Class 35: Advertising, Business & Retail Services
Class 35 is the second most used of the 45 trademark classes, appearing on more than four times as many registrations as the average class. It is also comfortably the most misunderstood. Between September 2021 and September 2026, 139,825 UK registrations included it. It covers advertising, running a business, and, crucially, retail. If you sell things other people made, this is your class, and a great many businesses that need it do not realise they do.
What class 35 covers
The official Nice heading is short:
Advertising; business management, organisation and administration; office functions.
That wording badly undersells it. In practice class 35 is where four different kinds of business sit: advertising and marketing agencies, business consultants, anyone providing back-office or administrative services, and every kind of shop: physical, online or both.
When you definitely need class 35
- You run a shop, online store or marketplace, anything where customers browse a range
- You are an advertising, marketing, PR or social media agency
- You are a business consultant, recruiter or bookkeeper
- You provide back-office, administrative or call-centre services
When you might need class 35 without realising
This is where class 35 catches people, because the business does not think of itself as a retailer at all.
A mobile phone shop is the clearest example. Ask what it is and most people say telecoms. In classification terms it is three separate things: the handsets and apps it sells are class 9, the airtime contract is class 38, and the shop itself, the service of putting a range of phones in front of you, is class 35. Register only class 38 and the shop name is unprotected as a shop.
The same pattern appears constantly:
- A café selling its own coffee beans. The beans are class 30, the café is class 43, but a shelf of other people’s products makes it class 35 as well
- A gym with a pro shop, or a salon with a retail wall
- A manufacturer that opens a direct-to-consumer store and starts stocking complementary brands
- A comparison site, directory or marketplace, where the service is bringing buyers and sellers together, which is class 35 rather than a technology class
- A subscription box, which is retail however it is delivered
The test is not what industry you are in. It is whether customers come to you to choose from a range. If they do, that is a retail service, and it needs its own class.
Still not sure? Try our free class helpers below, or give us a call. We would rather talk it through than have you guess.
What businesses actually claim in class 35
These are the terms UK applicants really use, counted across all 139,825 registrations in the class.
| Term | Marks using it | Share of class 35 | How common |
|---|---|---|---|
| advertising | 21,694 | 15.5% | Most use this |
| business management | 14,408 | 10.3% | Recommended |
| business administration | 12,617 | 9.0% | Recommended |
| marketing | 11,316 | 8.1% | Recommended |
| office functions | 10,294 | 7.4% | Recommended |
| advertising, marketing and promotional services | 8,070 | 5.8% | Recommended |
| marketing services | 6,400 | 4.6% | Recommended |
| business consultancy | 6,267 | 4.5% | Recommended |
| retail services connected with the sale of clothing | 5,443 | 3.9% | Some use this |
| online retail services relating to clothing | 4,157 | 3.0% | Some use this |
Notice what the top five have in common: they are the four words of the official heading, plus “marketing”. Thousands of businesses file class 35 by copying the heading and stopping there.
That is rarely the right answer, and the retail entries lower down the table show why. Retail is never claimed as just “retail services”. It is always retail services connected with the sale of [something]. The UK IPO requires you to say what you sell.
The retail point, which is the reason most people are here
This is the single most useful thing to understand about class 35, and it is the thing I most often have to explain twice.
Selling your own product and retailing other people’s are two different things, in two different classes.
If you design and sell your own T-shirts, class 25 protects the T-shirts. If you also stock other brands in your shop, that shop is a service, and the service is class 35. A registration in class 25 does not protect your shop name as a shop.
For a great many online businesses, such as marketplaces, boutiques, concept stores and dropshippers, the shop name is the thing customers know, and class 35 is the class that protects it.
What class 35 does not cover
Training is class 41, not class 35. Business training feels like a business service, but every training term in the data sits in class 41: providing of training (10,151 recent registrations), education and training (7,956). If you run courses or workshops, you need 41 even if the subject is business.
Technology services are class 42. Business consultancy is class 35; software development and IT consultancy are class 42. Agencies that do both need both.
Selling does not protect the thing sold. Class 35 protects the retail service. It does not protect the goods on the shelves. Those sit in their own classes.
Where these terms actually live
| Term | Belongs to | Marks using it |
|---|---|---|
| providing of training | Class 41 | 10,151 |
| education and training | Class 41 | 7,956 |
| software development | Class 42 | 4,163 |
| computer software consultancy | Class 42 | 3,772 |
Each of these is a separate registration. A mark in class 35 does not cover any of them.
The mistake I see most often
Class 35 is the most over-claimed class on the register, and the most under-claimed, often by the same business.
Over-claimed, because “advertising; business management, organisation and administration; office functions” gets added to applications by people who do none of those things, on the theory that it is broad and therefore useful. It is not useful. A specification claiming services you do not provide is vulnerable to being cut back for non-use after five years, and it does nothing for you in the meantime.
Under-claimed, because the same business runs a shop and never registers the shop as a shop.
The test is simple and it is worth applying honestly: what do my customers pay me for? If they pay you for a product, that is the product’s class. If they pay you for access to a range of products, yours and other people’s, that is class 35.
Is class 35 the right class for you?
You almost certainly need class 35 if you run a shop of any kind, an online store, a marketplace, an advertising or marketing agency, or a business consultancy.
Our free class tools will build a specification from real UK filings, using wording the IPO has already accepted, including the retail wording, which has to name the goods you sell.
Common questions about class 35
I sell my own products online. Do I need class 35 as well as my product class?
It depends on whether the shop is a brand in its own right. If customers buy “your product” from a website that happens to be yours, the product class may be enough. If customers know and search for the shop, and especially if you stock other brands alongside your own, class 35 protects that. Most businesses in this position benefit from both.
Can I just claim “retail services” and leave it there?
No. The UK IPO will object to a bare claim of retail services. The specification has to say what is being retailed, which is why every retail term in the filing data reads “retail services connected with the sale of…”. It is worth deciding carefully, because it fixes the scope of the protection.
I run business training courses. Is that class 35 or class 41?
Class 41. Training is a class 41 service regardless of the subject matter. Business consultancy, advising rather than teaching, is class 35. If you do both, and many consultants do, you need both.
Should I add class 35 just to be safe?
As a general rule, if you intend to use it within the next five years it is worth considering. You cannot add classes to an existing trademark, and this is why there is usually a five-year window from applying for your trademark to being required to show proof of use.
That said, there is no point paying an extra official fee for a class you do not intend to use. You cannot squat on a trademark right indefinitely, so it will only help if you plan to genuinely provide those services. An unused class can be challenged and stripped out after five years, and a specification stuffed with services you do not offer makes a mark harder to defend, not easier.
About these figures. Last researched 23 September 2026, from UK trademarks registered between September 2021 and September 2026 whose entry in this class is still active. That is current drafting practice rather than the historical register. Terms shown are those most frequently used in that period.
Four FREE ways to build your class 35 terms
Start with whichever you already have. They all live in the same place.
Let us read your websiteBest if your site already describes what you sell.Start this tool →4Free AI toolAnswer a few questionsBest if you are pre-launch, or your site does not tell the whole story.Start this tool →Is your brand name actually free to use?
Classes are half the picture. The other half is whether somebody already holds your name in them. Our free search checks the UK register in seconds, no sign up and nothing to pay.
0161 833 5400