Guide
WIPO cut the individual fee for designating China on 12 April 2026. Most English-language guides still quote the old figure.
WIPO published Information Notice No. 9/2026 on 2026-03-12, reducing the individual fees payable for designating China with effect from 2026-04-12.
| Item | Before 12 Apr 2026 | From 12 Apr 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Application or subsequent designation — first class | 249 | 220 CHF |
| Application or subsequent designation — each additional class | 125 | 110 CHF |
| Collective mark — first class | 747 | 661 CHF |
| Collective mark — each additional class | 374 | 331 CHF |
| Renewal — first class | 498 | 441 CHF |
| Renewal — each additional class | 249 | 220 CHF |
Applies where: The individual fee applies where the international application is received by the Office of origin on or after 12 April 2026; or a subsequent designation is received on or after that date or filed directly with the International Bureau; or an international registration is renewed on or after that date.
Source: WIPO Information Notice No. 9/2026 (PDF, read directly).
Last checked 2026-07-16.
One discrepancy we should flag rather than paper over. WIPO's Individual Fees summary page renders the effective date for these amounts as 1 July 2026, while Information Notice No. 9/2026 states 12 April 2026 in terms. The six amounts are identical in both. We have gone with the Notice, because it is the primary instrument and it carries a document number. If the date is load-bearing for your filing, tell us and we will confirm it with WIPO before you rely on it.
Filing directly with CNIPA means appointing a Chinese agency. That is not a recommendation, it is Article 18:
An applicant may handle a trademark registration application or other trademark matters on its own or through a lawfully established trademark agency. A foreigner or foreign enterprise applying for trademark registration or handling other trademark matters in China shall entrust a lawfully established trademark agency to handle the matter.
— Trademark Law, Article 18 · 《商标法》第十八条 — in force through 31 December 2026
Read with Article 5 of the Implementing Regulations, which defines "foreigner or foreign enterprise" as one with no habitual residence or place of business in China. A foreign company that has a branch or representative office here is not caught by this and may file on its own.
From 2027-01-01 this becomes Trademark Law (2026 Revision), Article 11(2) of the 2026 Revision, which writes the limitation into the statute itself and adds "other foreign organisation". The obligation is unchanged.
What you get for that is a specification drafted against the Chinese Classification Table by someone who works with it daily, rather than a translation of a specification drafted for somewhere else. In a jurisdiction where the subclass you land in determines the scope of what you own, that is not a formality. This is why.
The internet will tell you a number of things about how Madrid interacts with Chinese practice. Three claims come up repeatedly:
We have not verified those three claims against an official source. They are the prevailing view among practitioners and they may well be right — we are not saying they are wrong. We are saying that we could not find CNIPA or WIPO stating them, and we are not willing to dress up professional consensus as a documented fact on a page you might make a filing decision from.
Similarly, we could not confirm from WIPO whether China's refusal period as a designated Contracting Party is 12 or 18 months — the member profile page returned a 404 when we went to check. The commonly stated figure is 18 months. We are not endorsing it here, because we have not seen it in an official source, and this is exactly the kind of number that gets copied between blog posts until everyone assumes someone checked.
If you want a straight answer for your actual filing rather than a general one, ask us. Where we do not know, we will go and find out from CNIPA or WIPO and tell you what they said — which, on the evidence of this page, is not the industry norm.
Since 2026-04-12, the individual fee is 220 Swiss francs for the first class and 110 CHF for each additional class. Those figures went down — they were 249 and 125. If a source quotes you 249 CHF, it predates April 2026.
It depends on how many countries you are designating and how much control you want over the specification. Madrid is efficient across a portfolio of countries. A national Chinese filing gives you a specification built against the Chinese Classification Table from the start, which matters more in China than in most jurisdictions because of the subclass system. If China is your main market rather than one of twenty boxes ticked, that control is usually worth having.
For a national filing, unambiguously yes — Trademark Law Article 18. For the Madrid route the position is more nuanced, and rather than repeat what everyone else says about it, we have set out below exactly which parts we have verified and which we have not.
