How to register a trademark: the procedure, official costs, and when it's worth it

The official fee for registering an Italian trademark is 101 euros for one class of goods or services, plus 34 euros for each extra class. For an EU trademark, the base fee jumps to 850 euros. But the cost isn't the first thing to understand: the timing is, because a trademark isn't the same thing as a domain or a VAT number, and nobody checks on your behalf whether the name you picked already belongs to someone else.

What a trademark is, and what it doesn't replace

A registered trademark gives you an exclusive right to use a name, logo, or sign to sell products or services in a given category (a "class"). That's different from:

• a domain name, an address on the internet that anyone can buy if it's free, which gives no right over the name as a trademark
• a company name or VAT number, which identify a tax subject, not a product or service on the market

You can have a website and an active VAT number for years under a name that, from a trademark standpoint, stays free for anyone else to file first, even in a different sector if the class is different. That's why, when choosing a business name, it's worth checking its availability as a trademark from the start, not just as a domain: I've written about this in more detail in how to choose the right domain name.

How to register in Italy, and what it actually costs

A national trademark is filed with the UIBM, the Italian Patent and Trademark Office, online through its dedicated portal or at a Chamber of Commerce. The official costs, according to the pages of the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy checked on 22 August 2026, are:

• 101 euros in registration fee, covering the first class
• 34 euros for each extra class
• a stamp duty for online filing that the Ministry's two official pages list at two different figures (42 or 48 euros): it applies in multiples of 16 euros up to a maximum of 80, and depends on how many pages the completed form runs to, so the exact amount only shows up at the time of filing on the portal

For someone filing alone, online, for a single class, the total stays in a range of just over 140-150 euros. That's a filing cost, not a guarantee of registration: the UIBM only examines the trademark's formal requirements (that it isn't deceptive, that it's sufficiently distinctive), not whether an identical or similar trademark already exists. That check is up to the applicant beforehand, and up to earlier trademark holders afterward: they have three months from publication to file an opposition, a strict deadline set by Article 176 of the Industrial Property Code.

Once granted, the registration lasts 10 years from filing and can be renewed indefinitely, 10 years at a time: a renewal request can be filed starting 12 months before expiry, with a further 6-month grace period afterward, subject to a late fee.

Extending the trademark abroad: the EU trademark

Anyone selling, or planning to sell, outside Italy can file an EU trademark through the EUIPO, valid across every member state with a single application. The official fees for an online filing, checked on 22 August 2026, are:

• 850 euros for the first class
• 50 euros for the second
• 150 euros for each class from the third onward

Paper filing costs more on every item, which is why almost everyone files online. Here too the registration lasts 10 years and can be renewed indefinitely, but the renewal window differs from the Italian one: you can apply starting 6 months before expiry (not 12), with the same 6-month grace period afterward subject to a surcharge. Anyone who has already filed an Italian trademark has six months from that first application to extend it at EU level while keeping the same priority date, instead of losing the priority already gained.

Why it's worth doing before you build the site, not after

Neither the UIBM nor the EUIPO automatically checks whether the name you've chosen for your business is free: that check, called a prior-art search, is on the applicant. The time to do it is before you invest in a website, a logo, printed materials, and Google rankings under that name, not after. If another business already holds the same name as a trademark in your category, it can oppose your filing, or worse, act against you if its trademark has been registered for a while: at that point the cost is no longer the filing fee, but the time and money already sunk into a brand you might have to change.

If you're about to launch a site under a new name, it's worth checking the UIBM trademark database before fixing that name everywhere online. Once you've settled on a name that's actually free, the next step is building a solid web presence on top of it: I cover that in website services. If you already have a site and want to know whether and how to protect the name you're using, get in touch: a couple of lines about your situation are enough to work out where to start.