Almost every founder who walks into our Delhi practice opens with the same question: "What will this trademark cost me?" The honest answer is that the number on the government's fee schedule is only half the story. A trademark filing in Delhi has two distinct cost heads — the statutory fee the Registrar of Trade Marks charges, and the professional fee an attorney charges to do the work correctly. Get the first wrong and you overpay the government; get the second wrong and you underpay for the work that actually keeps your application alive. This guide separates the two, prices out the whole lifecycle, and works a real two-class example so a Karol Bagh or Nehru Place business owner can budget honestly for trademark registration in 2026.
The government fee: ₹4,500 or ₹9,000 per class
Under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, filing a fresh application on Form TM-A through the online IP India portal carries one of two statutory fees, and which one you pay depends entirely on who the applicant is:
- ₹4,500 per class — for an individual, a startup recognised by DPIIT, or a small enterprise (MSME) filing electronically. This is the concessional rate.
- ₹9,000 per class — for everyone else: private limited companies, LLPs, partnerships and larger entities that do not qualify for the concession, again on e-filing.
Physical filing at the counter costs 10% more, so nobody in Delhi should be filing on paper — the Delhi Trade Marks Registry at Boudhik Sampada Bhawan, Plot No. 32, Sector 14, Dwarka accepts everything online anyway. The concessional half-rate is the single biggest lever most applicants can pull, and it turns on documentary proof. We walk clients through the Udyam and Startup-India concession in detail, but the short version is: a valid Udyam Registration Certificate or a DPIIT recognition number, filed with the application, halves your government fee per class.
The ₹4,500 concession is not a discount you ask for later. It is a document you attach at filing — or lose.
Why "per class" is the phrase that decides your bill
The fee is charged per class, not per application. The NICE classification divides all goods and services into 45 classes, and your government fee multiplies by the number of classes you file in. A single-class filing costs ₹4,500 (concessional); the same brand across three classes costs ₹13,500. This is why class selection is a budgeting decision, not just a legal one — file in a class you did not need and you have overpaid ₹4,500 for nothing; skip a class you did need and a competitor can register it against you. Before you sign off on a quote, run your goods and services through our trademark class finder, and if you are unsure how many classes your business really touches, our class guide for Delhi businesses works through the common sectors.
Professional fees: what you are actually paying for
Professional or attorney fees are separate from the government fee and vary widely across Delhi — from a few thousand rupees at a form-filling shop to a proper practitioner engagement. The gap reflects what is included. A competent professional fee covers:
- A comprehensive trademark search before filing, to catch conflicting marks under sections 9 and 11 before you spend on a doomed application
- Correct class selection and a precise specification of goods/services
- Drafting and filing Form TM-A with the applicant details, logo and priority claims correct on the first attempt
- The TM-48 Power of Attorney authorising the attorney to act
- Docketing and monitoring the application through the 18–24 month journey to registration, including watching the Trade Marks Journal
The cheapest quote in Bhagirath Palace or Gandhi Nagar is usually cheapest because it skips the search and files whatever you dictate. That saves money on day one and costs it on day 400 when an examination report lands. Our free trademark cost calculator lets you model government plus professional fees across your class count before you commit.
The cost lines most quotes leave out
A trademark is a lifecycle, not a transaction, and the fees that appear later are where budgets get blown. Plan for these before they arrive:
Objection / examination reply
If the Registrar raises objections under section 9 or 11, you must file a written reply — and often attend a hearing. This is separate professional work with its own fee. A well-searched application reduces the odds, but roughly a large share of applications draw an examination report. We handle these under our objection reply practice, and for a Delhi-specific walk-through of what examiners at Dwarka tend to raise, see our note on replying to objections in Delhi.
Opposition
Once your mark is advertised in the Trade Marks Journal, any third party has four months to oppose it by filing Form TM-O. Defending an opposition is a full adversarial proceeding — notice, counter-statement, evidence, hearing — and is priced accordingly. Our opposition team defends these; the mechanics for NCR filers are covered in our opposition filing guide for Delhi.
Renewal
A registered trademark lasts ten years and is then renewed on Form TM-R, indefinitely, in ten-year cycles. The government renewal fee is a recurring line item you should factor into any long-term brand budget. Our renewal service and the ten-year cycle explainer cover the deadlines and the grace-period surcharge you want to avoid.
Assignment and licensing
If you later sell the brand or license it to a franchisee, transferring the mark on Form TM-P (assignment) or documenting a licence carries its own government and professional fees. These are not filing costs, but they are trademark costs, and a growing Delhi business will meet them.
Hidden costs founders forget
- Multiple marks. A logo and a wordmark are two separate applications with two separate fees. Whether you need both is a real decision — our logo vs wordmark piece works through it.
- User affidavit and prior-use proof. Claiming a "use since" date requires supporting evidence; assembling it is work, and the documents checklist shows what qualifies.
- Refiling after abandonment. Miss a reply deadline and the application is abandoned — you pay the government fee again from scratch. This is the most expensive "saving" in the system.
- Company name is not a trademark. Registering a company at the RoC does not protect the brand name; that is a common and costly misunderstanding we unpack in trademark vs company name.
A worked example: a two-class Delhi brand
Take a realistic case. A Lajpat Nagar founder runs a small apparel label and also sells through her own online store. She is MSME-registered with a valid Udyam certificate. She wants to protect one wordmark across the two classes her business genuinely touches — Class 25 (clothing) and Class 35 (retail and online sale of goods).
- Government fee, Class 25 (MSME e-filing): ₹4,500
- Government fee, Class 35 (MSME e-filing): ₹4,500
- Government fee subtotal: ₹9,000
On top of this sits the professional fee for the search, filing, TM-48 and docketing of both classes. If, six months in, the examiner raises a section 11 objection on Class 35 (a crowded class), the objection reply is an additional professional engagement. Had she filed as a private limited company without the MSME concession, the two government fees would have been ₹9,000 each — ₹18,000 instead of ₹9,000. That single documentary difference is worth ₹9,000 on a two-class filing, which is exactly why we check concession eligibility before anything else. For a startup-focused view of budgeting this, our NCR startups guide and the broader Delhi 2026 registration guide are the companion reads.
The takeaway
Budget a Delhi trademark in three layers. First, the government fee: ₹4,500 per class if you are an individual, startup or MSME filing online, ₹9,000 per class otherwise, multiplied by your class count. Second, the professional fee, which buys you the search and the correct filing that prevent expensive problems later. Third, the lifecycle reserve — objection replies, possible opposition, and the ten-year renewal — that a serious brand will eventually spend. The founders who overspend are almost never the ones who paid a fair professional fee; they are the ones who filed cheap without a search, drew an objection, and paid twice. Model your own number with the cost calculator, and if you want a line-item quote for your specific brand and classes, our Delhi trademark team will price it honestly before you commit a rupee.
Your brand is only yours when you file it.
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