Trademark Registration in Singapore: What It Costs, How Long It Takes, and Why Your ACRA Name Is Not Enough

A recurring conversation with SME clients goes like this. They registered the company with ACRA years ago. The name is on the door, the invoices and the website. Then a competitor starts trading under something confusingly similar, and they discover the uncomfortable truth.

Registering a business name with ACRA gives you no trademark rights. It records that an entity exists. It does not stop anyone else using that name as a brand.

This guide covers what registration actually gets you, what it costs, how long it takes, and the step most applicants skip.

Without registration, your protection rests on the common law action of passing off. To succeed you must prove three things: that you have goodwill in the mark, that the other party misrepresented their goods or services as yours, and that you suffered damage as a result.

Each limb has to be evidenced. Goodwill means sales figures, advertising spend, media coverage, market recognition. It is provable, but it is expensive and uncertain to prove, and you are doing it after the damage is done.

A registration under the Trade Marks Act 1998 replaces that with a property right:

A trade mark is any sign capable of being represented graphically and of distinguishing your goods or services from someone else’s. In practice that covers word marks, logos and stylised marks, distinctive slogans, and less commonly shapes, colours and sounds.

The recurring problem for SMEs is descriptiveness. A mark that simply describes what you sell is unlikely to be distinctive enough to register. Naming your cleaning company “Singapore Cleaning Services” is good for search engines and bad for trade mark protection. This tension is worth thinking about before you commit to a brand, not after.

Before filing, run an availability search through the IPOS Digital Hub against earlier identical or similar marks in your classes.

The reason is economic. If a conflicting earlier mark exists, your application is likely to be refused or opposed — and you will have paid the filing fee to find out. Better to discover the conflict before you file, and considerably better than discovering it after you have printed packaging.

A basic self-search catches identical marks. A professional clearance search also considers phonetic equivalents, common abbreviations and conceptual similarity, all of which can ground a refusal on relative grounds under section 8 of the Act. If you are about to invest in a brand rollout, the difference matters.

As at 2026, IPOS filing fees are approximately:

These were revised with effect from 1 September 2025, and IPOS revises them from time to time — confirm the current figure on the IPOS forms and fees page before filing.

Two things drive the total cost more than the headline fee:

Classes. Fees are charged per class. A business selling a product and providing a related service may need two or more classes. Registering in too few leaves gaps; registering in too many wastes money on protection you cannot use.

Specification drafting. Using the pre-approved database is cheaper per class and reduces examination friction. Custom wording costs more and invites objections, but is sometimes necessary to cover what you actually do. Getting this right is most of the professional value in a trade mark filing.

Professional fees sit on top of the official fees. We scope trade mark work on a fixed fee so the total is known before you file.

IPOS indicates a straightforward application with no deficiency, objection or opposition registers in around nine months. In practice, objections and back- and-forth on the specification extend that, and applicants commonly plan for anywhere from several months to roughly a year.

The stages:

One timing note for 2026: IPOS has an acceleration programme, SG Trade Marks Fast, but acceptance of new acceleration requests has been suspended since 4 January 2026 until further notice. If you were counting on an expedited route, check its current status before building a launch timeline around it.

If you are expanding regionally, the Madrid Protocol lets you file a single international application through IPOS, which forwards it to WIPO, designating multiple member countries at once. IPOS charges a handling fee for the international application, with WIPO fees calculated separately based on the designated countries, the number of classes, and whether the mark is in colour.

The rule of thumb: use a direct IPOS filing where Singapore is the main target or your brand is still evolving. Use Madrid where the Singapore mark is stable and the same brand is going into several markets together. If you are claiming priority from an earlier foreign filing, the six-month window is unforgiving.