Official Fees for Patents in China: A Practical Overview

The official application fee is CNY 900 for an invention patent and CNY 500 for a utility model or a design. An invention application also requires a substantive examination fee of CNY 2,500. The complete application-stage schedule is:

All amounts are in Chinese Yuan (CNY) and follow the CNIPA fee schedule updated in August 2024.

Yes. A claims surcharge of CNY 150 per claim applies from the 11th claim onwards, and description page surcharges apply from page 31: CNY 50 per page for pages 31 to 300 and CNY 100 per page from page 301 onwards. The same rates apply to invention, utility model and design applications.

These application surcharges are not covered by the CNIPA fee reduction scheme, which excludes the publication printing fee and application surcharges.

The substantive examination fee is CNY 2,500 and applies only to invention applications; utility models and designs undergo no substantive examination and pay nothing at this stage.

Part of it can be recovered: where an invention application has already entered substantive examination and the applicant voluntarily withdraws it before the deadline for responding to the first office action (and no response has yet been filed), 50% of the substantive examination fee may be refunded on request. This gives applicants a genuine exit option at the first substantive hurdle.

A priority claim fee of CNY 80 per priority applies to invention, utility model and design applications alike. Invention applications additionally pay a publication printing fee of CNY 50; utility models and designs do not.

A reexamination fee of CNY 1,000 applies to invention patents, and CNY 300 to utility models and designs. The reexamination fee is one of the items covered by the CNIPA fee reduction scheme where the applicant qualifies.

An invalidation request fee of CNY 3,000 applies to invention patents and CNY 1,500 to utility models and designs. The invalidation request fee is not covered by the fee reduction scheme.

Annuities for an invention patent rise in steps across the 20-year term: CNY 900 per year for years 1–3, CNY 1,200 for years 4–6, CNY 2,000 for years 7–9, CNY 4,000 for years 10–12, CNY 6,000 for years 13–15 and CNY 8,000 for years 16–20.

Annuities are the largest lifetime cost for most Chinese patents, and the schedule is deliberately progressive — the annual fee more than triples between years 4–6 and years 10–12 — which rewards disciplined portfolio pruning. Portfolio reviews should be scheduled before each step-up.

Utility models (10-year term) and designs (15-year term) share the same early annuity schedule:

Utility model patents (10-year term)

Design patents (15-year term)

An annuity falls due before the expiry of the previous year of the term. A late-payment surcharge of 5% of the full annual fee for the current year applies for each full month of delay within the grace period. Where an annuity is not paid in time, the patent right may terminate; restoration is available on request against the restoration of rights request fee.

For patentees monitoring a portfolio, the practical consequence is that the deadline to watch is the anniversary of the filing date, not the grant date.

Where a patent is maintained to the end of its term, paid on time and subject to no fee reduction, the cumulative official fee is as follows:

Surcharges for claim sets beyond ten claims or specifications beyond thirty pages, and priority claim fees, are excluded from these figures.

Beyond the application, examination and annuity fees, the following items apply at various points in the life of a Chinese patent:

For batched transfers of patent applications or patents, the recordal change fee is charged according to the number of applications or patents involved. Where the same batch of applicants or proprietors changes its name without any transfer of rights, the fee is charged as a single case.

Patent term compensation is a new fee category introduced alongside the patent term extension and patent term adjustment mechanisms of the 2023 amendment to the Implementing Regulations: a CNY 200 request fee per case and an annuity of CNY 8,000 per year during any compensation period (no charge is made for a partial year). Both are relevant to pharmaceutical applicants in particular.

Where CNIPA acts as receiving Office, International Searching Authority or Preliminary Examining Authority, the following fees apply in the international phase:

International filing fees and transmittal fees collected by CNIPA on behalf of the WIPO International Bureau follow the PCT Regulations and the RMB standards published on the WIPO website.

A late-payment surcharge equal to 50% of the unpaid amount applies. Where that amount would exceed 50% of the international filing fee (excluding the additional filing fee), the surcharge is capped at 50% of the international filing fee.

On entry into the Chinese national phase, a grace fee of CNY 1,000, translation correction fees of CNY 300 at preliminary examination stage and CNY 1,200 at substantive examination stage, a unity restoration fee of CNY 900 and a priority restoration fee of CNY 1,000 apply. All other national-phase items follow the domestic schedule.

Two waivers deserve attention when advising PCT clients:

• Where the PCT application was filed with CNIPA as receiving Office and searched by CNIPA, the application fee and application surcharges are waived on entry into the Chinese national phase.
• Where CNIPA issued the international search report and the international preliminary report on patentability, the substantive examination fee is waived when substantive examination is requested at national-phase entry.

Usually not. Where CNIPA acts as receiving Office, it accepts international applications only from Chinese nationals or residents — a category that includes foreigners with a long-term residence in China and foreign legal persons registered with the Chinese authorities; where there are several applicants, at least one of them must qualify.

A PCT applicant with no Chinese establishment therefore cannot claim the waiver of the application fee and application surcharges, or the waiver of the substantive examination fee, unless it files jointly with a qualifying Chinese entity.

Two related points are frequently mis-stated in older materials. First, the 20% reduction of the substantive examination fee for search reports issued by the European Patent Office, the Japan Patent Office or the Swedish PRV was removed when the 2023 Examination Guidelines took effect on 20 January 2024; only a CNIPA-issued search report now attracts a waiver. Second, where a foreign office (for example the USPTO) acted as receiving Office, neither the application fee nor the application surcharge is waived on entry into the Chinese national phase.

Under the Hague System, international programme fees are paid directly to the International Bureau in Swiss Francs, while the following individual designation fees for China are payable to CNIPA in CNY:

National procedure fees for international design registrations designating China follow the domestic design schedule.

CNIPA operates a fee reduction scheme that is unusually generous by international comparison, and it is worth verifying eligibility before any payment is made:

The headline rate is 85% for a single qualifying applicant, falling to 70% where two or more joint applicants claim the reduction.

The reduction covers the application fee (excluding the publication printing fee and application surcharges), the invention substantive examination fee, the reexamination fee, annuities for the first ten years counted from the year of grant (including annuities payable during an open-licensing period), and the first and second instalments of the individual designation fee for China.

Where a patent is under open licence, annuities are further reduced by 15%. If an annuity qualifies under more than one reduction, the higher rate applies. Our practice note on the filing procedure is available in How to File for a Patent Application Fee Reduction.

Yes. A Chinese subsidiary or a locally established entity that meets the income thresholds can obtain the 85% reduction on application, substantive examination and annuity fees. Eligibility is tested against the Chinese applicant’s own income, so a foreign parent company filing directly from abroad will not normally qualify.

For completeness, the schedule also covers layout designs of integrated circuits: registration fee CNY 1,000; reexamination request fee CNY 1,000; recordal change fee CNY 50 (per case); extension of time limit fee CNY 150 (per case); restoration of registration rights fee CNY 500; non-voluntary licence request fee CNY 150; and the fee for a ruling on remuneration for non-voluntary licence use CNY 150.

• Fees stay moderate, but the annuity curve is what matters. For invention patents the annual fee triples between years 4–6 and years 10–12, so portfolio reviews should be scheduled before each step-up.
• Fee reductions are available to foreign-owned entities too. A Chinese subsidiary or a locally established entity meeting the income thresholds can obtain the 85% reduction on application, substantive examination and annuity fees.
• The PCT route is where structure pays. Using CNIPA as International Searching Authority can waive both the national-phase application fee and the substantive examination fee.
• Always verify before payment. Fee standards are adjusted periodically, and the operative figures are those published in the CNIPA online system.

Take a PCT application entering the Chinese national phase with 12 claims, a specification of 35 pages including drawings and one priority claim, granted in year 3 and maintained to year 5, with no fee reduction and no late payment:

Official fees are therefore not the main cost of a Chinese patent in its early years; the decision that matters is whether the patent still justifies CNY 4,000 or CNY 8,000 a year once it passes year 10 and year 16.