Intellectual Property
How Much Does a Trademark Cost in Australia?
The short answer
You pay $250 per class in government fees to file a trademark in Australia, using a standard application lodged online with IP Australia's pick-list wording. TM Headstart costs $330 per class. Renewal costs $400 per class and falls due every ten years.
How many classes your business needs changes what you pay, because each class is another $250. So does whether the examiner accepts your application or issues an adverse report against it.
An adverse report is not a refusal, and IP Australia charges you nothing to answer one, so what an objection costs you is legal fees rather than government fees. You can answer with a written submission, which argues that the examiner reached the wrong conclusion on the material already on file, and we charge $1,500 plus GST for that. Or you answer with an evidence of use case, which proves how you have actually used the mark in trade, and we charge $5,000 to $7,000 plus GST. The section of the Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth) that the examiner cites decides which of the two is available to you.
IP Australia fees for filing a trademark application
You pay IP Australia twice in ten years. You pay when you file, and you pay again when you renew a decade later. Between those two payments IP Australia charges you nothing, including when it examines your application and when you answer an examination report.
A standard application lodged online, using IP Australia's pick-list wording, costs $250 per class. Three things change what you actually pay: how many classes you need, how you describe your goods and services, and how many versions of the mark you want covered.
Trademark application fees per class
The Trade Marks Regulations 1995 (Cth) set these fees. You pay them per class of goods or services, at the point you file, and they are GST-free.
| Your choice at filing | Fee per class |
|---|---|
| Standard application, lodged online, pick-list wording | $250 |
| You describe your goods and services in your own words | +$150$400 |
| You cover several versions of one mark in a single filing | +$150$400 |
| You lodge the application by post | +$200$450 |
| You add a class after the application is filed | +$200$450 |
| Several versions, described in your own words | +$300$550 |
| Several versions, lodged by post | +$350$600 |
| Several versions, class added after filing | +$350$600 |
How many trademark classes your business needs
Each class costs you another $250, so the number of classes changes your total more than any of the choices in the table above. Most trading businesses need one to three. To work out how many you need, list what the business sells and what it does for customers, then find the class that covers each one.
A café that roasts and sells its own beans is a common example.
| What the business does | Class and fee |
|---|---|
| Sells roasted coffee beans | Class 30, $250 |
| Runs the café itself | Class 43, $250 |
| Sells branded t-shirts and caps | Class 25, $250 |
| Filing fee, three classes | $750 |
Common pitfall
The class we most often see missed is 35
Class 35 covers retail and wholesale services, which is what you are providing as soon as you stock other people's products alongside your own. If our café also sells someone else's chocolate or another roaster's beans, it is running a retail service and needs class 35 as well.
Register class 30 for the coffee and nothing else, and your beans are protected while the retail side of the business is not. A competitor could open a store under a similar name and you would have nothing registered to stop them.
Filing broadly to cover everything the business might do later costs you money in two ways. You pay $250 for each class now, and three years after registration a third party can apply to remove any goods and services you have never actually sold. You would then lose the coverage you paid for, and you would have paid to defend it. Class selection is set out in full on classes of trademarks.
The choices that change what each class costs you
Once you know how many classes you need, four choices decide what each one costs.
You write your own wording
IP Australia's pick-list holds more than 60,000 pre-approved descriptions of goods and services. If you take your terms from that list, classification clears automatically and your class stays at $250. Writing your own description gives you more precision, but the examiner can still object that you have not defined the goods or services clearly enough.
You file a series application
A series application covers several closely related versions of one mark in a single filing, such as the same word with and without a device. Your variants have to satisfy the statutory requirements for a series. If they do not, the examiner objects and you have paid the premium for nothing.
You lodge by post
IP Australia examines a posted application in exactly the same way as an online one, and it takes longer to reach an examiner. You get nothing for the extra $200 per class.
You add a class after filing
You cannot broaden an application once you have lodged it. In the limited circumstances where IP Australia will let you add a class, it charges $450 for that class rather than $250, so settling your class list before you file saves you $200 for every class you would otherwise add later.
Trademark cost for a business name, a logo, or both
Your name and your logo are two separate applications, and IP Australia charges you per class for each. Protecting both across two classes costs you $1,000 in government fees rather than $500. If your budget only covers one, file the word mark for your name first, because you can redesign the logo later without losing your protection.
File this first
Word mark, your name
Protects the name in any styling. If you redesign the logo in three years, the registration still covers you.
Add when budget allows
Device mark, your logo
Protects only the design as you filed it. File this one first only if customers recognise your logo more readily than your name.
Does IP Australia discount multiple trademark classes?
No. IP Australia charges you per class whether those classes sit in one application or in several, so three classes cost you $750 either way. There is no bundle, package or volume rate at any number of classes.
A multi-class application saves you administration rather than money. You get one application number, one examination and one renewal date to diarise instead of three of each, which is worth having over a ten-year cycle. The only two choices that reduce what you pay are taking your wording from the pick-list, which saves you $150 per class, and lodging online, which saves you $200 per class.
What the $250 per class application fee covers
Your application fee carries the mark through to registration. IP Australia's schedule sets no separate registration fee, so if your application passes examination without objection you pay $250 for one class and nothing further for ten years.
Covered by your $250
- Filing the application
- Examination by IP Australia
- Advertisement of the accepted mark
- Registration itself
Not covered
- A clearance search before you file
- Responding to an examination report
- Defending an opposition
- Renewal at year ten
Those four items are where trademark costs go beyond the filing fee, and each of them is priced further down this page. If you need copies of documents from a trademark file, IP Australia charges $50 per document for one to three documents from the same file, $200 for four or more, and $20 per request to send them by expedited post.
To work out which classes cover your business before you file, see classes of trademarks, or speak with a trademark lawyer at Lazarus Legal.
TM Headstart fees compared with a standard application
TM Headstart is IP Australia's pre-application service. You submit your mark, an examiner reviews it and tells you whether it is likely to face an objection, and you decide whether to convert the request into a full application. You get that assessment before your acceptance period starts running, and you pay for it in two instalments rather than one.
Standard pick-list application
$250 per class
TM Headstart
$330 per class
TM Headstart fees per class
| Step | Fee per class |
|---|---|
| Step 1, request the assessment | $200 |
| Step 2, amend the applicationoptional | $150 |
| Step 2, add a new classoptional | $200 |
| Step 3, convert to a standard application | $130 |
| Least you can spend, no amendments | $330 |
When TM Headstart is worth $330 per class instead of $250
For $80 more per class, an examiner tells you whether your mark is likely to be objected to before your fifteen-month acceptance period starts. If that assessment is adverse, you can stop at Step 1 having spent $200. If you had filed a standard application instead, you would have spent $250 and be holding an application with an objection on it and fifteen months to resolve it.
Compare that $80 with the $1,500 to $7,000 you would pay to answer an examination report. TM Headstart is worth paying for if a search has already turned up a similar earlier mark, or if part of your mark describes what you sell, because both of those make an objection more likely.
What a TM Headstart assessment does not cover
The examiner reviews the mark you submitted. The examiner does not check whether you have chosen the right classes for your business, and does not check whether your description of goods and services covers everything you sell.
Common pitfall
A favourable assessment on an incomplete application
Take the café from the previous section. If it submits a TM Headstart request covering class 30 for its coffee and leaves out class 35 for its retail sales, the examiner will report that the mark is fine, and the examiner is correct: the mark is fine for coffee.
The café has paid $330 and has an assessment that says nothing about the half of the business it did not claim. Adding class 35 afterwards means a fresh application at $250, examined separately, with a later priority date than the class 30 registration.
When a standard $250 application is better than TM Headstart
If you amend your application at Step 2, TM Headstart stops being good value. An amendment costs $150 per class, which takes a single-class TM Headstart to $480 against $250 for a standard application. A clearance search before you file would have told you the same thing the amendment is correcting, and would have told you before you spent anything with IP Australia.
Important
TM Headstart runs on five-day deadlines
You get five days to amend after the examiner's feedback and five days to formalise the application. Those five days run from the date on the report, not from the day you open it, and your application lapses automatically if you miss either deadline.
If your mark is an invented word, your classes are unambiguous and a search has turned up nothing similar, file a standard application at $250. IP Australia examines it against the same requirements either way, so the extra $80 buys you a second opinion on a question you have already answered.
To work out which route suits your mark, speak with a trademark lawyer at Lazarus Legal, or start with a trademark search.
What a solicitor charges to file a trademark
You pay IP Australia the same $250 per class whether you lodge the application yourself or we lodge it for you. What you are paying a solicitor for is the work done beforehand, and whether you need that work depends on what your mark is and on what is already registered over similar goods and services.
When self-filing a trademark for $250 is the right decision
If your mark is an invented word, one class plainly covers what you sell, the pick-list already describes every item, and you have searched the register and found nothing similar, lodge the application yourself for $250. You have already done the three things we would charge you for: you know your class, the pick-list has given you your wording, and you have checked the register.
To decide whether you should file it yourself or use a solicitor, check whether any of the following three things is true of your mark or your business.
Your mark describes what you sell
If part of your mark tells a customer what the product is rather than who makes it, the examiner will usually object under section 41. You then answer with written submissions, which we charge $1,500 for, or with an evidence of use case, which we charge $5,000 to $7,000 for. Which one you can use depends on the limb of section 41 the examiner has applied.
A similar mark already sits on the register
Section 44 blocks a mark that is substantially identical or deceptively similar to an earlier mark over similar or closely related goods and services. You will not find those marks by checking business names or domains, because a trademark can be registered by someone who trades under a different name entirely. You have to search the register itself.
Your business spans several classes
If something you sell has no obvious pick-list description, or if your goods and your services fall on opposite sides of the classification, you can end up with a classification objection or with part of the business left uncovered. IP Australia examines what you claimed, not what you left out, so an examiner will never tell you that a class is missing.
If none of those three things is true, lodging the application yourself for $250 is the right decision. If one or more is true, compare our fee not against $250 but against $250 plus the $1,500 to $7,000 you will pay to answer the examination report.
What a solicitor's trademark filing fee covers
Before we lodge anything, we do three things.
We search the register, including adjacent classes
IP Australia does not decide whether two marks conflict by looking at the class number, because closely related goods and services can clash across class boundaries. If you search only the class you intend to file in, you will miss those conflicts, and moving your application into a neighbouring class will not get you past an earlier similar mark.
We draft your specification
Your description of goods and services needs to be broad enough to cover what you do and narrow enough to survive examination now and a non-use application three years after registration. Those two requirements work against each other, so we settle the wording by going through what you actually sell rather than copying a competitor's registration.
We work out which of the 45 classes you occupy
If you search the pick-list for a plain-English term you will get descriptions from several different classes, and only some of them will be yours. To tell them apart you have to go through the business activity by activity, rather than picking whichever descriptions the search happened to return.
Filing it yourself
Costs$250 per class, plus the risk that an objection you could not see costs $1,500 to $7,000 to answer or forces you to change the name.
SuitsAn invented word, one obvious class, pick-list wording available, nothing similar on the register.
Filing through a solicitor
CostsA fixed fee agreed before work starts, plus IP Australia's $250 per class passed through at cost.
SuitsA mark that describes what you sell, several similar marks already on the register, or a business selling across several classes.
How Lazarus Legal charges for trademark filings
We charge a fixed fee for trademark filings, and we agree the scope and the price with you before we start. We pass IP Australia's fees through at cost as a disbursement and add nothing to them, so the $250 per class on the published schedule is the $250 that appears on your invoice.
That fixed fee covers the search, the class mapping and the drafted specification, and we quote it once we know what you sell and how many classes that covers. If something falls outside the agreed scope we charge for it hourly, at a blended rate of approximately $550 plus GST per hour. You can see how we structure fees across all of our work on how much do lawyers charge.
Important
A clearance search is only useful before you file
Once you have lodged the application, a search will still tell you what else is registered, but it cannot change what you have already claimed. You are left with three options: narrow the specification by amendment, answer the examiner, or file again with a new priority date. All three cost you more than the search would have.
For the scope of a search and what it can and cannot prove, see our guide to a trademark search in Australia, or speak with a trademark lawyer at Lazarus Legal.
Meet Your Trademark Lawyers
CEO, Notary Public
With over 50 years in law, Barry advises businesses on trade mark protection, franchising, mergers and acquisitions, and business structuring.
Director, Principal Solicitor
Admitted in NSW and England and Wales, Mark brings hands-on global IP experience from his time as Legal Counsel and Legal Director for Monster Energy across EMEA.
Associate Lawyer
Chen’s background spans legal practice, fund management, and compliance, bringing a sharp commercial perspective to IP and trademark matters.
- Launching a new brand?
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- (02) 8644 6000
- info@lazaruslegal.com.au
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Frequently asked questions
Can I do a trademark search myself?
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Principal Solicitor, Director, Lazarus Legal
Mark Lazarus is a Director at Lazarus Legal, admitted to practise in New South Wales and England and Wales. As former Legal Counsel and Legal Director at Monster Energy across the EMEA region, where brand protection and enforcement were central to his work, he brings practical, commercial IP experience to trademark clearance, registration and disputes. He has advised over 2,000 Australian founders and supported more than 500 trademark registrations.
Page Published: 26 June 2026 | Updated: 26 June 2026