls somewhere between a few hundred and somewhat more than one thousand euros, once only for ten years of protection. Which amount actually applies depends on your own situation; the current overview of fees and service fee gives you a direct indication of that.
The official fee: directly to the office
Every mark application costs a base amount that the BOIP or the EUIPO itself sets, regardless of which service provider may assist you. You pay this amount directly to the office, not to an intermediary. The BOIP applies a base fee for an application that applies in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg together; the EUIPO applies its own, higher base rate for a Union mark that applies in all Member States of the European Union. Both offices publish their current rates on their own website, and that is also the only source that counts: a service provider cannot add to or reduce that fee themselves, only add their own fee alongside it.
What the number of classes does to the price
The base fee typically covers one class from the Nice Classification, the system by which products and services are categorised. If you need protection for multiple types of activities, for example both installation work and an associated webshop, then there is a surcharge on top of the base fee for each additional class. How many classes you need is not only a cost question but also a substantive one: too few classes leave parts of your activity unprotected, too many classes cost money for protection you never use. Which classes suit your situation is determined on a case-by-case basis as part of the preparation, not something you have to figure out yourself.
The service fee for guided self-filing
In addition to the fee come the costs of guidance. marcai.eu works with guided self-filing: we carry out the conflict search against the public registers, determine the correct classes and prepare the application in detail, but you file it yourself via your own free account with the BOIP or the EUIPO. Because we do not act as a mark attorney, you do not pay an attorney rate but a one-off service fee per registration, which is separate from the official fee. Before that fee is paid, the free mark check already gives a first indication of whether registration of your name or logo has a chance of success.
The costs after registration: monitoring and renewal
The fee and the service fee are not the only moment when costs come into play. A registration is valid for ten years and must then be renewed, and in the meantime it is important to know whether another party is trying to register a similar mark, as you can only take action against that within the opposition period. For these two matters, marcai.eu works with a subscription: ongoing monitoring of new applications similar to your mark, and a notice well before the renewal date expires. That subscription is a recurring cost item in addition to the one-off fee and service fee, and its amount does not depend on the number of classes but on the number of marks you have monitored.
What the price does not cover
No conflict scan or quote is a guarantee that an application will be granted. The scan against the public registers provides an indication of the risk of collision with an existing mark, but the Office itself assesses the application, and in case of refusal or opposition, additional legal guidance is required. That is the moment when a file is transferred to a trademark representative, something that marcai.eu does not do itself. The costs stated above therefore relate to the application itself, not to any follow-up steps in case of a dispute.
Would you like to know how that guided self-filing works in practice and where the data comes from that is used for it? That is explained on the page about how it works. Would you first like to see without obligation whether your name or logo has a chance? Then do the free trademark check or browse the knowledge base for the rest of the process.