Registering a Trademark (Marca) with the INPI in Portugal in 2026 — A Practical Guide to Trademark Searches, Nice Classes, the Online Application, the Opposition Window and the 10-Year Renewable Registration

You have picked a name for your café, your consultancy or your online shop, designed a logo, maybe even printed the business cards. What you almost certainly have not done — and what most small businesses in Portugal skip until it is too late — is register that name as a marca (trademark). Until you do, anyone can adopt a confusingly similar name in the same line of business, and you have little to stop them. Registering a trademark with the INPI (Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial — the National Institute of Industrial Property, the state body under the Ministry of Justice that handles trademarks and patents) turns your brand from something you merely use into something you own.

This is a practical 2026 guide to what a Portuguese trademark is, how to register one online, what it costs, how long it lasts, and the traps — the prior search and the opposition window — that catch the unprepared. It pairs naturally with our guides to starting a company and opening a recibos verdes activity: registering a company name at the Registo Nacional de Pessoas Coletivas protects a legal entity's name, but it does not give you a trademark. The two are separate, and the trademark is what protects your brand in the market.

What a trademark actually protects

A trademark is a sinal distintivo (distinctive sign) used to tell your goods or services apart from everyone else's — a word, a logo, a combination of the two, and in some cases shapes, sounds or colours. Registration gives you the exclusive right to use that sign for the specific goods or services you registered it for, in Portugal, and to stop others from using an identical or confusingly similar mark in the same field. It also lets you display the ® symbol, license the mark to others, use it as an asset, and sell it.

Two things to keep straight from the outset. First, protection is territorial: a national INPI trademark protects you in Portugal only (see the EU and international routes below if you need more). Second, it is tied to classes of goods and services — you do not own a word in the abstract, you own it for, say, "coffee-shop services" or "clothing". Someone else may lawfully use the same word for unrelated products.

Step 1 — Search before you file

The single most valuable and most skipped step is the pesquisa de marcas (trademark search). Before spending a cent, use INPI's free online database to check whether an identical or similar mark already exists for the goods or services you have in mind. If it does, your application can be blocked — and you will have wasted the fee and, worse, possibly built a brand you have to abandon. A clean search is the foundation of everything that follows.

Step 2 — Classify your goods and services (the Nice Classes)

Trademarks are organised under the international Nice Classification, which sorts all goods and services into 45 numbered classes (1–34 for goods, 35–45 for services). You must list the classes your business needs — a bakery selling bread and running a café might need one class for the baked goods and another for the food-service. Choosing too few leaves gaps in your protection; choosing too many inflates the cost, because you pay per class. Get this right and the rest is administrative.

Step 3 — File the application (online is cheaper)

Anyone — an individual or a company, resident or not — can apply. You will need the representation of the mark, the applicant's identification (name, NIF, email) and your list of Nice classes. You can file:

• Online, through INPI's portal — the recommended route, which carries a roughly 50% reduction on the fees; or
• On paper, at INPI, at a balcão (business-formality counter) or at the commercial registries in Coimbra, Lisboa and Porto.

Using an Agente Oficial da Propriedade Industrial (official industrial-property agent, the Portuguese equivalent of a trademark attorney) is optional, not required, but worth considering for anything complex or valuable.

Step 4 — Examination, publication and the opposition window

Once filed, the application goes through a formal examination (INPI checks the paperwork and your class list) and is then published in the Boletim da Propriedade Industrial (Industrial Property Bulletin). Publication opens the crucial opposition period: for two months and one day from publication, any third party who thinks your mark clashes with theirs can file an opposition. After that window closes, INPI carries out the substantive examination — assessing whether the mark meets the legal requirements and is free of conflicts — and issues a decision to grant or refuse, again published in the Bulletin. Start to finish, the process averages around four months.

Step 5 — Grant, duration and renewal

If the mark is granted, protection runs for 10 years from the application date and is renewable indefinitely for further 10-year periods, as long as you keep paying the renewal fee. A trademark, kept up, can outlive its founder — which is precisely why established brands are so valuable.

What it costs

There are two moments you pay: a fee when you file the application, and a taxa de concessão (grant fee) when the registration is actually approved, plus the renewal fee every 10 years thereafter. Fees are charged per class, and filing online cuts them by around half versus paper. As an order of magnitude, an online national application for a single class runs in the low hundreds of euros all-in — a modest sum against the cost of rebranding after losing a name dispute. INPI updated its industrial-property fee table in 2026, so check the current tabela de taxas on the INPI website for the exact figures before you budget; the amounts move and the per-class structure means your total depends on how many classes you register.

If refused: the appeal

A refusal is not necessarily the end. You have two months to appeal, either to the Tribunal da Propriedade Intelectual (Intellectual Property Court) or through ARBITRARE, the specialised arbitration centre for industrial-property disputes — often the faster, cheaper route.

Beyond Portugal: the EU and international routes

Because a national mark protects you only in Portugal, businesses trading across borders should weigh two alternatives:

• The EU trademark (EUTM), filed with the EUIPO, covers all 27 member states in one registration — online fees start at €850 for one class, plus €50 for a second and €150 for each further class.
• The international route, via the Madrid Protocol administered by WIPO, lets you extend a Portuguese (or EU) base registration to a chosen list of countries worldwide in a single filing.

For a business operating only in Portugal, the national INPI mark is the cheapest and simplest option. If you sell across Europe or online to other EU countries, the EU trademark usually offers better value than a stack of national registrations.

What This Means for You

• Search first, always: Run the free INPI database search before you print anything. It is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy against a costly rebrand.
• Register the name you actually trade under: A company name at the RNPC is not a trademark. If your brand matters, register it as a marca.
• File online, get the classes right: The online discount and correct Nice classes are where you save — or waste — money. Cover what you sell, not everything imaginable.
• Diarise the opposition window and the 10-year renewal: Watch the two-month opposition period on marks that concern you, and never let a valuable registration lapse for a missed renewal.
• Think about your market's borders: Portugal-only? National mark. Selling across the EU? Price the EU trademark before you commit.

This guide is general information, not legal advice; trademark disputes turn on specific facts and the exact classes and signs involved. For a valuable brand, or any application facing likely opposition, consult an Agente Oficial da Propriedade Industrial or an intellectual-property lawyer — and confirm the current fees on the INPI website before you file.