Trademark Class List India: All 45 Classes Explained (2026)

The trademark class list India follows is the Nice Classification, which sorts every product and service into 45 numbered classes: Classes 1 to 34 for goods and Classes 35 to 45 for services. Your registration, on its own, protects your mark only in the classes you file in, and only for the goods or services you describe in each class.

In India the Trade Marks Act 1999 and the Trade Marks Rules 2017 govern how the Registrar applies that list, and the full 2026 edition is set out below, with a lookup by business type first so you can reach the right rows quickly.

Quick answer: There are 45 trademark classes in India. Classes 1 to 34 cover goods and Classes 35 to 45 cover services. Pick the class by what you actually sell or provide under the mark, not by your company name, and file in every class you trade in, because the government fee is counted per class and the protection is limited to the goods or services you register in each class. If the Registrar decides your goods sit in a different class, that decision is final; you then either drop those goods from the application or add the class and pay for it.

Find your trademark class by business type

Most Indian applicants are not chemists or shipbuilders; they run a restaurant, a clothing label, a clinic or an app. The lookup below maps the common ones to the class or classes where the 2026 Nice headings and explanatory notes place them, goods first and services after.

Use it to build a short-list, then check each candidate against the full headings further down.

Two patterns catch people out. In classification, a shop is a service separate from the things it sells: the Class 35 note covers bringing goods together so customers can view and buy them, whether through retail stores, wholesale outlets or websites. So a product business ordinarily needs the goods class and, if it also sells through its own stores or website, Class 35 as well; a restaurant that bottles its sauces needs Class 30 alongside Class 43. The lookup is a starting point and nothing more, so confirm each entry against the headings below and against the Trademark Classification Tool before you file.

The complete trademark class list India uses: 2026 edition

Here are all 45 class headings from NCL(13-2026), the edition in force since 1 January 2026, as published in WIPO’s Nice Classification. Classes 1 to 34 are goods and 35 to 45 are services, and every heading is WIPO’s own wording.

The Act requires the Registrar to classify goods and services, as far as may be, in line with the international classification, and the Rules fix that as the current Nice edition published by WIPO. A heading summarises what a class contains; it is not a specification (the list of goods or services you type into the application) that you can copy, which is the single most common classification mistake and is dealt with below. If the lookup has already answered you, skip the tables and go to the five traps.

Goods: Classes 1 to 34

The wording below is WIPO’s, reproduced exactly; use it to check that the goods you listed still sit in the class you expect.

Services: Classes 35 to 45

Class headings verified against WIPO’s Nice Classification publication, edition NCL(13-2026), as of October 2026. In the current edition, spectacles, contact lenses and sunglasses sit in the Class 10 heading, Class 25 reads “headwear”, and the Class 45 heading names dating, social networking, funerary and babysitting services. Older lists differ on exactly these lines: our comparison found the classification document on the Registry’s own website still reads “headgear” in Class 25 and omits power-operated tools and vending machines from Class 7.

Why the class you file in decides what you own

A trademark registration in India is not a monopoly over a word; it is a right in that word for the goods or services on the register, and that register is organised by class, so the classes you file in set the outer edge of the right.

The Act lets one application cover several classes for a single mark (a word mark and a logo are two applications), but the fee is payable for each class, and the opposition and the renewal run class by class too.

The fee makes the point concrete. The government fee for a trademark application is Rs 4,500 per class for e-filing by an individual, a startup recognised under the Startup India initiative or a small enterprise, and Rs 9,000 per class for everyone else, with physical filing costing Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 respectively (First Schedule to the Trade Marks Rules 2017, verified as of October 2026). Each class is also renewed separately every ten years at Rs 9,000 for e-filing or Rs 10,000 for physical filing, with no reduced rate for individuals or small enterprises, so a class carried for its full life costs several times its filing fee.

A clothing brand that files in Class 25 alone and later opens an online store has paid for one class and owns one class. What Class 35 adds is the retail service itself: a rival who runs a store or marketplace under the same name, selling other people’s goods, is using the mark for a service the Class 25 registration does not cover. Until a fresh application is filed and examined from scratch, that service sits outside the registration, and any claim against the rival has to be built on reputation rather than on the register.

Enforcement follows the same line. An infringement claim starts from the goods or services for which the mark is registered. Use of the mark on similar goods can still infringe where confusion is likely, and use on dissimilar goods can infringe where the mark has a reputation in India and the use takes unfair advantage of it, but each of those is a further question of fact and harder to win than pointing to a registration that covers the goods. The trademark registration process in India is the same for one class or five; the choice of classes is where the long-term value is set.

Five classification traps Indian applicants fall into

Classification problems in Indian filings tend to come from five habits rather than from hard cases. Each can be avoided before filing at no cost beyond a careful hour spent on the list of goods and services.

After filing, a class you left out can only be covered by starting again, and because the Registrar’s decision on class is final there is little room to argue the point later.

Filing by company name instead of by what you sell

The class is determined by the goods or services, not by the applicant’s trade name, main objects or industry label. “Technologies Private Limited” tells the Registry nothing; a company of that name that makes LED lamps belongs in Class 11, and one that runs a food delivery app may need Classes 9 (the app), 35 (the ordering platform), 39 (delivery) and 43 (the food). Start from a written list of what the mark will actually appear on.

The same test applies to future plans. The Act allows an application for a mark that is only proposed to be used, so a class for a product in development is legitimate. What the Rules let the Registrar refuse is a claim to all the goods in a class, or a large variety of them, unless the use made or intended justifies it. Cover what you sell now and what is already in development; a class for a vague “one day” idea is a fee with little behind it.

Copying the class heading as your specification

The heading describes the class; it is not a list of goods. The Rules direct that the goods and services named in an application should, as far as may be, correspond to the Registrar’s published class-wise and alphabetical index, which includes goods and services of Indian origin. Write a specification that names your products in ordinary trade terms, wide enough to cover the next two years, and no wider.

Choosing one class for a goods-and-services business

A manufacturer with its own retail outlets, a software company that sells both a downloadable app and a subscription service, a clinic that also sells its own skincare line: each of these trades in two or more classes and needs each of them. One multi-class application is usually the cleaner route. It is examined as one, and if it is opposed in one class only (opposed, meaning a third party objects before registration), the unopposed classes wait until you ask for the application to be divided on Form TM-M and pay the divisional fee of Rs 1,800 for e-filing or Rs 2,000 for physical filing; each divided application keeps the filing date of the original, so nothing is lost on priority by splitting it later. Our guide to multiple trademark classes in India weighs the multi-class route against separate filings.

Working from the Registry’s outdated class list

The Rules point to the current edition of the Nice Classification published by WIPO, but the classification document on the Registry’s website carries no edition number or date, and our comparison found its wording for several classes matches a Nice edition from more than a decade ago. The practical risk is goods that moved class in later editions, such as sunglasses, now in the Class 10 heading. Use WIPO’s publication or the tables above for the class, and treat the Registry’s published index as what the Rules make it: the list your terms should correspond to as far as may be, not the current class headings.

Assuming you can move or widen the classes after filing

You can correct or add a class after filing only within limits, and only for goods you already listed; it is not a way to add goods or services you left out. If the Registrar finds that goods you listed also fall in a class you did not apply for, you must either restrict the specification or add that class by a request on Form TM-M with the appropriate fee; the amendment request itself carries Rs 900 for e-filing or Rs 1,000 for physical filing, and expect the class fee for the added class as well. Where all the goods belong in a different class from the one specified, the Registrar may, but need not, permit a correction of class on the same form.

What you cannot do, before or after acceptance, is amend the application to substitute a new specification of goods or services not included in the application as filed. The Registry will not let you swap “restaurant services” for “packaged spices” in an existing application. Goods you left out need a new application, and that application takes its own filing date, so anyone who filed a similar mark for those goods in the meantime now stands ahead of you.

After registration there is one further route, and it is narrow. When WIPO amends the Nice Classification, a registered proprietor (the owner on the register) may apply on Form TM-P to convert the specification so that it matches the amended classification. That brings an old registration into line with a re-numbered edition; it does not add goods that were never claimed.

When one class is not enough

If your mark will appear on goods in one class and a service in another, file in both, together where you can, and write the specification inside each class with as much care as the class number itself.

The trade-offs between one multi-class application and separate filings, including the cost of dividing and the risk of a shared examination report (the Registry’s first objections letter), are covered in multi-class trademark applications: benefits and drawbacks and in our note on divisional applications for multi-class trademarks. For what the wording inside the class does to your rights, see how the specification of goods and services limits your rights.

Before you file

Write down what the mark will appear on in the next two years, find the class for each item in the 2026 list above or by typing the goods into the trademark class search tool, and then run a trademark search in each of those classes before paying a per-class fee for a mark that an earlier filer already holds there.

Then write the specification for each class in plain trade language, naming the products or services rather than pasting the heading, and keep it to what the business does or is about to do. In a multi-class application the Rules require the classes to be set out in ascending numerical order with the goods or services listed under each. A single-class filing for a single product is work many applicants can do alone; the cases that repay professional review are the ones with goods and services together, or a product that sits near a class boundary.

A class choice that looks like a formality on the application form is the boundary of everything the registration will ever do for you: what it costs, what the examiner compares it against, what an opponent can attack, and what a court will let you stop. Intepat’s trademark attorneys in Bengaluru handle class selection and specification drafting as part of every trademark registration in India, so that the classes on the form match the business behind the mark.

This article explains how goods and services are classified for trademark registration in India as at October 2026 and is for general information only. It is not legal advice. Class headings, government fees and Registry practice change; confirm the current Nice edition and fee schedule before you file. For advice on the classes that fit your business, consult a trademark attorney.