.bayern Domain
Bavaria's Own Digital Identity
Register your .bayern domain from just £45.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
The registry back end publishes a .bayern eligibility policy limiting registration to individuals resident in Germany, while the operator tells buyers that anyone may register. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .bayern domain?
The .bayern domain belongs to Bavaria, Germany's largest and wealthiest state. Munich, Nuremberg, Augsburg, and the Alpine region all fall under this extension. Bavarian businesses, tourism operators, and cultural organisations use .bayern to express a regional identity that's distinct from the rest of Germany. It's managed by Bayern Connect GmbH and open to anyone with a connection to the Freistaat.
Who should register .bayern?
Bavarian businesses, Munich-based companies, Alpine tourism operators, Oktoberfest-related brands, and cultural institutions in Bavaria.
Why choose .bayern?
- Represents Germany's wealthiest state
- Strong regional identity for Bavaria
- Ideal for Bavarian tourism and culture
- Distinct from the national .de extension
Who runs .bayern, and since when
Registry data from the .bayern 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
- Bayern Connect GmbH
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 13 March 2014
- Who can register
- Registry policy says German residents only; the operator says anyone may register
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £45.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
Two .bayern eligibility answers, and which one binds
There are two published answers to who may hold a .bayern domain, and they do not agree.
Bayern Connect GmbH, which holds the ICANN registry agreement signed on 23 January 2014, puts it one way in its own FAQ: "Bayern ist weltoffen und so sollte es auch mit der eigenen TLD sein ... .bayern kann also von jedem Interessenten registriert werden." Bavaria is cosmopolitan, so its extension should be too, and .bayern can be registered by any interested party.
GoDaddy Registry provides the technical registry behind it, and publishes a .bayern Eligibility Policy dated May 2025 that says something much narrower: the applicant or registrant must be an individual resident in the Federal Republic of Germany. The same document requires a registrant who stops qualifying to tell their registrar within 14 calendar days and ask for the name to be cancelled, locked, held, transferred or deleted, and it reserves the right to verify a registration at any time and suspend it where the answer does not come back.
We are not going to pretend that is settled. If you are outside Germany and want a .bayern, ask us first and we will put the question to the registry before you pay for anything.
Who is allowed to register .bayern?
The registry back end publishes a .bayern eligibility policy limiting registration to individuals resident in Germany, while the operator tells buyers that anyone may register.
- What the policy says
- GoDaddy Registry's .bayern Eligibility Policy, version 1.1 dated May 2025, states that the applicant or registrant must be an individual resident in the Federal Republic of Germany, and that the criterion has to be met to register and to renew.
- What the operator says
- Bayern Connect GmbH, which holds the ICANN registry agreement, tells readers of its own FAQ that .bayern can be registered by any interested party. No residency condition appears anywhere on that page.
- Eligibility is continuing
- The published policy treats the test as ongoing. A registrant who ceases to qualify must contact their registrar within 14 calendar days and ask for the name to be cancelled, locked, placed on hold, transferred or deleted, and a name may only be transferred to a party who would qualify in their own right.
- If you do not qualify
- The registry says it may verify the information behind a registration at any time, allows 14 calendar days to respond, and may suspend or terminate the name where no response comes or the information cannot be confirmed. Ask us to check with the registry before ordering from outside Germany.
Rules taken from the GoDaddy Registry .bayern Eligibility Policy. 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 .bayern the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.bayern works well if
- You are a Bavarian business or resident and want an address that separates you from the national .de without inventing a new name.
- You run tourism, hospitality or an events brand around Munich, Franconia or the Alps, where the regional word is the selling point.
- The .de you wanted went years ago and the same word is free here, which is common because .de has been filling up for decades.
Look elsewhere if
- You are outside Germany. Until the operator and the published eligibility policy agree with each other, an order from abroad carries a real risk of refusal or later suspension.
- Your customers are British. .bayern does nothing in UK search results, and at this price you are paying a premium for a word most British readers cannot place.
- You trade across Germany rather than in Bavaria. A regional ending narrows the claim, and a customer in Hamburg reads it as somebody else's local firm.
.bayern vs .com: which should you register?
Nobody chooses between these on equal terms. A .com is the global default and carries no place at all. A .bayern is a regional flag, and its whole value is that a reader in Munich sees the word before they see the name.
Regional extensions work best as a second address rather than a first. Bavaria has unusually strong regional identity and the ending trades on it, but a customer outside the Freistaat gets no signal from it and a customer outside Germany gets none whatsoever. If the regional identity is the campaign, take the .bayern and point it at a .de or a .com that carries the company. Given the eligibility question hanging over it, that arrangement also means a problem with the .bayern costs you a redirect rather than your main site.
.bayern domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .bayern domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyThe published answers conflict, so ask before you order. Bayern Connect, the operator, says on its own FAQ that anyone may register one. GoDaddy Registry, which runs the technical registry, publishes a .bayern eligibility policy dated May 2025 requiring the applicant or registrant to be an individual resident in Germany. That policy also lets the registry verify a registration at any time and suspend it if the answer does not stand up. We will put the question to the registry for you before you pay.
Bayern Connect GmbH holds the ICANN registry agreement, signed on 23 January 2014, and says it operates in close exchange with the Free State of Bavaria, which officially supports the company. The technical registry sits with GoDaddy Registry, which is why the operator's own FAQ points premium domain enquiries at a registry.godaddy address. The two publish separate documents, and on the question of eligibility those documents currently say different things.
It can be, with a caveat about where you put it. A regional ending is a strong signal to people who identify with the region and a blank to everyone else, so it suits a business whose customers are all inside the Freistaat: a hotel, a brewery, a trade business, a local event. What it will not do is carry search results, because Google reads it as a generic extension rather than a country code. Keep a .de or a .com as the address on the invoice.
Included with Your .bayern 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 .bayern domain today
Secure your .bayern domain from just £45.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
