How to register your brand name as a trademark with INAPI in Algeria: steps, documents and fees (2026)

Your brand name is probably the only asset a small online shop owns that nobody can copy by opening a new page. Without a registration, a competitor can start selling under a very similar name tomorrow, and you will have little to point at. INAPI, the national industrial property institute, is the office that registers trademarks. This article follows its public pages, read on 29 October 2026. It is not legal advice; for a valuable brand, an industrial property agent can run the search and the filing for you.

What can and cannot be a trademark

INAPI defines a trademark as a sign that distinguishes your products or services from those of your competitors. Words (including personal names), letters, numbers, drawings, logos, signatures, colours and slogans qualify, alone or combined, as long as they can be represented graphically.

INAPI lists signs that cannot be registered:

• signs that just name or describe the product (for example a generic word for what you sell);
• signs likely to mislead about the nature, quality, characteristics or origin of the product;
• signs contrary to public order or morality;
• signs that contain or imitate official signs of a state;
• the shape of the product or its packaging when it is directly linked to its nature or function;
• signs made wholly or partly of a geographical indication.

So a descriptive name like “Cheap Phone Cases” is a weak candidate, while a distinctive invented name is a strong one.

Before you file: search for existing marks

INAPI recommends checking whether the name or sign is available. Search the registered marks and the pending applications, because a sign that infringes another party’s rights cannot be registered. INAPI offers paid searches: identical (1,600 DA per mark) and similarity (3,000 DA for 3 classes). A free check of the same name in Facebook, Instagram and the web is a good first filter, but it does not replace the register.

The filing steps

1. Create an account on the INAPI website (or log in).
2. In the dashboard, open Trademark, then New filing.
3. Fill in the required fields.
4. Print the payment receipt and the filing form (3 copies).
5. Pay: a payment at any CNEP branch into INAPI’s account (details are on the INAPI filing page), or by cheque directly at INAPI.
6. Sign the three copies and prepare the file.
7. Bring the file to INAPI in Algiers or to the annex closest to you.

After the material admissibility check, you receive a stamped copy of your application with its number, date and time, which serves as your filing record, plus a stamped payment receipt. Keep both: they show when you filed.

The file: 3 filled, signed and dated copies of the official form, 3 payment receipts printed from the online system, proof of payment, a signed original power of attorney if an agent files for you, and any priority document. INAPI may ask for other documents.

Who can file: persons or companies based in Algeria. Applicants based abroad must be represented by an approved agent.

What it costs (INAPI schedule read on 29 October 2026)

Our reading of an invented example: a word mark in one class with no colour claim would cost 15,000 DA plus 2,000 DA for the class, 17,000 DA, and with three classes 21,000 DA. Check with INAPI whether the first class is charged before you pay, because the schedule does not give a worked example.

After registration

Protection lasts ten years, renewable (renewal has its own fee, above), and only on Algerian territory. If you sell abroad, INAPI describes two ways to extend: ask directly in each country through an agent, or use the Madrid system managed by WIPO, requested through INAPI with a national fee of 10,000 DA, after which INAPI sends you a simulation of the total.

Decide who owns the mark

Decide before filing whether the brand belongs to you personally or to your business. Changing the owner later means recording an assignment (5,000 DA on the schedule), and an auto-entrepreneur turning into a company is a typical moment for this. See AE vs EURL vs SARL for how those forms differ.

What it does not replace

A trademark is not a business registration. To sell legally online you still need your activity registered: see the law 18-05 checklist for online sellers. And a name that is not registered can still be reserved on social media, but that is not legal protection. Unfamiliar words are in the glossary.

What we could not confirm

• The text of the trademark law (ordinance 03-06) and its article numbers: not read.
• How long registration takes after filing: not stated on INAPI’s pages.
• Whether the per-class fee also applies to the first class.
• The fee schedule can change; check it the day you file.

Contacts are listed below. The INAPI pages show both inapi.dz and inapi.org addresses; we used the one that opened.