.UK is the TLD for the United Kingdom, and is regulated by the Nominet Registry.

iTristanmedia offers domain name registrations for .UK, .CO.UK, and .ME.UK in much the same way as we do with the .COM and .NET gTLDs. Due to Nominet’s requirements, .LTD.UK, .PLC.UK, and .NET.UK domains must be registered with Nominet directly; however, we do offer renewals and transfers of these domains.

Note: The Admin Email field is mandatory for all new registrations; however, you no longer need to complete the Fax fields.

Registration Confirmation

When a domain has been successfully registered, Nominet sends the registrant a welcome email that contains login details for the new account. The welcome email contains a secure link to access your account on Nominet's system. When you access your account for the first time you will be asked to set a password.

Registration term: 1-10 years

DNS requirements: 2-10

Whois Privacy: Available at no extra charge

Domain Locking: Not available

Grace Period: 30 days

Redemption Period: 60 days

Authcode required for transfers: No

The .UK Registry has some specific residency requirements for registering second level (.UK) domains; however, anyone can register the following third level domains, regardless of where they live:.CO.UK, .ME.UK, .PLC.UK.

Second level .UK domain name requirements:

• Owner contact: The owner country has to be one of GB (Great Britain), GG (Guernsey), JE (Jersey), IM (Isle of Man).
• If the owner is not from one of those 4 countries then you must provide an Address of Service in the Admin contact and that address must be from GB, GG, JE, or IM.
  Note: Address of service is the address given to a court by a party to an action, for delivery of associated writs, summons and other legal documents. Deliveries of documents made at this address are assumed to have been delivered to the addressed party. 
  PO Boxes are not acceptable in the address.

From June 10, 2014 until June 10, 2019, if you want to register an available second level .UK domain name, and the name is already registered as a third level .UK domain (for example. .co.uk or .org.uk), the owner contact information for the second level .UK name must be an exact match to the owner contact information of the equivalent third level .UK domain name.  

To check whether a domain name is already registered as a third level domain, you can use this tool.

VAT refers to Value Added Tax, a tax levied by the UK government. Depending on the location from which you operate your business, there are different implications.

Resellers who are not UK corporations must pay VAT on .*.UK registrations, but may be able to reclaim the VAT that was paid.

Resellers who are residents of the UK or elsewhere in Europe must pay VAT on .*.UK registrations and then reclaim the VAT paid as they normally would because the services we provide are considered to be supplied from outside the UK.

See http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/ for details on the requirements governing VAT refunds.

Domain deletions are handled between the Registrant and Nominet directly. You can assist Registrants in the deletion, but we do not get involved with this process.

Surrendering a domain name (without refund) is straightforward. On the reverse of the Domain Name Certificate, there is a surrender form. Complete this form and return it to Nominet, along with a letter of authorization on company letterhead. If you do not have a certificate or if you downloaded an online certificate, you can obtain a copy of Nominet’s surrender form from their website. You must then print, complete, and return the form to Nominet along with your authorization letter.

On receipt of these documents, Nominet cancels the domain name, removing it completely from the .UK Register Database. Once this is done, the name is available for someone else to register.

If the Registrant has misplaced their Domain Name Certificate, they should notify Nominet in writing – on company letterhead – of their requirement to surrender their domain name.

If a .UK domain reaches its expiry date without being renewed, Nominet sends a reminder to the Owner recommending that they contact their registrar to renew the domain. The Registrant then has 30 days from the expiry date in which to renew the domain (this is the renewal grace period). If the domain is not renewed by 23 days after the expiry date, Nominet sends another message to the registrant warning them that their domain will be suspended in 7 days.

If the domain is not renewed by the end of the 30 day grace period, Nominet notifies the registrant that their domain has been suspended and that it will remain suspended for 60 days (this is the redemption period). At this point, the domain no longer resolves; however, during this 60-day period, the suspended domain can still be redeemed simply by renewing it.

Nominet sends a final message 53 days after the beginning of the suspension period notifying the registrant that the domain name will be cancelled in 7 days. If the 60-day suspension period passes and the domain is not renewed, the domain is then deleted and it becomes available for registration by someone else.

If a renewal order is submitted during the redemption period, the domain will resolve within 24-48 hours after the renewal is processed.

Setting domains to auto-renew

.UK domains are not automatically set to auto-renew; however, you can choose to set all new or transferred .UK domains to auto-renew by default, and you can choose whether they should be auto-renewed for one or two years.

To enable auto-renew for all .UK domains

1. In the Profile Management section of the RWI, click Tech Contact Information.
2. Scroll down the page to the Domain Name Options section.
3. Beside the Auto-Renew all New/Transferred Domains option, click Yes.
4. From the .uk Auto-Renew years drop-down, choose whether you want your domains to auto-renew for one or two years.
5. Click Save Changes.

The auto-renew setting can be disabled for individual domains at the order level by the you, the Reseller, or by the Registrant, if enabled.

• iTristanmedia provides 24/7 Reseller Support via telephone or email. Visit our Contact page for complete details.
• Accepted payment methods along with terms and conditions are available here.

Please contact iTristanmedia Group at support@itristanmedia.com

Nominet requires that a transfer of a domain to a new Registrant (also known as a change of ownership) be handled between the Registrants and Nominet directly. Both the existing and new Registrant must complete Nominet’s transfer form and send Nominet the completed form along with a letter of authorization. Nominet’s transfer form is available from Nominet’s website: http://www.nic.uk.

Note: Nominet charges a fee for this type of transfer.

To change ownership of a .UK domain name

1. Log into your Nominet account at http://www.nominet.org.uk/go/login
2. Select the Registrant Transfer tab, located under the Your Domains tab.
3. Select the domain names that you want to transfer.
4. Enter the new registrant’s email address and specify who will be paying the transfer fee.

Once you submit the form, Nominet sends a request for confirmation to the new registrant. The new registrant then has five days in which to agree to the transfer. If the transfer is not confirmed within those five days, Nominet  issues a refund, and you will need to start the process again if you still want to transfer the domain name.

If the new registrant accepts the transfer, Nominet sends you an email confirmation to let you know that the transfer process is complete.

Additional information about transferring ownership is available on Nominet’s website:http://www.nic.uk/registrants/maintain/transfer/.

The Nominet WHOIS server is authoritative for all .*.UK names. You can search the .UK WHOIS database at http://www.nic.uk/

Note: The information returned with a .UK WHOIS is substantially less than the information available for gTLDs.

Modification of contact info

• If only the contact information is updated for a .*.UK name, the change is reflected in the WHOIS database within one hour. If nameservers are updated, the change doesn't take effect until the root nameservers are reloaded, which happens twice daily.
• When a nameserver based on a .UK domain is created, it is not usable by other domains until it has first been added to the parent domain. For instance, to be able to attach the new nameserver ns1.parent.CO.UK to other.CO.UK, the following procedure must be done:
  • Create nameserver through the normal means.
  • Add the new nameserver to parent.CO.UK.
  • Add the new nameserver to other.CO.UK.

This requires that ns1.parent.CO.UK DNS be setup to return details on both the parent and the other domains.

WHOIS opt-out

Nominet allows individuals to opt-out of their WHOIS database so that none of their personal information is returned with a WHOIS query.

Note: Organizations cannot use the WHOIS opt-out feature.