Trademark Registration Cost Philippines: Total IPOPHL Fees

Last materially reviewed: September 6, 2026

Direct Answer

There is no single flat price for a Philippine trademark. IPOPHL charges in stages, and the heaviest items are billed per class. On IPOPHL’s published schedule of trademark-related fees, read on 6 September 2026, a straightforward one-class filing costs PHP 1,200 for a small entity and PHP 2,592 for a big entity, but the government fees across a full ten-year cycle add up to roughly PHP 9,770 and PHP 19,032 respectively. Professional fees are extra.

Key Takeaways

• The filing fee is the smallest part of what a trademark actually costs to own.
• Filing, Declaration of Actual Use and renewal fees are all charged per class, so class count is the single biggest cost driver.
• IPOPHL charges small entities and big entities at different rates. A small entity is an applicant declaring assets of PHP 100 million or less.
• Two Declarations of Actual Use fall due inside the first ten years, before renewal is even in sight.
• Missing a Declaration of Actual Use removes the mark from the register, which converts every peso already spent into a sunk cost.
• Lawyer or agent fees are private commercial charges, not government fees, and no official schedule governs them.
• Fees change. Confirm the current figures on IPOPHL’s schedule before you pay anything.

Jump to: Total cost over ten years · Official fee components · Governing law · What each fee buys · Small vs big entity and multi-class · Worked scenarios · Documents to prepare · Step-by-step procedure · Realistic outcomes · Common mistakes · Budget worksheet · FAQs

Total Cost of Ownership: One Class, First Ten Years

Vendor pricing pages usually quote the filing fee and stop. That is not what a trademark costs. The table below assembles every government fee item a single-class application normally meets from filing through the first renewal, using the amounts published on IPOPHL’s schedule of trademark-related fees as read on 6 September 2026.

Stage	Fee item as published by IPOPHL	Small entity	Big entity
Filing	Filing fee (per class)	PHP 1,200.00	PHP 2,592.00
Allowance	Allowance / Publication for Opposition	PHP 900.00	PHP 960.00
Registration	Issuance of Certificate of Registration	PHP 570.00	PHP 1,200.00
Registration	Publication of Registration (2nd Publication)	PHP 900.00	PHP 960.00
Year 3 from filing	3rd year DAU (per class)	PHP 900.00	PHP 1,920.00
Year 5 from registration	5th year DAU (per class)	PHP 1,100.00	PHP 2,400.00
Year 10	Renewal (per class)	PHP 3,100.00	PHP 6,600.00
After renewal	DAU following renewal (per class)	PHP 1,100.00	PHP 2,400.00
Total government fees, one class	Total	PHP 9,770.00	PHP 19,032.00

Note on professional fees. Lawyer, trademark agent and filing-service charges are not official fees, are not fixed by IPOPHL, and are not included in the totals above. They are negotiated commercially and vary enormously with the work involved. Any figure you see quoted for professional fees is a market price, not a government rate, and this guide deliberately does not publish one.

Optional items not in the total. A convention priority claim costs PHP 860.00 per class for a small entity and PHP 1,800.00 for a big entity. A claim of colour or acquired distinctiveness costs PHP 280.00 per class for a small entity and PHP 600.00 for a big entity. A request for priority examination costs PHP 2,990.00 for a small entity and PHP 6,240.00 for a big entity. Add them only if your filing actually needs them.

Which Fees Are Charged Per Class, and Which Are Not

This distinction decides your budget. Read literally, IPOPHL’s schedule marks these trademark items per class: the filing fee, the convention priority claim, the colour or distinctiveness claim, the 3rd year DAU, the 5th year DAU, the renewal fee and the renewal surcharge. The certificate-issuance and publication line items appear on the schedule without a per-class qualifier.

Practical consequence: adding a class multiplies the big recurring items but does not necessarily multiply the publication and certificate items. Because assessment is made against your particular file, confirm the assessed amount in eTMFile before paying rather than assuming the arithmetic in any article, including this one.

Fee item	Charged per class?	Small entity	Big entity
Filing fee	Yes	PHP 1,200.00	PHP 2,592.00
Convention priority claim	Yes	PHP 860.00	PHP 1,800.00
Colour / distinctiveness claim	Yes	PHP 280.00	PHP 600.00
Priority examination request	Not marked per class	PHP 2,990.00	PHP 6,240.00
Extension of time to file a response	Not marked per class	PHP 340.00	PHP 720.00
Allowance / Publication for Opposition	Not marked per class	PHP 900.00	PHP 960.00
Issuance of Certificate of Registration	Not marked per class	PHP 570.00	PHP 1,200.00
Publication of Registration (2nd Publication)	Not marked per class	PHP 900.00	PHP 960.00
3rd year DAU	Yes	PHP 900.00	PHP 1,920.00
Single extension to file the 3rd year DAU	Not marked per class	PHP 1,800.00	PHP 3,840.00
5th year DAU	Yes	PHP 1,100.00	PHP 2,400.00
Renewal	Yes	PHP 3,100.00	PHP 6,600.00
Renewal surcharge	Yes	PHP 1,500.00	PHP 3,300.00
Recordal publication fee (registered marks)	Not marked per class	PHP 900.00	PHP 960.00

All amounts above are taken from IPOPHL’s schedule of trademark-related fees as published and read on 6 September 2026. IPOPHL revises its schedule from time to time and the schedule itself is the controlling document.

Governing Law and Authorities

Trademark rights in the Philippines are statutory and registration-based. Section 122 of Republic Act No. 8293, the Intellectual Property Code, provides: “The rights in a mark shall be acquired through registration made validly in accordance with the provisions of this law.” Paying the fees is therefore not a formality tax; it is the mechanism by which the right comes into existence.

Section 124.2 of the same Act is the reason maintenance fees exist. It requires the applicant to file a declaration of actual use of the mark with evidence to that effect within three years, failing which the application is refused or the mark removed from the register. That statutory duty is what IPOPHL implements through the DAU fee items in the table above.

The fee amounts themselves come from IPOPHL’s schedule of trademark-related fees, not from the statute. IPOPHL also confirms on its trademark pages that “the period of protection is ten (10) years from the date of registration and is renewable for a period of ten (10) years at a time”, which is what fixes the renewal item at the ten-year mark.

What this guide could not verify today, and therefore does not state. The public full text of RA 8293 on lawphil truncates partway through Section 132, so the provisions on renewal timing could not be reproduced from a primary source on 6 September 2026. This article accordingly quotes only the sections it could read in full and does not assert renewal windows, grace periods or opposition periods by section number. It also found no Legal Research Fund line item on the trademark fee schedule as read today, so no such charge is stated here. Confirm both directly with IPOPHL.

What Each Fee Actually Buys, Element by Element

The filing fee

This buys examination of one mark in one class. It does not buy a registration, and it is not refunded if the mark is refused. IPOPHL’s eTMFile guidance notes that the “date of payment is also considered as the filing date”, so the money and the priority position are tied together: an unpaid application is not a filed application.

The colour or distinctiveness claim

Charged only if you claim colour as a feature of the mark or claim acquired distinctiveness. It is optional, per class, and worth taking only where the colour genuinely forms part of the brand identity you intend to enforce.

The convention priority claim

Relevant when you are relying on an earlier foreign filing date. Priced per class, so a foreign applicant extending a multi-class home registration into the Philippines pays it repeatedly.

Allowance and publication for opposition

Once the examiner allows the mark it is published so third parties can oppose it. This is a real risk point, not a formality: if an opposition is filed, your costs move from a fixed schedule into contested proceedings. See trademark opposition in the Philippines.

Certificate issuance and second publication

Payable at the registration end of the process. These are the fees that convert an allowed application into a registered mark on the register.

The Declarations of Actual Use

Two of them fall inside the first ten years: one due within three years of the filing date and one due within one year of the fifth anniversary of registration. Both are per class. They are the most commonly forgotten cost in the entire lifecycle, and their consequence is terminal rather than financial. See trademark renewal and DAU deadlines.

Exceptions and Boundaries

Small entity versus big entity

IPOPHL’s eTMFile application includes a Declaration of Small Entity, which applicants with assets of PHP 100 million or less may claim. Everyone else pays the big-entity rate. Across a single-class ten-year cycle that declaration is worth roughly PHP 9,000 in avoided fees, which makes it the single highest-value checkbox in the whole application, and also the one you must be able to substantiate honestly.

Multi-class applications

The Philippines permits a single application to cover several classes, but the fee structure is not a bulk discount. Each class carries its own filing fee, its own DAU fees at year three and year five, and its own renewal fee. A class you cannot use is a class you will pay for four separate times and then lose anyway for non-use.

Priority claims

Convention priority is charged per class on top of the filing fee. Budget it separately if the Philippine filing is part of a wider international programme.

What happens on non-use

The cost consequence of non-use is not a fine. It is removal from the register under the Section 124.2 regime, which means the money already spent buys nothing and a competitor is free to file the mark. Cost planning for Philippine trademarks is therefore inseparable from use planning.

Worked Scenarios

The following are illustrative hypotheticals, not real cases, built only from the fee amounts published on IPOPHL’s schedule as read on 6 September 2026.

Scenario 1: a Quezon City coffee roaster, one class, small entity

A sole proprietor registers a word mark for her roasted coffee beans. She claims small-entity status, makes no colour or priority claim, meets no opposition, and files both DAUs on time. Her government fees across the first ten-year cycle come to PHP 9,770. The filing fee she budgeted for at the outset, PHP 1,200, was about 12 per cent of what she eventually paid the government.

Scenario 2: the same roaster, three classes

She decides to also cover a retail line and a cafe service line, taking her to three classes. Filing becomes PHP 3,600, the 3rd year DAU PHP 2,700, the 5th year DAU PHP 3,300, renewal PHP 9,300 and the post-renewal DAU PHP 3,300. Adding the allowance publication, certificate and second-publication items, her ten-year government cost is approximately PHP 24,570 — about two and a half times the single-class figure. If she never opens the cafe, she will have paid for that class four times over and will still lose it for non-use.

Scenario 3: a listed Philippine corporation, one class

A company well above the PHP 100 million asset threshold cannot claim small-entity status. The identical one-class filing costs it PHP 19,032 in government fees over the same cycle — roughly double, on exactly the same procedural path.

Scenario 4: the applicant who misses the 3rd year DAU

An applicant registers successfully, spends PHP 3,570 in filing, allowance, certificate and publication fees, then forgets the DAU due within three years of the filing date. The registration is removed from the register. The correct comparison is not PHP 900 saved but PHP 3,570 destroyed, plus the brand exposure of having no registered right.

Documentation to Prepare Before You Budget

• The exact mark: the word, the logo file, or the combination you intend to file, in final form.
• A written list of the goods and services you actually sell now, plus those you will genuinely launch within three years.
• Your entity’s total asset figure, so the small-entity declaration is made on a defensible basis.
• Proof-of-use material you can realistically produce at year three: labels, packaging, receipts, signage, screenshots of live listings.
• Any earlier foreign application details, if a convention priority claim is intended.
• A named person or calendar owner responsible for the DAU and renewal dates.

Step-by-Step: Costing and Paying Correctly

1. Search before you spend. A clearance search costs nothing in official fees and is the cheapest way to avoid paying for an application that will fail. See trademark search Philippines.
2. Fix the class count first. Class count drives almost every recurring fee. Work through how to choose the right trademark class before you open a fee calculator.
3. Read the live schedule. Open IPOPHL’s trademark-related fees page on the day you file and reconcile it against the tables above.
4. Decide your entity status honestly. Claim the Declaration of Small Entity in eTMFile only if assets are PHP 100 million or less.
5. File through eTMFile and pay. Follow IPOPHL’s how to apply guidance. Payment sets the filing date, so pay promptly.
6. Reserve the allowance-stage money now. Do not treat the publication and certificate fees as a future problem; set them aside at filing.
7. Calendar the two DAUs immediately. Three years from the filing date, and one year from the fifth anniversary of registration, per IPOPHL’s maintenance schedule.
8. Reconfirm every figure before each payment. A fee schedule read in 2026 is not authority for a payment made in 2031.

Consequences and Realistic Outcomes

A well-planned single-class small-entity filing is genuinely affordable: under PHP 10,000 in government fees spread over a decade. That is the honest headline, and it is far lower than the impression created by pages quoting only agency packages.

The realistic downside is equally clear. Fees are non-refundable, the process can be interrupted by an office action or an opposition that adds unbudgeted cost, and a missed Declaration of Actual Use ends the registration outright regardless of how much has been paid. Registration also does not guarantee freedom to use a mark or an easy enforcement path; see trademark infringement in the Philippines.

What registration will not do is settle every branding question. A DTI business name is a different instrument with different costs and effects, explained in DTI business name versus trademark.

Common Costing Mistakes

• Budgeting only the filing fee. It is roughly an eighth of the ten-year government cost for a small entity.
• Ignoring the two DAUs. They arrive long after the excitement of registration and are the most common cause of avoidable loss.
• Adding classes speculatively. Every extra class is paid for at filing, at year three, at year five and at renewal.
• Claiming small-entity status without checking assets. The saving is real but the declaration must be accurate.
• Treating an agent’s package price as the government fee. They are different things, and only one of them is published by IPOPHL.
• Relying on a fee figure copied from a blog. Including this one, once the schedule changes.
• Forgetting that examination can cost money. An extension of time to file a response is a chargeable item.

Practical Tool: Ten-Year Trademark Budget Worksheet

Copy the lines below and fill in your own figures using the live IPOPHL schedule on the day you file.

• Number of classes: ______
• Entity status (small entity if assets are PHP 100 million or less): ______
• Filing fee: per-class rate × number of classes = ______
• Colour or distinctiveness claim, if any: per-class rate × classes = ______
• Convention priority claim, if any: per-class rate × classes = ______
• Allowance / publication for opposition: ______
• Certificate of registration issuance: ______
• Publication of registration (2nd publication): ______
• 3rd year DAU: per-class rate × classes = ______
• 5th year DAU: per-class rate × classes = ______
• Renewal at year 10: per-class rate × classes = ______
• DAU following renewal: per-class rate × classes = ______
• Subtotal, government fees: ______
• Professional or agent fees, if engaged (quoted separately, not an official fee): ______
• Contingency for office actions, extensions or opposition: ______
• Ten-year total: ______

Frequently Asked Questions

Is PHP 1,200 the total cost of a Philippine trademark?

No. It is the small-entity filing fee for one class on IPOPHL’s schedule as read on 6 September 2026. The ten-year government total for that same one-class filing is about PHP 9,770.

Why do big entities pay so much more?

IPOPHL publishes two columns of rates. An applicant declaring assets above PHP 100 million pays the big-entity rate, which is roughly double across the lifecycle.

Does a logo cost more to register than a word?

The published filing fee does not distinguish between mark types. Cost differences come from the number of classes and from optional claims such as colour. See registering a logo as a trademark.

How much do lawyers charge?

There is no official figure and this guide will not invent one. Professional fees are commercial and vary with scope. Ask for a written scope covering search, filing, office-action responses and DAU reminders, and compare like with like.

Can I get a refund if my application is refused?

Government fees pay for the process, not the outcome. Budget on the basis that money paid is money spent, which is exactly why a clearance search first is good economics.

How long does all this take?

Timing is a separate question from cost. See the Philippine trademark registration timeline.

Related Cybercode Guides

• Trademark Classes Philippines: choosing the right class
• Trademark Renewal Philippines: DAU and renewal deadlines
• Trademark Registration Philippines
• How to Register a Trademark in the Philippines
• Trademark Search Philippines
• Trademark Registration Timeline Philippines
• DTI Business Name vs Trademark
• Trademark Opposition Philippines
• Trademark a Logo in the Philippines
• Trademark Infringement Philippines

Official Sources

• IPOPHL — Schedule of Fees: Trademark-Related Fees (all fee amounts in this article, read 6 September 2026)
• IPOPHL — How to Apply for Trademark Registration (eTMFile, small-entity declaration, payment and filing date)
• IPOPHL — Trademark Maintenance (Declaration of Actual Use schedule)
• IPOPHL — Trademark (ten-year term, renewable ten years at a time)
• Republic Act No. 8293 — Intellectual Property Code (Sections 122 and 124.2 as read on lawphil)
• IPOPHL — Intellectual Property Code and Implementing Rules and Regulations

Disclaimer

Important: This article provides general educational information about Philippine law, regulation, cybersecurity, technology, or business compliance. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws, agency procedures, technical standards, platform rules, and the facts of each situation may change the result. Verify current requirements through the cited official sources and seek qualified professional advice when your rights, deadlines, money, safety, or legal exposure may be affected.