.dev

Register a .dev domain

Google Registry's developer extension, and the one with a genuine technical constraint: .dev is on the HSTS preload list, so HTTPS is not optional.

Extension type: Generic (gTLD)
Who can register: Open to anyone
Registry: Charleston Road Registry (Google Registry)
Renews at: On request

Check a .dev name

.dev pricing

Live pricing is temporarily unavailable for .dev.

Live pricing is temporarily unavailable. Search the name you want, or ask us and we will quote it.

Before you register .dev

What the price includes: Every .dev amount on this page is resolved by the same pricing engine that charges your cart, at the moment the page is built. There is no separate ICANN fee, agency fee or surcharge added later — the figure you see is the figure you pay, in the currency shown.
Premium and reserved names: Some names are classed as premium by the registry and priced individually, usually at the premium rate every year rather than only the first. Search the exact name to see its own quote. If a name's premium status or price changes between your quote and your purchase, the quote is invalidated rather than quietly repriced.
Renewal is not automatic unless you switch it on: Auto-renew is off unless you enable it, and enabling it sets a flag at the registry rather than scheduling a charge here. We email the registrant address before a name expires, so keep a monitored address on the record. If a .dev name does lapse, restoring it costs considerably more than renewing it would have — the restore price is in the table above.
Transfers: Transferring .dev to us needs the AuthInfo (EPP) code from your current registrar, which they are obliged to give you on request. Where the registry operates a waiting period before a name may move — ICANN imposes one on generic extensions — it is set out in the facts above. That is registry policy, not ours, and we cannot waive it.

Eligibility

Open to anyone — but read the HTTPS requirement first

Registry: Charleston Road Registry (Google Registry), under a registry agreement with ICANN.

No developer credential, company or geographic requirement.
The whole extension is on the HSTS preload list built into browsers.
That means browsers refuse plain HTTP to any .dev name. A valid TLS certificate is a precondition for the site working at all, not a later improvement.

The HSTS preload rule, and why it should decide your choice

Most extensions are marketing. .dev is one of the few with a technical property baked into it: the entire TLD is on the HTTP Strict Transport Security preload list that ships inside browsers. Google Registry, which operates .dev along with .app and several other technology extensions, had the TLD added at the top level, so the rule applies to every name under it from the moment it is registered.

What that means in practice: a browser will not make a plain HTTP request to a .dev address at all. It upgrades to HTTPS before any request leaves the machine, and if the certificate does not validate it shows a security interstitial the user cannot click through. There is no fallback and no per-name exemption. ICANN's registration policy for .dev even requires registrars to disclose this before purchase, which is why you are reading it here rather than after checkout.

For anything we host, this is a non-issue — TLS certificates are issued and renewed automatically on our platform. It matters if you plan to point a .dev name at infrastructure you run yourself, or at a legacy internal service, or at a staging box someone set up with a self-signed certificate. On .dev those all fail closed.

Where .dev earns its place

The extension communicates audience. A documentation site, an API endpoint, a CLI's homepage or an engineering portfolio on .dev needs no explanation to the people who will actually use it, and short names remain available where the .com equivalent went years ago.

It is a poor fit for anything aimed at a non-technical buyer, who will read it as a typo or as unfinished. If your customers are Swiss SMEs rather than engineers, .ch does that job and .dev works better on the developer-facing subdomain than on the front door.

Who runs it, and why some names cost more to keep

IANA names Charleston Road Registry Inc. of Mountain View as the sponsoring organisation for .dev; the company trades as Google Registry and is still very much operating, having announced .eat, .fly and .here for launch in autumn 2026. The extension was delegated in November 2014 but held back for years. Google Registry published the schedule on 12 November 2018: a sunrise for Trademark Clearinghouse holders from 16 January to 19 February 2019, an Early Access period from 19 to 28 February 2019 during which anyone could register for an extra fee that fell each day, and general availability from 28 February 2019.

That launch history still shapes what is left and what it costs to hold. Google Registry's published .dev pricing policy defines a premium tier, and the distinction between the two kinds of extra charge is the one to understand before you buy. The Early Access fee was a one-off, charged once and never again; a premium name is different, carrying a higher annual registration fee that applies to every renewal for as long as you keep the name. The same policy obliges the registry to give registrars a way to identify a name's price before registering it, which is why the figures shown above are specific to the name you searched rather than a standard rate. Check the renewal line, not just the first year, on any short .dev word.

Terms and lifecycle

What holding a .dev actually commits you to

HTTPS is mandatory: Every .dev name is HSTS-preloaded in the browser itself. There is no http:// fallback, no 'we'll add TLS next sprint', and no way to opt out for a subdomain. Without a valid certificate a visitor sees an error, not your site.
Term: One to ten years, renewable.
If you miss the renewal: The name stops resolving, then sits in a 30-day redemption period during which only you can restore it — for the restore fee shown above, which is much higher than a renewal. After that come 5 days of pending delete, and then anyone can register it.
Transfer lock: ICANN policy locks a gTLD against registrar transfer for 60 days after registration and for 60 days after a previous transfer, so a newly registered name cannot move immediately.

Fit

Who .dev is for

Developer tools, docs and APIs
The extension says what the thing is to precisely the audience that will use it, without a tagline.
Engineering portfolios
Short, unambiguous, and still reasonably available compared to .com and .io.
Not for legacy internal setups
If any part of the estate still serves plain HTTP or uses self-signed certificates internally, .dev will break it. That is a feature, but plan for it.

TLS handled, because .dev requires it

Our managed platforms issue and renew certificates automatically, which turns .dev's hardest requirement into someone else's problem.

See hosting

Frequently asked questions

Do I need HTTPS for a .dev domain?

Yes, and not as a recommendation. The whole .dev TLD is on the HSTS preload list built into browsers, so a browser will not connect over plain HTTP at all. Without a valid TLS certificate visitors see a security error instead of your site. On our hosting, certificates are issued and renewed automatically.

Can I exempt a subdomain from the HTTPS requirement?

No. The preload entry covers the entire extension including subdomains, and it lives in the browser rather than in your DNS or your server config. If something in your estate cannot do TLS, do not put it on .dev.

Do I have to be a developer to register a .dev domain?

No. There is no credential, entity or geographic requirement — the only real constraint is the HTTPS one.

What happens if a .dev expires?

The standard gTLD sequence: up to 45 days of auto-renew grace, then a 30-day redemption period where the name stops resolving and only you can restore it for the restore fee, then 5 days of pending delete before it is released to anyone.