Amazon Brand Registry starts with a trademark
Brand Registry enrollment is free. The trademark is the part you have to get right — the correct class, the exact brand name, a mark Amazon accepts. A licensed U.S. trademark attorney files it for a flat $499 plus the USPTO fee at cost.
$499 + $350 USPTO fee per class
To enroll a brand in Amazon Brand Registry, you need an active registered trademark — or a pending application filed through Amazon’s IP Accelerator. The mark has to be a word mark, or a design mark containing words, letters, or numbers, and your brand name has to match the trademark record exactly. Everything else about Brand Registry is free and fast; the trademark is the gate.
Amazon’s logic is simple: Brand Registry hands you real power over listings — the ability to control your detail pages, report violations, and take down counterfeits. Amazon will not hand that power to someone who cannot prove the brand is theirs. A federal trademark registration is that proof.
Which means most of the work of “getting Brand Registry” is actually the work of getting a trademark that is filed correctly: in the class covering the goods you actually sell, for the exact brand name printed on your product, and clean enough to survive examination. Get those three right and enrollment is a form. Get one of them wrong and you are eight months into a process that ends in a refusal.
What Brand Registry unlocks
| Benefit | What it does for you |
|---|---|
| A+ Content | Rich product descriptions with images and comparison charts, in place of a plain bullet list. |
| Brand Story | A branded module across your detail pages that cross-sells the rest of your catalog. |
| Amazon Stores | A multi-page storefront for your brand, with its own URL, that you control. |
| Sponsored Brands & Brand Analytics | Brand-level advertising formats, plus search and conversion data on your own customers. |
| Report a Violation | A direct channel to report infringing listings, counterfeit product, and misuse of your brand. |
| Transparency & Project Zero | Unit-level authentication and, for eligible brands, self-service counterfeit removal. |
| Amazon Vine | Access to reviewer programs that get early reviews onto new listings. |
| Listing control | Authority over your own detail pages — the practical end of hijackers rewriting your title and images. |
You can enroll for the protection tools even if you do not have a selling account — you simply will not get the seller-side features like A+ Content and Stores.
How to get Amazon Brand Registry, step by step
- Get an eligible trademark. Amazon accepts an active registered mark, or a pending application filed through IP Accelerator. It must be a word mark, or a design mark containing words, letters, or numbers. Your brand name must be filed in the class that matches the goods you sell.
- Put the brand on the product — permanently. Amazon requires images showing your brand name permanently affixed to the product or its packaging: printed, sewn, laser-etched, or engraved. Stickers, labels, stamps, hang tags, stock photos, and computer-generated mockups are not accepted.
- Create a Brand Registry account. Use the same credentials as your Seller Central or Vendor Central account so the accounts link and your brand tools appear in both.
- Enroll the brand. Submit your brand name exactly as it appears on the trademark record, your logo image exactly as filed if you registered a design mark, your trademark or serial number in the issuing office’s format, and your product categories.
- Pass Amazon’s rights-owner verification. Amazon verifies you are the rights owner by sending a code to the public contact on the trademark record — for an attorney-filed application, that is your attorney of record, who passes it to you. Submit the code to finish enrollment.
Step 5 is the one sellers do not see coming. Amazon verifies ownership by contacting the public contact on the trademark record — not the person filling in the Brand Registry form. If a filing service put its own address on your application, the verification code goes to them. With MARQ, the attorney of record is your attorney, and you get the code.
The timeline, honestly
Filing takes days. USPTO examination is the long part: the USPTO’s own fiscal-year targets are roughly five months from filing to a first action and about 11 months of total pendency (up to 14 months when an application is suspended or contested). Straightforward applications tend to land in the 8–14 month window to registration. Then Brand Registry enrollment and verification take a few days.
There is no way to buy your way past USPTO examination. What you can control is whether your application draws an office action — and office actions come overwhelmingly from avoidable things: a mark that was never clearable, a wrong class, a loose identification of goods, a bad specimen.
Registered or pending: the two routes in
| Route | What it means | Who it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Registered trademark | You file a standard USPTO application; when it registers (typically 8–14 months), you enroll. Any attorney or filing service can file it. This is the route MARQ files. | Sellers who want the trademark done right at a flat fee, and can work through the USPTO timeline. |
| Pending via IP Accelerator | Amazon’s program: file through a law firm in Amazon’s vetted network and you get Brand Registry access while the application is still pending. Firms in the network set their own rates. | Sellers who need Brand Registry access immediately and are willing to file through an Amazon-network firm. |
We will tell you straight which one fits. If your business genuinely needs Brand Registry access next month and cannot wait for registration, IP Accelerator is the only route that does that, and we will say so. If you can work with the normal timeline — most sellers can — a standard attorney-filed application at $499 plus $350 in USPTO fees gets you there without the premium, and gets you a trademark that works everywhere, not just on Amazon.
File in the class of what you sell
The most common Brand Registry-related filing mistake is a seller registering “online retail store services” in Class 35 because they sell online. If you private-label a product, you are selling goods. The registration should cover the thing in the box.
| If you sell… | File in… |
|---|---|
| Apparel, hats, footwear | Class 25 |
| Supplements, vitamins, medicated products | Class 5 |
| Skincare, cosmetics, haircare, soap | Class 3 |
| Electronics, phone accessories, downloadable apps | Class 9 |
| Coffee, sauces, snacks, baked goods | Class 30 |
| Other people’s brands, as a reseller or store | Class 35 |
Selling in more than one category? Each class adds $350 in USPTO fees. MARQ’s $499 attorney fee stays flat regardless of how many classes the application covers. See all 45 classes →
Amazon Brand Registry questions
Do you need a trademark for Amazon Brand Registry?
Yes. Amazon requires an active registered trademark, or a pending trademark application filed through Amazon’s IP Accelerator, to enroll a brand in Brand Registry. The mark must be a text-based word mark, or a design mark containing words, letters, or numbers, from a government IP office Amazon accepts — the USPTO is one of them.
How long does it take to get Amazon Brand Registry?
The gating item is the trademark, not the enrollment. A U.S. application is filed within days, and USPTO examination runs roughly 8–14 months to registration for a straightforward application. Enrollment itself, once you have an eligible trademark, is a same-day form plus Amazon’s verification step, which typically takes a few days. The only route to Brand Registry on a *pending* application is Amazon’s IP Accelerator.
How much does it cost to get Amazon Brand Registry?
Brand Registry enrollment is free. The trademark is the cost. With MARQ, a federal registration is a flat $499 attorney fee plus the USPTO’s $350-per-class government fee at cost — $849 total for one class.
What class should an Amazon seller file in?
The class that covers the goods you actually sell — Class 25 for apparel, Class 5 for supplements, Class 3 for skincare, Class 9 for electronics, Class 30 for food. Private-label sellers are selling goods, not retail services, so filing “online retail store services” in Class 35 usually protects the wrong thing.
Can I get Brand Registry with a pending trademark?
Only through Amazon IP Accelerator, which requires the application to be filed by a firm in Amazon’s vetted network. A standard USPTO application — from any attorney or filing service — qualifies for Brand Registry once it registers, not while it is pending.
What does Amazon Brand Registry actually unlock?
A+ Content, Brand Story, Amazon Stores, Sponsored Brands advertising, Brand Analytics, Amazon Vine, the Report a Violation tool, Transparency and Project Zero for counterfeit control, and greater control over your own listings. You can enroll for the protection tools even without a selling account.
Start with the trademark
Run a free search on your brand name right now. If it looks clear, the $49 comprehensive attorney search tells you whether it will survive examination in your class — before you commit. Registration is a flat $499 plus USPTO fees at cost.
Run a free searchSee flat pricingFree DIY search · $49 comprehensive attorney search · $499 + USPTO fees to register
Amazon Brand Registry requirements described here follow Amazon’s published seller guidance: requirements for enrolling a brand in Amazon Brand Registry and Amazon IP Accelerator. Amazon changes its program terms from time to time — check Amazon’s pages for current requirements. MARQ is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon.
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