Alabama trade name filing guide

Alabama places trade names on the Secretary of State’s trademarks page alongside trademarks and service marks.

The state calls the relevant filing a “trade name,” not an assumed-name certificate or fictitious-business-name statement.

Its verified instruction says that trade names may be registered, so this guide records registration as optional rather than turning that permissive wording into a universal filing command.

The same instruction identifies one process for all entity types in the present record; it does not supply separate rules for corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, or sole proprietors.

Alabama’s application title is correspondingly broad: Application to Register or Renew Trademark, Service Mark or Trade Name.

This page therefore describes the state mark-registration program and does not imply that the record establishes a business entity or a different filing obligation.

The operational details here come from the Alabama Secretary of State material retrieved on September 2, 2026.

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A new Alabama trade-name registration starts with the Secretary of State’s Application to Register or Renew Trademark, Service Mark or Trade Name.

The verified filing instruction names three components: the application, three specimens, and the registration fee.

Those specimens are part of Alabama’s own stated submission description and should not be silently reduced to one merely because the renewal process uses a different number.

The fee is presented by the authority in words and figures as “thirty dollars ($30.00),” which is the exact amount preserved in the fact panel.

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A filer should therefore follow the current delivery directions attached to the official application rather than relying on an address supplied by an unofficial guide.

Before preparing the package, confirm that the document still bears the combined registration-and-renewal title and that the Secretary of State still states the same fee and specimen requirement.

DBA Filing Guide does not receive the application, specimens, money, or any identifying information from the filer.

Alabama states that the effective term for mark registrations is five years.

That verified duration is the basis for the renewal discussion; this page does not invent an anniversary day or an advance filing window that the cited material does not give.

For renewal, the Secretary of State says to submit an application for renewal, one specimen, and the renewal fee.

The contrast with an original registration is important: the new-registration instruction calls for three specimens, while the renewal instruction calls for one.

Ownership transfer has another distinct requirement.

If ownership of a mark changes through a lawful transfer, Alabama says that a notarized statement of assignment must be filed with the assignment fee.

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First decide whether the Alabama process described here matches the intended action: an optional state registration of a trade name within the Secretary of State’s mark program.

For an original registration, open the official trademarks page and its Application to Register or Renew Trademark, Service Mark or Trade Name.

Compare the current instructions against the three supported elements recorded here—an application, three specimens, and the thirty-dollar fee—before submitting anything.

For an existing registration approaching the end of its five-year term, use the renewal portion of the official process and note that its verified instruction specifies one specimen plus the renewal fee.

If ownership has lawfully transferred, do not treat renewal as a substitute for the separately described notarized assignment statement and assignment fee.

Because the available record gives no verified submission address or portal, take those logistics only from the current Secretary of State materials.

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Questions about those absent details should go to the authority or an appropriately licensed adviser.

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