How much does copyright cost?
Copyright costs nothing. It arises automatically the moment you create the work, with no register to join and no fee to pay, under section 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 in the UK and under equivalent national law in every EU member state. Anyone charging you to register copyright is selling evidence, not the right itself.
Why there is no fee
Copyright is not granted by an office. It comes into existence on its own, the moment an original work is recorded in some form: written down, saved, photographed, recorded.
In the UK the rule is in section 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and there is no UK copyright register at all. Across the EU there is no single register either, because copyright is still national law in each member state, harmonised by directive on questions like duration rather than replaced by one EU right. Both positions descend from Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention, which forbids making copyright conditional on any formality.
So the honest answer to what it costs to copyright a logo, a photograph, a song or a manuscript is nothing, in any of the 27 EU member states and in the United Kingdom.
What you can actually pay for
Four things are sold around copyright. None of them is the right itself.
| What you are buying | Typical cost | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| A private "copyright registration" service | £59.50 for five years, per work, at the UK Copyright Service, checked 20 September 2026 | Timestamps a copy of your file. Evidence of what existed when, not a right |
| A trademark registration | €1,530 for an EU trademark, one class | A separate right in the name or logo as a badge of origin. This is the one most people actually want |
| A registered design | €830 for one EU design | A separate right in the appearance of a product |
| Legal work on a copyright problem | €200 an hour | Licensing, infringement claims, takedowns |
The confusion is usually between copyright and trademark. If you have paid a designer for a logo and you want to stop a competitor using something similar, copyright is rarely the tool that works. A trademark registration is. What a trademark protects sets out the difference.
How to copyright a logo for free
You already have. The work was protected when the designer drew it. The only two things worth doing cost nothing:
Get the copyright assigned to you in writing. Commissioning a logo does not transfer copyright in the UK. Under section 11 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 the author is the first owner, so unless the designer signed an assignment, the designer still owns it and you have a licence at best. This is the single most common and most expensive copyright mistake we see in brand work.
Keep dated evidence of creation: the layered source file, the invoice, the email thread. That is what a private registration service sells you, and you can hold it yourself.
Does the © symbol cost anything?
No, and it is not required. You can put © with your name and the year on anything you own without asking anyone or paying anyone. It has no legal effect in the UK or the EU because of the Berne prohibition on formalities. It is a notice to readers, not a registration.
How long it lasts
For literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, the life of the author plus 70 years, across the EU and the UK. The term was harmonised at that length by Directive 2006/116/EC, and the UK kept it after leaving the EU. Sound recordings and broadcasts run on different clocks.