Trademark Fees and Costs: France, EU and International

How European trademark pricing works

Like USPTO fees, INPI and EUIPO official fees are charged per class of the Nice Classification (45 classes: 1–34 for goods, 35–45 for services). Unlike US practice, there is no fee tied to specimens or declarations of use — France and the EU are first-to-file systems with no proof-of-use requirement at filing or renewal, so the fee events are simpler: filing, renewal every 10 years, and adversarial procedures such as opposition.

Three ground rules on official fees:

• The figures below reflect the schedules in force since May 1, 2020. The offices can change them; the controlling numbers are always those of INPI and the EUIPO at the time of payment, and only a signed quote binds our firm.
• INPI official fees are not subject to VAT and are never refunded — including when an application is refused or withdrawn.
• Professional fees quoted below are “from” amounts, exclusive of taxes, and can be billed in EUR or USD.

Official INPI fees — French trademark

Filing

Item	Official fee
First class	€190
Each additional class	€40
Extension to French Polynesia	€60

Examples: 1 class = €190 · 2 classes = €230 · 3 classes = €270 · 10 classes = €550 · all 45 classes = €1,950.

A classification trap worth knowing: if goods or services are filed in the wrong class, INPI will transfer them to the correct class and demand an additional €40 per extra class to keep them. If the supplementary fee is not paid, those goods and services are deleted from the application — and the fees already paid are not refunded. Careful specification drafting is cheaper than the fix. See the full process at French trademark registration.

Renewal (every 10 years)

Item	Official fee
First class	€290
Each additional class	€40
Extension to French Polynesia	€60 (flat, regardless of classes)
Late renewal (6-month grace period)	+50% surcharge on INPI fees

Examples: 1 class = €290 · 3 classes = €370 · 5 classes = €450. A French mark may be renewed at the earliest 1 year before expiry; after expiry, a 6-month grace period applies with the 50% surcharge, and beyond it the mark is definitively lost. Renewing for French Polynesia may also require validating the mark there for the preceding period (official fee €23.10, in addition to the €60 for the next 10 years). Full mechanics at trademark renewal.

Opposition

Item	Official fee
Opposition on one ground (one earlier right)	€400
Opposition on two grounds	€550

Failure to pay makes the opposition inadmissible. Procedure and strategy: trademark opposition before INPI.

Official EUIPO fees — EU trademark

The EUIPO structure deliberately favors focused one- or two-class filings — the second class is cheap, the third and beyond are not.

Filing and renewal (same scale)

Item	Official fee
First class	€850
Second class	€50
Each class from the third	€150
Late renewal (6-month grace period)	+25% surcharge on EUIPO fees

Examples (filing or renewal): 1 class = €850 · 2 classes = €900 · 3 classes = €1,050 · 5 classes = €1,350 · 10 classes = €2,100.

An EUTM renewal may be filed at the earliest 6 months before expiry, and the renewal date runs from the filing date — not the registration, priority or seniority date. One filing covers all 27 member states: for what that buys strategically, see EU trademark registration.

Official WIPO fees — international (Madrid) registrations

Madrid fees do not fit a simple table. They are paid in Swiss francs (so the EUR/USD cost moves with exchange rates) and depend on: black-and-white versus color reproduction of the mark, the number of classes, the office of origin of the basic mark, and the number and identity of designated countries. WIPO publishes an official fee calculator, which we use when preparing estimates. Background on the system: the Madrid Protocol route.

Our firm’s fees

All amounts are exclusive of taxes, “from” pricing (complex cases quoted before work begins), billed in EUR or USD, with official fees additional.

Clearance searches

An identical-mark (knockout) screening search: written report plus a 10-minute oral debrief. It is a preliminary sweep designed to catch major risks — including a check of case law to spot aggressive prior-rights holders — not an exhaustive availability opinion.

Package	Firm fee
Identical search — 1 class	from €350
Identical search — 2 classes	from €450
Identical search — 3 classes	from €550

Broader similarity searches and risk assessments are quoted case by case.

Filing

Package	Firm fee
French (INPI) filing — 1 class	from €500
Identical search + French filing — 1 class	from €800

The filing package is not clerical: it includes advice on the distinctiveness and lawfulness of the sign, drafting of the goods and services around your actual and planned business, advice on the choice of applicant and on territorial scope (France, French Polynesia, EU), and delivery of the registration certificate. EUTM and Madrid filings are quoted on the same transparent basis.

Renewal

Package	Firm fee
French (INPI) renewal	from €550
EU (EUIPO) renewal	from €550
Late renewal during the grace period (INPI or EUIPO)	from €750

Includes advice on the scope of renewal (total or partial — dropping classes no longer used can be sensible), verification of owner information, filing, payment of the official fee (rebilled), monitoring through confirmation, and delivery of the renewal certificate. Ancillary recordals — for example recording a change of owner before renewal — are quoted separately.

Consultations

Format	Firm fee
15-minute call, within 24h, no preparation	from €90
30-minute call, within 24h, no preparation	from €160
30-minute call with 30 minutes of preparation, within 48h (questions and up to 30 pages of documents sent in advance; brief case-law check included where relevant)	from €300

Reading a European trademark budget: three practical points

1. The specification drives the official cost — and the risk. Every additional class is money at filing and again at each renewal. A 45-class French filing (€1,950) or its EUIPO equivalent (€7,350) is almost never the right answer; a specification built on real and planned use is both cheaper and stronger.

2. Cheap filings and expensive filings fail the same way. The official fee is identical whether the application is well designed or not. What varies is whether the registration is distinctive, correctly classified, and actually covers the business — the failure modes described in our French filing guide.

3. Budget for the contentious tail. A realistic multi-year budget includes a line for watching and the occasional opposition (INPI official fee: €400–550) — usually far cheaper than litigating against a mark that registered unopposed.

Want a precise figure instead of a range? Contact us for a free, itemized quote in EUR or USD.