Bring out your .UK second-level domains!

Dear .UK,

Those letters are so familiar, and yet, we don’t really know you at all. You’ve always been so distant, separated from us by your second-level domains .co, .org, and .me, with their cold, uncompromising restrictions…

Now, you’ve promised we can be together, and that anyone who meets your residency standards will be able to register a .UK of their very own!

Registration priority

Registrants of existing third-level .uk domains (.co.uk, .org.uk, and so on) will have priority rights to the corresponding .UK domain for five years(*). (Five years! This is the internet, .UK. Five years is a long time. But that’s cool, we can wait.)

Here’s how it will go down if the same domain name exists with different registrants in multiple second-level .UK TLDs (e.g. .co.uk, .org.uk…):

• Top priority will go to the registrant of the corresponding .co.uk,
  
• The owner of the .org.uk will get next priority,
• Finally, registrants of the corresponding .me.uk will get their chance.
  

.UK verification

Nominet has established an automated verification system to confirm the owners of new .UK domains meet residency requirements. The rule is pretty straightforward:

• .UK registrants must have a verifiable physical address in the United Kingdom.
• If the address doesn’t pass the automated verification, it must be manually validated, by Nominet or by Gandi. If this hasn’t been completed within 30 days, the domain will be locked, and bovines shall be hurled over the walls of your castle.

Gandi doesn’t offer a trustee service for .UK yet, but we’re working on it.

Prices

The prices of .uk domains will be the same as .co.uk. That is to say, the price of a one-year registration will be $9.00, or £4.00, or 7,00 €, depending on your currency of choice, and a two-year registration ends up being a bit less.

Details can be found on the .UK TLD pricing page.

New API method

Users of our API may be interested to note that we’ve added a new API method to verify eligibility for .UK domains.

So, how do I get my .uk?

Start the registration process as you would with any other domain, while logged into the Gandi account that owns the corresponding .co.uk, .org.uk or .me.uk domain. If you have any trouble, contact our support team or on Twitter @gandibar.

(*) valid for domains registered up to June 10, 2014 for the .co.uk rule, and prior to October 29th, 2013 for the other third-level .uk domains.