Inventing it is the easy part
You probably have the name already. It is in your notes, you have said it out loud to your partner, and it fits on a shopfront.
What you do not yet know is whether you get to keep it. That is a different question, and it is the one starters in this trade trip over most. The name itself is rarely the problem: more often something almost identical already sits three streets away, someone has registered it as a trademark, or you only went looking for the domain name after your KVK registration went public.
Salon names also resemble each other by nature. Hair by someone, Studio something, Beauty plus a first name, the street name plus Barbers. That is not a lack of imagination but the shape of the trade: your name has to say in one glance what you do and for whom. The result is that the odds of a collision are far higher here than in almost any other sector.
So this article is not about inspiration. It is about the check, the legal frame underneath it, and the order in which you take the steps.
Start at the Naamchecker, and know what it does not do
KVK has a free tool for this. Kvk.nl writes: want to know whether the business name you invented is already in the Handelsregister and the trademark register? The Naamchecker will tell you.
That "and" is the important word. The Naamchecker looks in two registers at once. The first is the Handelsregister, holding every business registered with KVK and its trade names. The second is the BOIP trademark register, holding every mark applied for or registered in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. That second one is exactly what most starters skip, and it is where the expensive surprise comes from: a registered trademark can stop you using your trade name even when nobody is registered under it at KVK.
What the Naamchecker does not do matters just as much. It only finds what has been registered. A salon that has traded under a name for twelve years without ever registering it still has older rights than you, because a trade name right arises from use. So alongside the Naamchecker, run three manual checks: search for your name plus your trade and your region, search Instagram and Facebook, and check whether the domain name is free.
Confusion: why this bites harder in this trade
The heart of the Handelsnaamwet is article 5. In short: you may not use a trade name already used by another, or one deviating from it only slightly, where confusion among the public is to be feared given the nature of both businesses and their place of establishment.
Read those two criteria again. The nature of both businesses, and the place of establishment. In most sectors at least one of them is an escape route: you do something different, or you sit fifty kilometres away. In this trade both are met almost by default. Two hair salons do the same thing by definition, and both serve the same few square kilometres. So the whole question collapses onto how similar the names are, and the bar there is lower than people assume. "Deviating only slightly" is enough to be caught.
That also explains the misconception you hear most: I will just put my town after it. Ondernemersplein.overheid.nl is explicit. Your competitor can still sue you when you try to make the name distinctive by adding your own town name. "Studio Blond Utrecht" next to an existing "Studio Blond" solves nothing, least of all in the same city.
Other variants that fail for the same reason: the same name spelled differently, the same name with a hyphen, or the same name with Hair or Beauty tacked on. The test is not whether the names are identical, but whether the public can mix them up.
If it does go wrong, the route is not straight to an expensive court case. You can petition the kantonrechter to order the other party to change the name. That procedure is deliberately accessible, but it still costs you months of trouble that half an hour of checking would have prevented.
Names that suggest something untrue
Beyond colliding with someone else, there is a second category of forbidden names: names that give a false impression of your own business.
About the legal form. You may not put bv or nv in your name if you do not have that legal form. That sounds obvious, but the subtler version is more common: kvk.nl gives the example of a sole trader calling itself "Jansen & partners", which makes it look as though there is more than one owner.
About size. Your name may not make your business look different or bigger than it is. Words like group, holding, international or Dutch above one chair in a back room invite a correction.
About your competence. Some professions are legally protected, and you may only use those words in your business name if you hold the right diplomas. Two matter for a salon. Medical titles such as arts and verpleegkundige may only be used if you are in the BIG register. And the titles huidtherapeut and podotherapeut are protected training titles under article 34 of the Wet BIG: only someone who has completed the designated course may use them. A beauty salon calling itself "huidtherapie" without that training is in the wrong, however good the treatments are.
Sources for this section: kvk.nl, ondernemersplein.overheid.nl, the Handelsnaamwet at wetten.overheid.nl and bigregister.nl. Checked September 2026.
Trade name or trademark: what you actually get
These are two different rights, and they do different jobs.
A handelsnaam, or trade name, is the name you trade under. The right arises from use, free and automatically. Kvk.nl: if you are the first to use a business name, someone else may not simply take it, and whether your name sits in the Handelsregister makes no difference. But the protection stops where article 5 stops: confusion, given the nature of the businesses and their place of establishment. Outside that circle you cannot stop anyone.
A merk, or trademark, is something else. Register your name or logo as a trademark at BOIP and you get the exclusive right to use that mark for the services you registered it for, across the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Not just your own neighbourhood. A Benelux trademark is protected for 10 years from the application date and can be renewed indefinitely in 10-year terms.
The costs are simple. A Benelux trademark registration costs 244 EUR for 10 years in one class. A second class costs 27 EUR extra, each further class 81 EUR. Renewal costs 263 EUR. You can file it yourself through My BOIP. Source: kvk.nl and boip.int, checked September 2026.
| Trade name | BOIP trademark | |
|---|---|---|
| How it arises | By using the name | By registration |
| Cost | None | 244 EUR for 10 years, 1 class |
| Reach | As far as confusion is to be feared, in practice your own region | Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg |
| Against what | Confusing use by a comparable business nearby | Use of your mark for the registered services |
| Evidence | You prove that and since when you use the name | The registration date in the register |
When is that 244 EUR worth it for a single salon? Three cases. If you plan a second location or a franchise, because your trade name right ends exactly where your growth starts. If you want to sell products under your name. And if your name is invented and distinctive rather than descriptive, because then there is something to protect that another person will not coincidentally invent too. If your salon is called "Kapsalon Dorpsstraat", a trademark is a waste of money.
The order almost everyone reverses
Here is the most common mistake, and the easiest one to avoid.
Most starters register at KVK first, because that is the step that feels like it makes things real, and then go looking to see whether the domain name is free. Kvk.nl advises exactly the opposite: register your domain name first and only then register at KVK.
The reason is that the Handelsregister is public. Your registration is visible, and there are parties who work through new registrations and grab the matching domain name to sell back to you. That is rare, but not rare enough to gamble on, and a tenner prevents it.
So take the steps in this order:
- Pick your name and run it through the Naamchecker, on both registers.
- Search manually for your name plus your trade plus your region, and check Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
- Secure the domain name and claim the social handles. Together they cost less than a haircut. With no website yet, your name can live as a booking address straight away: see online booking without a website.
- Register at KVK.
- Only then consider a trademark, if your name is distinctive enough and you have expansion plans.
- Keep evidence of first use: a dated photo of your shopfront, your first invoice, your first advert.
That last step takes two minutes and is exactly what you need when someone opens around the corner with the same name in three years. First use wins, but you have to be able to show it.
What to sort out tonight
An hour, and your name is settled.
First thirty minutes of checking: the Naamchecker on both registers, a manual search on name plus trade plus region, and a run through the social handles. If you find something too close, invent a variant rather than hoping it will be fine.
Then ten minutes of securing: domain name and handles, in that order, before you go anywhere near KVK.
Then twenty minutes on the place that name has to live from day one. A name only works once clients can do something with it, and that something is usually booking. That is where CelerBook fits, software for hair salons: you get a booking page on your own subdomain carrying your salon name, plus a mini-site with your photos, your theme colours and your treatment menu, in Dutch and English. That is the address you put in your bio and print on your shopfront. Clients pick their own treatment and time, you see everything in one calendar for you and your staff, and confirmation emails go out automatically, and an SMS reminder ahead of time costs 0.11 EUR ex VAT per appointment. The pricing suits a business that has just opened: the first 5 appointments each month are free, then 0.25 EUR excluding VAT per completed appointment, capped at 30 EUR a month for a solo operator plus 5 EUR per additional active staff member. No contract, and no usage means no cost. Try CelerBook for free.