.eu

Register an .eu domain

The European Union's extension, run by EURid in Belgium. Genuinely restricted: the holder must be a citizen of the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, resident there, or an entity established there. Switzerland is not on that list.

Extension type: Country-code (ccTLD)
Who can register: Eligibility rules apply
Registry: EURid vzw
Renews at: On request

Check a .eu name

.eu pricing

Live pricing is temporarily unavailable for .eu.

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

Before you register .eu

What the price includes: Every .eu 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 .eu name does lapse, restoring it costs considerably more than renewing it would have — the restore price is in the table above.
Transfers: Transferring .eu 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.
Who may register: .eu is a restricted extension. The registry's eligibility rules are set out above and are checked by the registry, not by us — a registration that does not qualify is refused or later cancelled by them, and we refund what we can rather than what we would like to.

Restricted extension

EU, Icelandic, Liechtenstein or Norwegian holders only

Registry: EURid vzw, Diegem, Belgium, appointed by the European Commission under Regulation (EU) 2019/517.

As of 2 August 2021 four routes qualify: you are a citizen of an EU member state, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, wherever you live; you are not such a citizen but you reside in one of those countries; you are an undertaking established in one of them; or you are an organisation established in one of them. Citizenship alone became sufficient under Regulation (EU) 2019/517, which is the change most older guides have not caught up with.
Switzerland is absent from that list, and this is the fact that catches Swiss buyers. A Swiss company with no EU or EEA establishment cannot hold an .eu name. A person living in Switzerland who holds an EU, Icelandic, Liechtenstein or Norwegian passport can, by registering as a private individual and declaring the country of citizenship on the handle. A company handle with a non-EU country cannot be rescued that way.
The United Kingdom stopped qualifying when the transition period ended. Non-compliant UK holdings were suspended on 1 January 2021 and withdrawn on 1 July 2021. A UK business can still hold an .eu today, but only through an EU or EEA establishment, an EU or EEA residence, or the citizenship of a qualifying state.
There is no trustee or proxy route around any of this. EURid's terms require the registration data to be your own and expressly forbid holding through a proxy or through a representative of someone who does not qualify, and inaccurate data is itself grounds for revocation. If you do not meet the test, no reseller can meet it for you.

The eligibility rule, and why it changed

.eu is the only extension we sell whose restriction is set by legislation rather than by a registry's own policy. EURid vzw operates it from Diegem in Belgium under an appointment from the European Commission, and the eligibility test comes from Regulation (EU) 2019/517. That regulation widened the rule considerably: before it, the holder essentially had to be established or resident inside the Union, which cut off millions of EU citizens living abroad. Since 2 August 2021 citizenship of an EU member state, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway qualifies on its own, wherever the citizen happens to live.

For a Swiss buyer the widened rule is a mixed result. Switzerland is not in the European Union and, unlike Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, is not covered by the list EURid applies, so a Swiss AG or GmbH with no establishment elsewhere in the EEA cannot hold an .eu name however long it has traded into the Union. What often does work is the individual route, because a great many people resident in Switzerland hold the passport of a member state, and citizenship is now enough on its own. That has to be registered honestly as a private individual with the country of citizenship recorded, and it puts the name in a person's hands rather than the company's, which is a trade-off worth deciding deliberately rather than discovering later.

What EURid checks, and how we handle it

Registration is real time, but eligibility is not a one-off gate. EURid reserves the right to verify registration data and to run additional checks at any point, including long after the name is live, and it contacts the registrant directly from no-reply@eurid.eu with reminders and a deadline. The registrant completes the process in the My .eu portal. A name that fails verification can be suspended or deleted with no refund, and once the holder's country is outside the qualifying list the registry will not accept updates to the domain until the record is corrected. The Brexit round showed how firmly this is applied: non-compliant holdings were suspended on 1 January 2021 and withdrawn six months later.

As a reseller our part is narrow and we would rather be plain about it. We cannot verify anyone to EURid, we cannot register a name against data that does not qualify, and we will not offer a trustee arrangement for .eu because the registry's terms forbid proxy holding outright. What we do is check the handle against the four eligibility routes before submitting, record the country of citizenship correctly where that is the qualifying route, and forward registry correspondence promptly so a verification deadline is never missed by accident. Registration, renewal, transfer and restore prices are all shown live above before you commit.

Terms and lifecycle

What holding a .eu actually commits you to

Term and renewal: One to ten years, and the term is tacitly renewed for consecutive one-year periods unless a deletion request reaches EURid through your registrar before the term ends. If no such request arrives, the renewal fee falls due. A name registered on 29 February always expires on 28 February.
If you miss the renewal: The name enters quarantine, which EURid publishes as 40 days; Openprovider's platform records 38 days as the window it can act in, so plan on the shorter figure. Websites and email stop working the moment quarantine starts, but the name can be reactivated at any point inside it through your registrar for the restore price shown above, which is well beyond a renewal. After that it is released first come, first served.
Transfer between registrars: Transfers use an authorisation code in four blocks of four characters, valid for 40 days, and complete in real time. A successful transfer extends the registration by a further year rather than resetting it. ICANN's 60-day post-registration lock is a gTLD rule and does not apply. If your current registrar will not release the code, you can generate it yourself in the My .eu portal, and changing the holder during the code's validity resets it.
Registrant checks after registration: EURid may verify registration data and run security checks at any time, before or after the name is in the zone and working. Verification emails come from no-reply@eurid.eu and are completed by the registrant in the My .eu portal, not by us. If verification is not completed by the stated deadline the registry may suspend or delete the name without a refund, and a domain whose holder no longer sits in the EU cannot be updated at all until that is corrected.
Names, scripts and disputes: A name is 2 to 63 characters, cannot begin or end with a hyphen and cannot carry hyphens in the third and fourth positions. Scripts cannot be mixed: Latin names take .eu, Cyrillic names take .ею and Greek names take .ευ. Disputes go to alternative dispute resolution under EURid's rules rather than to the UDRP, and a name is placed on hold for the duration of an ADR or court case.

Fit

Who .eu is for

Trading across the single market
If your customers are in six member states rather than one, .eu says so without buying and maintaining six country codes. It is also the only extension whose eligibility itself demonstrates an EU or EEA footing.
EU subsidiaries of Swiss and UK groups
The eligibility test is met by the entity, not the group. A Swiss or British parent with a German, Irish or Dutch company can register .eu against that company, and it is worth putting the name on the entity that will still qualify in five years.
Not for a Swiss-only or UK-only business
Without an EU or EEA establishment, residence or citizenship there is no lawful way in, and a name registered on data that does not qualify can be revoked later. If Switzerland is the market, .ch is open to anyone and is the better buy.

If the eligibility test rules you out

Plenty of extensions carry no residency or citizenship test at all. It is worth comparing them side by side before settling for a name registered against data that might not hold up.

Compare all extensions

Frequently asked questions

Can a Swiss company register an .eu domain?

Not on its own. EURid's list covers the EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, and Switzerland is not on it, so a Swiss entity with no establishment in one of those countries does not qualify. A Swiss group can register against an EU subsidiary, and an individual resident in Switzerland who holds a qualifying citizenship can register in their own name.

Do I have to live in the EU to register an .eu domain?

No, not since 2 August 2021. Citizenship of an EU member state, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway qualifies on its own regardless of where you live, and you record your country of citizenship on the registrant handle. Residence in one of those countries is a separate route for people who are not citizens of them.

Can I use a trustee or local-presence service for .eu?

No. EURid's terms require the registration data to be your own and prohibit holding a name through a proxy or through a representative of someone who does not meet the criteria. Inaccurate registration data is itself a ground for revocation, so a workaround of that kind puts the name at risk rather than securing it.

What happens if my .eu domain expires?

It goes into quarantine and stops resolving immediately. EURid publishes the quarantine as 40 days and Openprovider gives us 38 days to act, during which the name can be reactivated through us at the restore price shown above. Once quarantine ends the name is released and anyone eligible can register it.

What happens if I stop meeting the eligibility criteria?

EURid can revoke the name, and it does. It notifies the holder by email and gives an opportunity to put the position right where that is possible. UK holders are the worked example: non-compliant names were suspended on 1 January 2021 and withdrawn on 1 July 2021. In the meantime a domain whose holder is no longer located in the EU cannot be updated until the registrant data qualifies again.