.cl Domain
Chile's Country Code for Latin America
Register your .cl domain from just £41.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .cl domain?
The .cl domain is Chile's official country code, managed by NIC Chile at the University of Chile. Chile has one of the most stable and developed digital economies in Latin America, and .cl is well-established among Chilean consumers and businesses. Registration is open to anyone worldwide, making it accessible for UK businesses targeting the Chilean or broader Latin American market.
Who should register .cl?
Chilean businesses, Latin American organisations, UK exporters to Chile, and wine industry brands.
Why choose .cl?
- Chile's official country code
- Open to worldwide registration
- Strong digital economy in Latin America
- Ideal for wine, mining, and trade sectors
Who runs .cl, and since when
Registry data from the .cl 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 Chile (University of Chile)
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1987
- Delegated 15 December 1987
- Who can register
- Set by NIC Chile; ask us to confirm the current requirement before you order
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £41.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
- Transfer in
- £41.99
- Adds a year to whatever is left on the domain
The university registry that has run .cl since 1987
Very few extensions have had the same custodian for nearly forty years. .cl was delegated on 15 December 1987 and the IANA root zone record still names NIC Chile at the University of Chile, with a Santiago address and a university email on the administrative contact. That is unusual and it is worth knowing, because a registry run inside a university tends to be conservative about change, which is a good quality in the thing your email depends on.
The commercial case is narrower than the marketing usually suggests. Chile is a small market by population and a large one by trade, and the sectors where a UK company actually needs a Chilean address are specific: wine, fruit, mining supply, engineering services, freight. In those, the local address answers the first question a Chilean buyer asks about a foreign supplier. Outside them, a Spanish-language section on your existing site does more for less.
Cost is the part to weigh honestly. This is one of the dearest country codes on our list, several times the annual price of a .co.uk, and it renews at that level for as long as you hold it. That is fine as a cost of entering a market you have decided to enter. It is a poor use of budget as a flag planted in case something happens later.
One process note, and we would rather say it than pretend otherwise. NIC Chile publishes its own registration rules and those rules are the only source worth trusting on eligibility, because reseller summaries of them disagree with each other and go stale quietly. Ask us before you order and we will confirm the current requirement with the registry rather than repeat what a comparison site says.
Is .cl the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.cl works well if
- You already sell into Chile in wine, fruit, mining supply, freight or engineering, where a local address settles the first thing a buyer wants to know about a foreign supplier.
- You have a Chilean office, agent or distributor, and want their site to read as Chilean rather than as a foreign brand outpost.
- You are running Spanish-language marketing aimed at Chile specifically rather than at Latin America as a region.
- You want the country signal Google says a ccTLD provides, pointed at Chile, on a site built for that market.
Look elsewhere if
- Chile is a maybe rather than a plan. This is one of the priciest country codes we sell and the bill arrives every year whether the market opens or not.
- You are targeting Latin America broadly. A .cl narrows you to one country, and Mexican, Colombian and Argentine buyers will read it as somebody else's supplier.
- You have no Spanish-language content. A Chilean address on an English-only site advertises that the market is an afterthought.
Testing the market rather than committing to it? Keep the .co.uk as your address and add a Spanish-language section before you add a country domain. See .co.uk pricing.
.cl vs .co.uk: which should you register?
The choice here is not really between two domains, it is between one market and two. A country-code extension is, in Google's own words, a strong signal that a site is explicitly intended for a certain country, and you get one country per domain.
Keep .co.uk as the primary for almost every UK business. It is cheap, it carries the UK signal, WHOIS privacy on it is free under Nominet's consent rules, and transfers are near instant because they are an IPS tag change rather than a queued registry process. Add .cl when there is a Chilean operation, a Chilean partner or a Chilean customer list to justify the annual cost.
The failure mode we see most often with country domains is a second address that redirects to the same English page. That gets you the cost of two domains and the benefit of one. If the .cl is worth buying, it is worth a page written for the people it is aimed at.
| .cl | .co.uk | |
|---|---|---|
| Country signal | Chile | United Kingdom |
| Registry | NIC Chile, University of Chile | Nominet |
| In the root zone since | 1987 | 1985 |
| WHOIS privacy | Paid add-on | Free under Nominet rules |
| Annual cost | Several times a .co.uk | Low |
.cl domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .cl domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyAsk us and we will confirm it with NIC Chile before you order. We will not publish a rule here that we cannot point at the registry's own page for, and eligibility is the one thing on a domain page where being wrong costs you money, because a refused registration is a wasted order. NIC Chile publishes its regulations itself, and that document, rather than a reseller summary of it, is what your order will be judged against.
NIC Chile, based at the University of Chile in Santiago, and it has held the delegation since 15 December 1987. The IANA root zone database lists the university address and a nic.cl email on the administrative contact, which is the authoritative record rather than whatever a registrar states. Academic operation is common among the earliest country codes and tends to mean slow, predictable policy rather than frequent commercial change.
No, and this is the most common mistake made with it. A country code points at one country, and a Chilean address reads to a Colombian or Mexican buyer as a foreign supplier with a Chilean operation. If the region as a whole is the target, a .com with Spanish-language content and clear per-country delivery and pricing information does the job better, and you add country domains later where a market earns one.
The registry sets the wholesale price and Chile's is high by European standards, so the retail price follows it. Nothing technical differs: the DNS resolution, the record types and the DNSSEC support are the same as any other extension. Check the annual figure on this page against a .co.uk before you commit, and remember it is a recurring cost for the life of the business rather than a one-off setup fee.
Included with Your .cl 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 .cl domain today
Secure your .cl domain from just £41.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
