.it Domain
Italy's Official Country Domain
Register your .it domain from just £17.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
Only adults with citizenship, residence or a registered office in the EEA, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, San Marino or Vatican City may hold a .it domain. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .it domain?
The .it domain is Italy's country code, managed by Registro.it (part of the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of the CNR in Pisa). Italy is the eurozone's third-largest economy and Italian consumers recognise .it above any other extension. Registration is open to adults with citizenship, residence or a commercial headquarters in the European Economic Area, the Vatican, San Marino, Switzerland or the United Kingdom, so a British business can hold one directly with no Italian entity and no local representative.
Who should register .it?
Italian businesses, UK companies trading with Italy, fashion and luxury brands, food and beverage exporters, and tourism operators.
Why choose .it?
- Italy's official country code
- Third-largest eurozone economy with 45M+ users
- Trusted above .com by Italian consumers
- Also reads as English pronoun "it" for creative branding
Who runs .it, and since when
Registry data from the .it 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
- IIT - CNR
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1987
- Delegated 23 December 1987
- Who can register
- Adults based in the EEA, UK, Switzerland, San Marino or Vatican City may register
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £17.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
Why UK registrants can still buy an .it domain
Start with the rule that catches people out, because it runs the opposite way to what most British buyers now expect. Registro .it, the registry operated by the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of the CNR in Pisa, limits registration to adults with "citizenship, residence or commercial headquarters" in the European Economic Area, the Vatican City State, the Republic of San Marino, Switzerland or the United Kingdom. The UK is named on that list. Where .eu closed to British registrants when the transition period ended, the .it domain did not.
The practical effect is worth being precise about. A Kettering company can hold an .it in its own name, at its own British address, with no Italian entity behind it and no Italian representative to appoint. You declare that you meet the requirements when you register, and Registro .it keeps its own procedure for verifying a registrant's standing if it ever needs to.
What Italy keeps for itself
The .it namespace has a geography built into it that none of the other extensions in this category share. Names matching Italian regions, provinces and municipalities are reserved and can only go to the matching local authority: toscana.it, pisa.it and viareggio.lucca.it are all off the table for a business, and an authority claiming one applies on paper to the registry in Pisa rather than through a registrar. Underneath that sits a predefined geographical structure anybody can use, so ham.parma.it works, and so does namesurname.viareggio.lu.it. Names describing a network service, www.it and mail.it among them, can never be assigned to anyone.
A .it name is three to sixty-three characters and cannot begin with the sequence "xn". Every change to a registered .it, including moving it to another registrar, needs the authinfo code your registrar issues at registration, so file it somewhere you will find it again in three years. If you lose it, the registrar can reissue it, and the registry will step in where a registrar has gone quiet.
Our steer: buy the .it when Italy is a market you are selling into rather than one you are hoping to reach. Italian customers do read the extension as a statement about who they are dealing with, and it is the priciest annual renewal in this group, close to twice a .co.uk. If Italy is one of five European markets, work out whether one European address serves you better than five national ones before you start collecting country codes.
Who is allowed to register .it?
Only adults with citizenship, residence or a registered office in the EEA, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, San Marino or Vatican City may hold a .it domain.
- Who qualifies
- Registro .it allows registration by anyone who is an adult and has citizenship, residence or commercial headquarters in an EEA country, the Vatican City State, San Marino, Switzerland or the United Kingdom. Any one of those three connections is enough on its own, and there is no cap on how many .it names a single registrant may hold.
- UK registrants after Brexit
- The United Kingdom is named on the registry's own eligibility list, so a British company or resident qualifies in its own right, with no Italian company, Italian address or local contact. That is the opposite of the .eu position, where UK establishment stopped qualifying when the transition period ended on 31 December 2020.
- What you must supply
- The registrant's identification data has to be given in full and the registry's terms accepted before a name is assigned, and that data must describe the real registrant rather than a registrar or an agent. Italian individuals and businesses supply a tax code or VAT number in the registry's own format.
- Reserved names
- Names matching Italian regions, provinces and municipalities are reserved for the corresponding local authority and are applied for on paper. Names corresponding to a network service, such as www.it or mail.it, cannot be assigned at all, including under the geographical structure.
- If you do not qualify
- Eligibility is something you declare at the point of registration, and Registro .it runs a verification procedure for a registrant's standing, with forms that have to be submitted in Italian. Declaring wrongly leaves you holding a domain that depends on nobody ever asking, which is not a position to build a trading website on.
Rules taken from the Registro .it registration rules. 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 .it the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.it works well if
- You already ship to Italian customers and want the address on your invoices and packaging to look Italian to them rather than foreign.
- You want a European country address and have found the .eu route closed. The .it is one of the few that still names the UK as eligible.
- You are in food, fashion, furniture, wine or design, where an Italian address carries meaning that a .com cannot buy you.
- The word you want happens to be Italian, or the name reads well ending in "it" as an English word, which is a naming trick this extension supports better than most.
Look elsewhere if
- Italy is an aspiration rather than a trading relationship. At close to twice a .co.uk every year, an unused .it is a recurring bill for an option you may never take.
- You need the extension to look neutral. A .it says Italy to a search engine and to a reader, and that is not always what a global brand wants.
- You want the Italian place name for your town or region. Those are reserved to local authorities and no registrar can obtain one for you.
- You expect to move the domain later without paperwork. Nothing changes on a .it without the authinfo code, and a lost one means going back to the old registrar.
Trading across several EU states rather than Italy alone? A .eu covers the single market in one address, if you or your organisation qualify. See .eu pricing.
.it vs .eu: which should you register?
These two are the interesting pair for a British business, because Brexit moved them in opposite directions. Both restrict who may register. Only one of them still lets you in.
A UK-established company cannot hold a .eu on its own account: eligibility runs to EU, Icelandic, Liechtenstein and Norwegian citizens, residents and organisations, and UK registrants were withdrawn and then revoked across 2021 and 2022. The .it list published by Registro .it names the United Kingdom outright. So for a British firm the choice is often between an .it you can have and a .eu you cannot.
Pick .it when Italy is the market, when Italian customers are the buyers, and when you want one clear national signal. Pick .eu when you qualify through citizenship or an EU establishment and you are selling across several member states with no single country dominating. Where both are open to you, the .eu is the cheaper annual bill and the .it is the stronger local signal.
| .it | .eu | |
|---|---|---|
| Who may register | EEA, UK, Swiss, San Marino and Vatican residents and businesses | EU, Icelandic, Liechtenstein and Norwegian citizens, residents and organisations |
| UK registrants | Eligible, named on the registry list | Not eligible since 31 December 2020 |
| Geographic signal | Italy | European Union |
| Run by | IIT-CNR, a public research institute in Pisa | EURid, appointed by the European Commission |
| In the root zone since | 1987 | 2005 |
| Annual cost | The dearest in this group | Close to a .co.uk |
.it domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .it domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyYes. Registro .it lists the United Kingdom among the places a registrant may have citizenship, residence or a commercial headquarters, alongside the European Economic Area, the Vatican City State, San Marino and Switzerland. A British company or a British resident qualifies without an Italian subsidiary, an Italian address or a local representative. That puts .it in a different position from .eu, which UK registrants lost access to when the transition period ended on 31 December 2020.
Not if you are registering from the UK. Italian individuals and businesses supply a tax code or VAT number in the registry's own format, but the eligibility test is citizenship, residence or a registered office in one of the listed countries, and a UK company meets it with UK details. You do have to give accurate identification data for the real registrant, and the registry can ask you to prove you meet the requirements, so use the trading entity's own details rather than an agent's.
Because Italian place names are reserved. Names matching Italian regions, provinces and municipalities can only be assigned to the corresponding local authority, and those bodies apply on paper directly to the registry rather than through a registrar. The compensation is the predefined geographical structure underneath them, which anybody can use: ham.parma.it and namesurname.viareggio.lu.it are both registrable. Names describing a network service, such as www.it or mail.it, are permanently unassignable to anyone.
It is the dearest annual renewal of the four country extensions here, close to twice a .co.uk. That gap compounds, because a domain is a bill you pay for as long as the business exists. It earns the money when Italian customers are buying from you and the extension is doing work, and it is poor value as a defensive registration you never point anywhere.
It is the password that authorises any change to a .it domain, including moving it to a different registrar, changing the registrant or cancelling it. Your registrar issues it at registration. Nothing happens on a .it without it, which is good protection against a hijack and awkward if you have mislaid it. Ask your registrar to reissue it if it has gone missing, and where the registrar cannot be reached or refuses, Registro .it will deal with the registrant directly.
It gives Google a country signal that a .com does not. Google treats .it as a country extension rather than a generic one, so it reads the site as aimed at Italian users, and since the country targeting setting was removed from Search Console in September 2022 the domain itself does more of that work. It is not a shortcut. Italian-language content, Italian pricing and links from Italian sites matter more, and a .it in front of an untranslated British site will not rank.
Included with Your .it 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 .it domain today
Secure your .it domain from just £17.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
