Can You Register a Trademark Without a Company?

Yes, you can register a trademark without a company in Turkey. Article 3 of Industrial Property Law No. 6769 (SMK) does not make the right to apply conditional on having a company, a tax registration or any business activity; a Turkish citizen can file a trademark application in their own name. Once the company is set up, the mark can be assigned to it with a notarized agreement, or it can stay with you and be licensed to the company.

Below you will find who a personal filing makes sense for, what the application requires, a comparison of the three options once the company exists along with their official 2026 cost, how to handle several co-founders, and the limits of this route.

Is It Legally Possible to Register a Trademark Without a Company?

It is; the law does not require the applicant to be a merchant. Under Article 3 SMK, the protection provided by the Law is available to citizens of the Republic of Turkey and to natural and legal persons who are resident in Turkey or carry on industrial or commercial activity there. These are alternative grounds: being a Turkish citizen is enough on its own. During the formal examination, TÜRKPATENT (Turkish Patent and Trademark Office) checks the application against Article 3 (Article 15(1)); it does not check whether you have a company.

An individual trademark application means an application filed in the name of a natural person, using that person's name, surname and Turkish national ID number. Once registered, the trademark right becomes part of that person's own assets; even if a company is formed later, the mark does not pass to it automatically, and a separate legal transaction is needed for that.

A company that has not yet been formed cannot be an applicant, because a company that is not yet registered with the trade registry has not acquired legal personality. While the incorporation is under way, the application is therefore filed in the founder's name. For the general framework covering every type of applicant, from associations to ordinary partnerships and foreign applicants, see our guide on who can apply for trademark registration.

Who Should Consider Filing Without a Company?

It makes sense whenever the name is settled but the company does not exist yet. Priority between two applications is determined by the date, hour and minute at which each application is received (Article 15(1) SMK); waiting for incorporation means the name circulates without protection in the meantime. Typical applicants include:

• The founder before incorporation: The articles of association, partnership talks and bank formalities can take weeks, while the name is already being shared with agencies, suppliers and potential investors.
• The freelancer: A consultant, trainer, designer or writer may never plan to form a company; keeping a brand that is closely tied to their personal name in their own hands is a deliberate choice.
• The product developer: The app, game or product is still a prototype, but its name has started appearing in promotional videos and pre-sale pages.
• The person moving back from abroad: As a Turkish citizen they are covered by Article 3; however, while their place of residence is abroad they can only act before TÜRKPATENT through a trademark or patent attorney (Article 160(3)).

For a business that several people are building together, a personal filing is not a permanent solution but a temporary bridge on the way to the company. We discuss who should ultimately own the mark, by type of business, in our guide on whether to hold a trademark in your personal or company name.

What Does an Individual Application Require?

The application is prepared in five steps, and the steps are the same whether the applicant is a person or a company; only the identity details differ:

1. Preliminary search: Check whether the name conflicts with identical or similar marks in terms of spelling, pronunciation and meaning.
2. Identity and contact details: Enter your name, surname, Turkish national ID number and an address suitable for official notifications, spelled exactly as in the civil registry.
3. Representation of the mark: Choose a word mark, a logo or a combination of the two; after filing, only spelling mistakes and obvious clerical errors can be corrected, and the representation cannot be changed (Article 11(6)).
4. Goods and services list: Draft it according to the Nice classes, making sure it also covers what the future company will do.
5. Filing and fee: File through EPATS, logging in via e-Devlet and signing with an electronic or mobile signature, or through a trademark attorney.

Under TÜRKPATENT's 2026 trademark fee schedule, the single-class application fee is TRY 2,820 (item 02.01.01); together with the TRY 7,010 registration fee paid at the registration stage (02.01.03), the official total for a single-class file comes to TRY 9,830. The fee schedule sets no separate amounts depending on whether the applicant is a person or a company. Current amounts should be checked against the TÜRKPATENT fee schedule before filing, as it is updated every year. A detailed breakdown of the paperwork is in our article on the documents required for trademark registration. If you leave your individual trademark registration to a trademark attorney instead of filing yourself, the official fees stay the same and the attorney's service fee is added on top.

What Are Your Options Once the Company Is Formed?

There are three options: assign the mark to the company, keep the mark and license it to the company, or do nothing. The first two are orderly legal routes; the third is the most common situation and also the riskiest.

Option 1: Assigning the mark to the company

Assignment means that ownership of the mark passes from the founder to the company. Under Article 148(4) SMK, an assignment agreement is valid only if it is notarized; an agreement without notarization does not transfer the mark. The assignment is recorded in the register and published in the Bulletin at the request of either party once the fee is paid (Article 148(5)). Because Article 148(8) applies these rules to applications too, there is no need to wait for registration: a mark that is still at the application stage can also be assigned to the company. Changing the applicant through a correction request, on the other hand, is not possible; assignment is the only way.

We explain the steps from the agreement through to recordal in our guide on how to assign a trademark in Turkey; if you would like the agreement and the recordal handled in a single file, see our page on transferring the trademark to your company.

Contributing the mark to the company as capital in kind, either at incorporation or in a capital increase, may also come up. TÜRKPATENT's fee schedule lists such transactions under the structural change item together with mergers and demergers (02.01.07 — TRY 4,360). Because a contribution in kind is subject to the separate rules of company law, assess this route together with the accountant handling your incorporation.

Option 2: You keep the mark and license it to the company

A licence means that ownership stays with the founder while the company is given permission to use the mark. Under Article 24 SMK, a licence can be exclusive or non-exclusive; unless the agreement says otherwise it is non-exclusive, and the licensee company cannot grant sublicences unless agreed. The licensor, for its part, takes measures to safeguard the quality of the licensee's goods and services.

The most important consequence of this model concerns the use requirement: the company's use of the mark with permission counts as use by the owner (Article 9(3)). We cover the essential clauses in our trademark licence agreement guide. Whether to charge a royalty, and the tax consequences of doing so, depend on the business; make that decision after consulting your accountant.

Option 3: Doing nothing

This is the picture most often seen in practice: the mark is registered in the founder's name, the company uses it for years, and the relationship between the two is never put on paper. In the short term nothing goes wrong. The problem surfaces with an event such as a partner leaving, an investment round, the sale of the company or the founder's death; at that moment the company is not the owner of the mark it uses, only its de facto user. Because the mark is part of the founder's personal assets, it can be seized by the founder's creditors and passes to the founder's heirs on death (Article 148(1)).

If There Are Several Founders, Whose Name Should Go on the Application?

There are two routes, and both should be completed with a written agreement. The first is to file in the name of one founder and record in writing, among the founders, that the mark will be assigned to the company once it is formed. The second is for the founders to file jointly.

In a joint filing, the mark is owned in shares. Where no attorney has been appointed, a joint representative handles all proceedings before the Office except requests for withdrawal and surrender; if no joint representative is named, the first person listed on the application form is deemed to be the joint representative (Article 147(1) SMK). If one co-owner sells their share to a third party, the others have a right of pre-emption (Article 148(3)). When the company is formed, all co-owners will need to sign the assignment agreement; if one of the partners has left in the meantime, that signature can turn into a bargaining chip.

The practical rule is this: whichever route you choose, the founders' agreement should state when the mark will be assigned to the company, who bears the cost, and who keeps the mark if the company is never formed.

What Are the Limits and Risks of Filing Without a Company?

The absence of a business activity requirement does not mean unlimited freedom to file. When you register a trademark without a company, keep five points in mind:

• Bad faith: Applications filed without any real business plan, in order to sell names others are using or to block a competitor, are refused on opposition (Article 6(9) SMK); even once registered, a court can be asked to declare them invalid (Article 25).
• Use requirement: A mark that is not genuinely used in Turkey within five years of registration without a valid reason can be cancelled by TÜRKPATENT on request (Articles 9 and 26). If the company is never formed and the mark is never used, protection can be lost this way.
• Personal assets: A mark held in a personal name is tied to that person's debts and estate; as the company grows, that link becomes a risk for the company as well.
• Unrecorded transactions: If an assignment or licence stays only on paper between the parties, it cannot be asserted against third parties who act in good faith relying on the register (Article 148(5)).
• Accounting and tax: Charging the costs of a mark held in the founder's name to the company, an assignment price and a royalty can all have accounting and tax consequences; consult your accountant about them.

Conclusion

• You can register a trademark without a company; Article 3 SMK does not require a company, a tax registration or any business activity.
• Do not wait for incorporation: the application is filed in the founder's name and the priority date arises at that moment.
• Once the company exists, assign the mark with a notarized agreement (TRY 5,960 recordal) or grant a written licence (TRY 9,870 recordal); doing nothing is the riskiest option.
• If there are several founders, write the assignment of the mark to the company into the founders' agreement.
• The ban on bad-faith filings and the five-year use requirement apply just the same to marks held in a personal name.

Would you like to secure your trademark before the company is formed?

Working with trademark attorneys authorized before TÜRKPATENT, Webx plans the founder's application, the class and list strategy, and the assignment or licence recordal once the company is formed, all in a single file. Share your brand name, your founder structure and your incorporation timeline through our contact page, and we will settle the applicant and the route to the company with you before you file.