.es Domain
Spain's Official Country Domain
Register your .es domain from just £11.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
Anyone anywhere may register a .es, but Spain's National Domain Name Plan requires the holder to have interests in or links with Spain, and Red.es lists the absence of those links as a ground for cancelling the domain. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .es domain?
The .es domain is Spain's country code, managed by Red.es under the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs. Spain has over 40 million internet users and the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone, with booming sectors in tourism, renewable energy, and e-commerce. Registration is open to anyone worldwide, with no residency requirement. For UK businesses targeting Spanish consumers or the broader Spanish-speaking world, .es is the domain Spanish shoppers recognise and trust.
Who should register .es?
Spanish businesses, UK companies expanding into Spain, tourism operators on the Costas, and e-commerce brands targeting the Spanish market.
Why choose .es?
- Spain's official country code managed by Red.es
- Open to worldwide registration
- Strong geographic SEO signal for Google Spain
- Fourth-largest eurozone economy with 40M+ users
Who runs .es, and since when
Registry data from the .es 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
- Red.es
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1988
- Delegated 14 April 1988
- Who can register
- Anyone worldwide with interests in or links to Spain; no residency requirement
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £11.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
- Transfer in
- £11.99
- Adds a year to whatever is left on the domain
How the .es link to Spain rule actually works
Red.es runs Spain's extension as a public body, so the rules it works to are published law rather than a commercial registry agreement. The National Domain Name Plan puts the criterion in one line: any natural or legal person with interests or links to Spain is entitled to obtain the domain. That sentence is the whole of .es eligibility, and it is the part most registrar pages leave out.
Second-level .es names have been open to applicants anywhere in the world since the liberalisation finished at the end of 2005, so there is no residency test, no Spanish company to form and no document to send in. What there is, is a statement. The registration terms have you confirm the details in your application are true, and Red.es separately publishes its grounds for cancelling an .es. The first of those grounds is a name registered by a person or organisation with no interests in and no links with Spain. Another is a registration holding false or incorrect data whose accuracy the holder cannot prove.
What counts as a link with Spain
Red.es publishes no checklist, and in practice the bar sits low. Selling to Spanish customers, an office or a branch in Spain, property, a Spanish trade mark, a Spanish-language site aimed at Spain: any of those sit comfortably inside the wording. What does not is nothing at all. Buying an .es purely as a defensive registration for a brand with no Spanish presence and no plan to build one means relying on a rule not being applied to you, which is a different proposition from an extension where anyone may register for any reason they like.
The other thing to settle before you order is which level you want. Spain also runs .com.es, .nom.es and .org.es beneath the country code, and they are easy to mistake for cheaper alternatives to the plain .es. They are not: here they cost roughly double it, every year.
Our steer for a UK business. If Spain is a real market, .es is one of the better-value European country extensions we sell, and it gives Google a Spanish signal your .com will never carry. If Spain is a maybe, keep the .co.uk on your invoices and add the .es once the sales exist to back up the link you would be claiming.
Who is allowed to register .es?
Anyone anywhere may register a .es, but Spain's National Domain Name Plan requires the holder to have interests in or links with Spain, and Red.es lists the absence of those links as a ground for cancelling the domain.
- The rule itself
- The National Domain Name Plan says any natural or legal person with interests or links to Spain is entitled to obtain the domain. No residency test, no Spanish company, no Spanish tax number.
- What counts as a link
- Red.es publishes no checklist. Selling to Spanish customers, an office or branch in Spain, property, a Spanish trade mark or a Spanish-language site aimed at Spain all sit inside the wording. No connection at all does not.
- You register on your own word
- Nothing is checked up front. The registration terms have the applicant confirm the details given are true, barring errors and omissions made in good faith, and everything afterwards follows from that.
- Keep your details current
- Red.es can cancel a domain when the people responsible for it cannot be reached because a change of details was never reported. Tell us when your address or contact email changes.
- If you do not qualify
- The published grounds for cancelling an .es include registration by a person or organisation with no interests in and no links with Spain, and false or incorrect data the holder cannot prove. A cancelled name goes back into the pool.
Rules taken from the Red.es grounds for cancelling a .es domain. 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 .es the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.es works well if
- You already sell into Spain, or are about to, and want the address Spanish shoppers read as local rather than foreign.
- You are building a Spanish-language site as its own property rather than a subfolder, and want the country signal with it.
- You are holding a brand across European markets and want Spain covered before somebody else takes it.
- You want a European country extension with no eligibility process. Nothing to supply, nothing to prove at the point of order.
Look elsewhere if
- Your customers are British. A .co.uk costs less, transfers free, and carries a UK signal in Google that .es cannot.
- You have no connection with Spain and no plan to build one. The link criterion is a live ground for cancellation, not decoration.
- You were hoping .com.es or .org.es would be the cheaper option. Both cost roughly double the plain .es here, every year.
- You want one address for a worldwide audience. A country extension points search engines at a single market, narrowing your signal on purpose.
Selling mainly to UK customers? Register the .co.uk first and add the .es once Spain is a market rather than a plan. See .co.uk pricing.
.es vs .com: which should you register?
The choice here is about audience and almost nothing else. A .com says nothing about where you are and asks nothing of you. An .es tells Google and a Spanish shopper that Spain is who you are for, and asks you to have some connection with the country.
Pick .es when Spain is a market you actually serve and you are publishing pages that deserve their own property. Pick .com when your audience is spread across countries, or when you would rather not hold a domain under rules written by a national government.
Most businesses selling into Spain end up with both, and two renewals here still cost less than one .shop.
| .es | .com | |
|---|---|---|
| Who may register | Anyone with interests in or links to Spain | Anyone worldwide |
| Eligibility rule | Self-declared, and a ground for cancellation | None |
| Geographic signal | Spain | None |
| Run by | Red.es, a Spanish public body | A commercial registry |
| In the root zone since | 1988 | 1985 |
| Annual cost here | Lower than our .com | Higher |
.es domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .es domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyYes. Spain never tied .es to EU membership, so nothing changed for British applicants in 2021. That makes it the easiest of the major European country extensions for a UK company to hold: .fr closed to UK residents on 1 January 2021, and .eu closed to UK-established organisations at the end of 2020.
No. There is no residency test, no Spanish company requirement and no Spanish tax number to produce. The National Domain Name Plan asks for interests in or links with Spain, a far wider test than presence. A UK limited company selling into Spain meets it, as does a British owner of Spanish property.
Red.es publishes no list, which looks deliberate: the wording is meant to be broad. Trading with Spanish customers, an office or branch there, property, a Spanish trade mark, or a Spanish-language site aimed at Spain all sit inside it. The rule reads as one written to keep out registrations with no connection at all.
It can, and the grounds are published rather than left to discretion. They include registration by a person or organisation with no interests in and no links with Spain, false or incorrect data the holder cannot prove, breaches of the technical or syntax rules, and being uncontactable after a change of details went unreported.
For Spanish search, yes. Google treats country-code extensions as a strong signal that a site is meant for that country, and .es is not on Google's short list of country codes it treats as generic. The gain only lands if the site behind the .es is built for Spain, in Spanish, with Spanish contact details.
Usually not. The third-level variants cost roughly double the plain .es here and renew at that price for as long as you keep them, so a defensive set of three is a recurring bill for names almost nobody types. Spend the difference on the .com or the .co.uk instead.
Included with Your .es 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 .es domain today
Secure your .es domain from just £11.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
