.at Domain
Austria's Official Country Domain
Register your .at domain from just £18.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
Anyone in the world may hold a .at domain, with no residency or Austrian presence test, but nic.at requires verifiable contact data and can deactivate and then delete a domain whose holder does not prove it. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .at domain?
The .at domain is Austria's country code, managed by nic.at GmbH. Austria sits at the heart of Central Europe, and its .at extension carries solid recognition across the German-speaking world. Registration is open to anyone worldwide, which makes it accessible for UK businesses expanding into the Austrian market. The double meaning of "at" in English (@) has also given .at some creative appeal outside its home territory.
Who should register .at?
Austrian businesses, German-speaking organisations, UK companies targeting the Austrian market, and creative brands using the "at" wordplay.
Why choose .at?
- Austria's official country code
- Open to worldwide registration
- Strong recognition in German-speaking Europe
- Creative "@" wordplay potential
Who runs .at, and since when
Registry data from the .at 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
- Country-code (ccTLD)
- Registry operator
- nic.at GmbH
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1988
- Delegated 20 January 1988
- Who can register
- Open worldwide with no residency test, but nic.at can demand proof of your data
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £18.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
The .at data checks starting in October 2026
Something is changing here, and it is the most useful thing a buyer can know in 2026. Austria's implementation of the NIS2 directive, the NISG 2026, takes effect on 1 October 2026, and nic.at is replacing its Registration Guidelines with version 7.0 on the same date. From then a telephone number joins the name, postal address and email address as mandatory registrant data, and nic.at can ask a holder to prove that the details on file are correct.
The timetable if you are asked is published and short. You get 14 days to respond, then a further seven-day deadline after a reminder. If nothing comes back, the domain is set to serverHold after 21 days, which removes it from DNS so the website and the email both stop. A further 30 days follows before the contract is terminated and the domain deleted, roughly eight weeks from the first request. nic.at says not every holder will be asked.
Two other things catch people out. A registration must specify at least two and no more than eight name servers, and the application data has to match the live configuration, so you cannot buy a .at domain and park it pointing nowhere the way you can with most generic extensions. And where the holder is an organisation with legal personality, nic.at publishes its name and all its contact details, so a company gets no privacy here.
The good news is what is absent. Nothing in nic.at's terms or guidelines sets a residency or Austrian presence test. Any individual of full legal age, or any legal entity, anywhere, with a real postal address rather than a PO box, may hold one.
These are tied to a specific country (for example .de for Germany, .cn for China), and therefore provide a strong signal to both users and search engines that your site is explicitly intended for a certain country.
What that means if you are buying one
That signal cuts both ways for a British reader. A .at tells Google the site is meant for Austria, which is what you want if you are opening an Austrian arm and the opposite of what you want if your customers are in Kettering. Google keeps a separate list of country codes it treats as generic instead, and .at is not on it, so the Austrian reading is the real one.
Who is allowed to register .at?
Anyone in the world may hold a .at domain, with no residency or Austrian presence test, but nic.at requires verifiable contact data and can deactivate and then delete a domain whose holder does not prove it.
- Who qualifies
- Any individual of full legal age, or any legal entity, anywhere in the world. Neither nic.at's General Terms and Conditions nor its Registration Guidelines set a residency requirement, a local contact requirement or an Austrian address requirement.
- Data you must supply
- The full name (or the complete legal name and form for an organisation), a postal address valid for the service of official documents, an email address and a telephone number. PO box addresses are not accepted, and the telephone number becomes mandatory on 1 October 2026 under the NISG 2026.
- Two working name servers
- At least two and no more than eight name servers must be given in the application, and the data provided must match the technical configuration exactly. nic.at reserves the right to check that they are operational, so a .at cannot be registered and left pointing nowhere.
- Proving your details
- If nic.at or your registrar asks, you must either provide proof that the data you supplied is correct, or correct it and prove the accuracy of the new data. You have 14 days to respond, then a final seven-day deadline after a reminder.
- If you do not respond
- After 21 days without verification nic.at sets serverHold, which removes the domain from DNS so the website and the email stop working. A further 30 days follows before the contract is terminated and the domain deleted, around eight weeks in total. nic.at may separately revoke a delegation at any time for incorrect or incomplete holder data.
Rules taken from the nic.at page on NIS2 and the NISG 2026. Registry policy can change, so check before you buy if the answer matters to you.
Not sure whether you qualify? Ask us before you order and we will check the registry rules with you. We would rather answer the question than take an order the registry will refuse.
Is .at the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.at works well if
- You are opening an Austrian arm, or selling into Austria in German, and you want Google to read the site as intended for that market.
- You already run .de and .ch sites and want the third German-speaking market on the same pattern rather than buried in a folder.
- You want a country-code extension that asks nothing about who you are: no residency test, no local contact and no documents at the point of registration.
- Your name works with the English word at, so the extension can finish a phrase as well as name a country.
Look elsewhere if
- Your customers are British. The extension tells Google the site is meant for Austria, which is a signal actively working against you in UK results.
- Your content is English only. An Austrian visitor who lands on a .at expects German, and the mismatch costs you the visit before they read anything.
- You want to buy it now and decide later. It needs two live name servers at registration, and from October 2026 you may be asked to prove your contact details within 14 days.
Selling to UK customers? A .co.uk gives Google the country signal you actually want, and costs less. See .co.uk pricing.
.at vs .co.uk: which should you register?
Both are country-code extensions and Google reads both as pointing at a country, so this is not a question of which is stronger. It is a question of which country you want to be read as belonging to.
Take the .co.uk if your customers, your prices and your delivery are British. That is the signal Google acts on, and Nominet gives a UK individual free WHOIS privacy and a transfer that completes almost instantly because it is an IPS tag change. Take the .at if you are trading into Austria in German, with Austrian pricing and an Austrian point of contact. Half-doing it, with an English site on a .at and no local detail, gets you the geographic signal without any of the substance behind it.
The registration mechanics differ more than the price does. nic.at wants two live name servers up front and can ask you to evidence your contact details later, where Nominet lets you register and point the domain somewhere afterwards.
| .at | .co.uk | |
|---|---|---|
| Country Google reads | Austria | United Kingdom |
| Who may register | Anyone worldwide, no residency test | Anyone worldwide |
| Name servers at registration | Two to eight, matching what is live | Not required |
| Public WHOIS | Organisations published in full | Free privacy for UK individuals |
| Transfer to us | Authorisation code or confirmation token | Near instant IPS tag change |
.at domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .at domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. Neither nic.at's General Terms and Conditions nor its Registration Guidelines contain a residency test, a local presence rule or a requirement for an Austrian contact. What you do need is to be of full legal age or a legal entity, and to give a name, a postal address valid for the service of official documents, an email address and a telephone number. PO box addresses are specifically excluded. A UK company or a UK individual can hold one without any Austrian involvement at all.
From 1 October 2026, under Austria's NISG 2026, nic.at can ask a holder to prove their registration data is accurate or to correct it and prove the new details. You get 14 days, then a seven-day final deadline after a reminder. Ignore both and the domain goes to serverHold after 21 days, which pulls it out of DNS so the website and email stop. Thirty more days follow before the contract is terminated and the domain deleted, about eight weeks in total.
No, and this catches people who are used to generic extensions. nic.at requires at least two and no more than eight name servers in the application, the data must match the live technical configuration, and it reserves the right to check that they are operational. In practice that means deciding where the domain will be hosted before you order it. If you are hosting with us, point it at our name servers at registration and the requirement is met from day one.
It works against you. Google describes country-code extensions as a strong signal that a site is explicitly intended for a certain country, and it keeps a separate list of country codes it treats as generic instead. Austria's is not on that list, so a .at is read as an Austrian site. For a business selling to British customers that is the wrong signal in the wrong market, and no amount of on-page work fully undoes it. Register the .co.uk instead.
Included with Your .at 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 .at domain today
Secure your .at domain from just £18.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
