.africa Domain
One Domain for an Entire Continent
Register your .africa domain from just £16.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .africa domain?
The .africa domain represents the African continent as a whole, managed by the ZA Central Registry (ZACR) with backing from the African Union. It gives businesses, NGOs, and cultural organisations a pan-African identity that no single country code can provide. With 54 countries and over 1.4 billion people, Africa is one of the world's fastest-growing digital markets. A .africa domain positions your organisation across the entire continent rather than locking you into one national market.
Who should register .africa?
Pan-African businesses, NGOs operating across Africa, diaspora organisations, and UK companies expanding into African markets.
Why choose .africa?
- Represents the entire African continent
- Backed by the African Union
- Targets 1.4+ billion people across 54 countries
- Growing digital economy across Africa
Who runs .africa, and since when
Registry data from the .africa delegation record held by IANA, which maintains the internet's root zone. Eligibility comes from the registry's own policy, and the prices are ours.
- Extension type
- Generic (gTLD)
- Registry operator
- ZA Central Registry NPC trading as Registry.Africa
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2017
- Delegated 11 February 2017
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no African residence or presence requirement
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £16.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
Why .africa is a generic extension, not a ccTLD
IANA classifies .africa as a generic top-level domain, and that is not a technicality. A country-code extension such as .co.za or .ng is treated by Google as a signal that a site is aimed at that country. A generic extension is not, and no amount of continental branding changes it. A .africa address tells a human reader something. It tells a search engine nothing about where you are.
The other thing worth knowing is how long it took to arrive. The application window for ICANN's 2012 round closed that May, and .africa was not delegated into the root zone until 11 February 2017, years behind most strings from the same intake. The useful consequence is a namespace that opened late and still has short, obvious words free.
Registration is open. ZA Central Registry, which also runs .capetown, publishes the .africa policies and procedures, and they contain no residency test, no African nexus requirement and no documents to supply. At the price on this page it is one of the cheaper endings we sell, which makes holding it defensively affordable even if you never point it anywhere.
Is .africa the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.africa works well if
- You trade across several African markets and no single national extension fits, so a .co.za or a .ng would misdescribe the footprint.
- You run a charity, a fund or a research programme whose remit is continental, and the address is doing identity work rather than search work.
- The name you want has gone in .com and .org but is free here, which is common because the extension opened five years after the rest of its round.
Look elsewhere if
- You sell into one African country. That country's own extension carries a geographic signal in Google that .africa cannot, because .africa is generic in the root zone.
- You are a UK business with no operations on the continent. An address claiming a region you do not serve is a promise somebody will eventually ask you to keep.
- You expect the ending itself to build trust with African consumers. Recognition varies enormously by market, and in most of them .com and the local country code are still what people type.
Trading mainly from and to the UK? A .co.uk does more for British search results and costs less. See .co.uk pricing.
.africa vs .com: which should you register?
Each is answering a different question about the business. A .com is the global default and carries no location. A .africa is a statement of remit, and it works the way a strapline works: it tells a reader what the organisation is for before they read a word of the page.
Since both are generic extensions in Google's eyes, neither wins on search grounds, so the decision comes down to how the address reads to a person. Most organisations that take a .africa keep a .com or a national extension as the primary address and use .africa for the continental programme, the campaign or the regional hub. It is cheap enough that owning it defensively is reasonable even if it only ever redirects.
.africa domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .africa domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. ZA Central Registry, the operator, publishes the .africa policies and procedures and they set no residency requirement, no African nexus test and no documents to supply. Registration is first come, first served through an accredited registrar. That openness cuts both ways: because nobody checks, the ending on its own is not evidence that an organisation operates on the continent, which is worth remembering when you are reading somebody else's address as well as choosing your own.
It is neutral rather than helpful. IANA classifies .africa as a generic top-level domain rather than a country code, so it does not carry the geographic signal that .co.za, .ng or .ke give a search engine. If ranking in one African country is the goal, that country's own extension does more. .africa earns its place when the audience is continental and the address is doing identity work, where a reader sees it and a search engine treats it like any other generic ending.
The extension was applied for in ICANN's 2012 round and was not delegated into the root zone until 11 February 2017, several years behind most strings from the same intake. For a buyer today the delay is the interesting part: names that would have been snapped up in 2014 across the rest of that round were still unregistered when .africa finally opened, so short and obvious words are more available here than in comparable endings.
Included with Your .africa Domain
DNS Management
Full DNS zone editor to manage A, CNAME, MX, TXT, and all record types.
Email Forwarding
Set up professional email addresses and forward to any inbox.
Auto-Renewal
Never lose your domain with automatic renewal protection.
Free 10GB Mailbox
One 10GB mailbox (POP3/IMAP) included with every domain, on any TLD.
Other Geographic Domains Extensions
Register your .africa domain today
Secure your .africa domain from just £16.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
