There can be various policies and restrictions required when registering certain ccTLDs. Some of these have residency requirements as well as renewal specifications. These policies affect who can manage and register these TLDs and how they can be renewed. A brief overview of all our TLDs, including ccTLDs policies, can be found in our TLD reference chart.
- Registration requirements
- TLDs with renewal restrictions
- TLDs with additional requirements
- Handling unique ccTLD authorization codes
Registration requirements
While some ccTLDs can be registered by anyone with little to no restrictions, some have regulations regarding a registrant's location and can only be registered by an individual or organization residing in the TLD's affiliated country. These domains may also have additional restrictions that affect DNS management, change of registrant, and transfers.
| ccTLD | Requirement |
| .AU | Australian presence is required, ABN, ACN, or TM. Required for all .AU registrations. |
| .CA | Canadian presence is necessary to register this TLD. |
| .EU | Must be an EU citizen, independent of their place of residence. A natural person who is not an EU citizen and a resident of a Member State. An undertaking established in the EU or an organization based in the EU without prejudice to the application of the national law. |
| .FR | A presence in the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, or Liechtenstein is required. |
| .IT | Resident or citizen of an EU country required. |
| .NU | Individuals must submit ID card numbers; organizations must submit business registration numbers. Organizations based outside of Sweden must also submit VAT-ID. |
| .SG | The registrant and Admin must be Singapore residents. Organizations must submit their business registration number. |
| .UK | Registrants must be based in the UK. |
| .US | Registrants must be US residents or citizens. US Nexus info required. Nameservers must be located in the US. |
TLDs with renewal restrictions
Most ccTLDs can be set to auto-renew or manually renewed before the domain's expiration date. However, certain ccTLDs can only be auto-renewed. These domains typically also have a delete-by-date if not renewed on time. Other domains can be manually renewed but still have a deletion date or another renewal restriction.
| TLD | Terms and delete-by-date |
| .AM | It can be manually renewed but will delete three days before expiration. |
| .AT | No grace period or redemption. It will be deleted four days before expiration. |
| .BE | Auto-renew only with no grace period has a 30-day redemption period if auto-renew fails. |
| .AC | It can only be renewed one year at a time. |
| .CH | Deletes ten days before expiry if not set to auto-renew. If auto-renew is off and the domain enters redemption, it may be recoverable for an increased redemption fee. |
| .DE | Deletes one day before expiration if not set to auto-renew |
| .GS | Auto-renew only deletes three days before expiration. |
| .LI | Deletes ten days before expiry if not set to auto-renew. If auto-renew is off and the domain enters redemption, it may be recoverable for an increased redemption fee. |
| .NL | Deletes three days before expiration. |
| .PL | Deletes three days before expiration. |
| .TW | Does not have grace or a redemption period. |
| .TK | Deletes three days before expiration. |
| .IO | Auto-renew only. Domains not set to auto-renew may continue to resolve and stay in the zone until deleted by the registry. |
| .CM | Deletes three days before expiration. |
| .FM | Does not have grace or a redemption period. |
| .LA | Does not have grace or a redemption period. |
| .MN | Deletes two days before expiration. |
| .MS | It can be renewed one year at a time, with no grace or redemption period. |
| .PE | Deletes ten days before expiration. |
| .NZ | Deletes three days before expiration. |
| .PW | Auto-renew only, 30-day grace and redemption period |
| .SC | Does not have grace or a redemption period. |
| .TM | Does not have grace or a redemption period. |
TLDs with additional requirements
.Asia
| Contact information requirements | There can only be one registrant contact associated with each domain registration. The domain must have four associated contacts, including the registrant, billing, technical, and administrative. Based on the .ASIA Charter Eligibility Requirement Policies, one of the contacts must be nominated as the Charter Eligibility Declaration (CED) Contact. |
| Nameservers | Domain names do not have to have Nameserver records to be created in the .ASIA SRS. For the domain name to be published to the .ASIA zone file must have a minimum of two nameservers associated |
| Whois information | The registry maintains a registry-level WHOIS database that contains information for every registered .ASIA second-level domain. Registrars submit the data during the registration process. |
| UDRP policy | Complaints under the UDRP should be submitted to an approved dispute-resolution service provider listed at http://www.icann.org/dndr/udrp/approved-providers.htm. |
| Renewals | Domain name registrations may be renewed before the expiration for up to ten years (in one-year increments). |
.IT
We do not accept incoming .IT domain transfers. .IT domains are auto-renew-only and will delete 30 days before the expiration if not set to auto-renew. There is no charge when changing ownership, and the registration term does not change. You will need to contact support to update the contact details.
The following DNS requirements must be pre-configured for any domain name registered:
- The servers' IP addresses must be static and correspond to those associated.
- The first nameserver must be the same as indicated in the Server of Authority (SOA) record of the domain name.
- A CNAME must not be associated with the domain name.
- The name of the nameserver specified in the SOA cannot be a CNAME.
- At least one MX or A record must exist for the domain name.
- Where an MX record is listed, it must not have an associated CNAME.
- The servers must not give the following responses: not responding, not reachable, not running, non-existent domain, host not found, server failure, query failed.
- Indicated nameservers must be authoritative for the domain name.
.US
.US is the ccTLD for the United States and is regulated by the NeuStar Registry. Similar to most ccTLD, there are restrictions and requirements when attempting to register one of these domains.
| Requirements | Registrants, organizations, or entities must be located within the US. The registry operator conducts weekly random checks for U.S. nexus requirements. They select a small sample (approximately 0.5% of new registrations) and send the chosen registrants a Nexus confirmation email. Each selected registrant will have 30 days to respond to the registry operator. If the registrant fails to respond, the registry operator will attempt a second contact with the registrant. If there is no response to the second contact, the registry operator will delete the domain name. |
| DNSSEC | Please note that DNSSEC records cannot be removed as the TLD zone assigns them for all domains. It is the standard for all DNSSEC-signed zones, which applies to .US as well. It's not attached to the domain it is a security record that outlines the next DNS record in the zone (alphabetically). The zone (.us zone) puts DNSSEC on everything, telling what the next domain is, so, in a way, it is on their domain but not done by the registrar instead, it's done automatically. |
| Whois | As per policy, .US TLDs do not have WHOIS privacy, meaning registrant information is viewable using WHOIS lookup. For any WHOIS update, customers must answer the additional Nexus questions on the Contact Information page otherwise, the registry will reject the update. |
.CN
.CN is the ccTLD for China, while there are no restrictions on who can register this TLD, using it for email or a website requires the registrant to verify their personal or business identity. New registrations and transfers in of .CN domains are not supported, .CN-registered domains can be renewed and transferred away; however, new orders will not be accepted.CN domain names at this time. This TLD does not have a grace period and will be deleted 2-5 days after it expires and will become available immediately.
.DE
.DE is the ccTLD for Germany and is managed by DENIC eG, .DE TLD can be registered from any owner country. When the registrant is not in Germany, an authorized contact located in Germany who can receive official or court documents on their behalf is required. To allow a .DE domain to expire, the registrant completes and submits the deletion form at least five days before expiry. This TLD is set to auto-renew. There is no grace period. This domain deletes one day before expiration if not set to auto-renew.
.EU
To transfer this domain, at least one nameserver must be specified. The .EU top-level domains have a different way of registering name servers (i.e., create glue records) and should not be registered using the regular tool on our website. To register name servers for one of these domains, please do the following:
- Follow the steps to change your nameservers
- If you are setting up ns1.example.eu and ns2.example.eu, for example, navigate to the DNS Server Settings, for example.eu.
- Enter the name servers in the DNS Server Settings section in the following format:
- 192.168.0.1--ns1.example.eu
- 192.168.0.2--ns2.example.eu
Making these entries, for example.eu registers the name servers ns1.example.eu and ns2.example.eu. If you have another .eu domain that needs to use the same name servers, then you can simply enter ns1.example.eu and ns2.example.eu.
.NYC
.NYC is a geoTLD for New York City. To be eligible for this domain, the registrant must be an individual, organization, or entity residing in one of the five New York City boroughs.
The following boroughs are eligible:
- The Bronx
- Brooklyn
- Manhattan
- Staten Island
- Queens
Before purchasing a .NYC domain name, registrants need to accept the following:
- Registrants must agree to comply with all relevant Federal, New York State, and New York City laws and tax requirements.
- Registrants must comply with the applicable Nexus policies for the duration of the domain's registration.
- Registrants must agree not to license, sub-delegate, or transfer .NYC domain(s) to third parties.
- No proxy registrations are permitted.
- P.O. Boxes are not permitted as the registrant's address.
Handling unique ccTLD authorization codes
Some ccTLDs handle the authorization code process differently. The responsible registrar requests an authorization code from the registry. Registry Services then generates the code and returns it to the responsible registrar.
| .NU | .NU is the ccTLD for Niue. |
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