What a Trademark Actually Costs in 2026 (and the Surcharges Nobody Mentions)
Ask the internet what a trademark costs and you'll get numbers from $35 to $2,000, most of them outdated, some of them from companies hoping you won't look too closely. Here's the current picture, in plain English, with the government's own numbers.
Start with the base fee. Since January 18, 2025, the USPTO charges a base application fee of $350 per class for a standard application. A class is a category of goods or services, and it's the unit everything is priced in. Candles are one class. Candle-making workshops are another. A candle brand that also sells branded apparel and teaches workshops could be looking at three classes, and every fee in this article multiplies accordingly. Deciding which classes you genuinely need is one of the quiet strategy calls in any filing: too few and parts of your business are unprotected, too many and you're paying to protect things you don't sell.
That $350 also assumes a clean, complete application, because the same fee rule added surcharges that catch do-it-yourself filers constantly:
$100 per class if your application is missing required information at filing, like dates of use or a required translation.
$200 per class if you write your own free-form description of your goods and services instead of selecting from the USPTO's preapproved ID Manual descriptions.
Another $200 for each extra 1,000 characters if that free-form description runs long.
Read those again and you'll see the design: the USPTO built its pricing to reward applications done carefully and to charge extra for applications done loosely. A founder who types a heartfelt free-form paragraph describing everything their business might ever sell can turn a $350 filing into $750 or more without ever understanding what triggered it.
Then there's the intent-to-use track, for people who file before they start selling, which is often the smart move for a launch. It carries its own meter: $150 per class to file the statement of use once you're in business, and $125 per class for each six-month extension you need while you get there.
Registration isn't the end of paying, either. Maintenance filings between the fifth and sixth year run $325 per class, and the combined ten-year renewal package is $650 per class. Skip them and the registration dies. I've written separately about those deadlines, because scammers build entire businesses around them.
Let's make it concrete with one honest example. A single-class application, filed carefully with ID Manual descriptions and complete information, pays the government $350. The same application with a custom description that runs long and a missing use date pays $350 plus $200 plus $200 plus $100, which is $850, for the identical legal result. Multiply by two or three classes and the careless version of the same trademark costs more than two thousand dollars in government fees alone. The surcharges aren't a penalty for being a small business. They're a penalty for guessing, and they're completely avoidable.
What about attorney fees on top? That's the part I can speak to directly, and the honest answer is that it varies with the name, the classes and the risk picture, which is exactly why I work on flat fees: you see the number up front, before you commit to anything. No meter running, no surprise invoice in month four.
Now the number nobody prints on a pricing page: the cost of filing wrong. The USPTO does not refund filing fees for refused applications. If your mark is refused because a confusingly similar one already exists, that money is gone, along with the months you waited in line. Add what you've spent on packaging, signage and content for a name you now can't own, and the arithmetic of "saving money" on the front end stops working fast. The most expensive trademark filings I see are the cheap ones that didn't hold.
If the total is making you wince, two thoughts from someone who talks founders through this weekly. First, you don't have to do everything at once. Classes can be sequenced, the core class now and expansion classes as the business grows into them, as long as the sequencing is a decision and not a default. Second, the cost spreads differently than you'd think: this is one of the few business expenses that buys an asset, something you'll still own, renew and possibly sell a decade from now, not a subscription that evaporates when you stop paying. I also offer payment plans, because cash flow timing shouldn't be the reason a brand goes unprotected.
That's why the real cost question isn't "what's the filing fee." It's "what does it cost to do this once, correctly." Knowing the name is available before you pay the government anything, choosing classes deliberately, and using descriptions that don't trigger surcharges or refusals: that's where the money is actually saved or lost.
I price this work as flat fees so you know the full number before we start, and my filing packages include the strategy decisions the surcharges punish people for guessing at. Details are at citrus.legal/services, and common questions are answered at citrus.legal/faqs. If you want to talk through what your situation would involve, book a free 15-minute discovery call at calendly.com/citruslegal/discovery-call. The free call is a get-to-know-you conversation, not legal advice.
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This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.