.limited Domain
Your Company Structure in Full
Register your .limited domain from just £31.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .limited domain?
The .limited domain is the full-word version of .ltd, and it's a natural fit for UK businesses that trade under their full legal name. Companies House registrations, corporate websites, and formal business correspondence all benefit from a domain that spells out the company structure. For businesses where formality matters, .limited delivers.
Who should register .limited?
UK limited companies, corporate websites, formal business correspondence, and Companies House-registered firms.
Why choose .limited?
- Matches UK company naming conventions
- More formal than .ltd
- Professional corporate identity
- Clear legal structure signal
Who runs .limited, and since when
Registry data from the .limited 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
- Binky Moon, LLC
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 17 April 2014
- Who can register
- Open to anyone, including sole traders and businesses that are not incorporated
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £31.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
What UK company law says about a .limited domain
Registering yourname.limited is open to anybody. Trading as "Yourname Limited" is not, and the gap between those two sentences is why this page is worth reading before you order.
Under the Companies Act 2006 the name of a private limited company must end with "limited" or "ltd". Section 1197 of the same Act makes it an offence to carry on business in the UK under a name that includes a word specified in regulations when the business is not of that legal form, punishable on summary conviction by a fine. The specified words sit in Schedule 2 of the Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015, and "LIMITED" and "LTD" are the first entries on that list. The government states it plainly in its own guidance for sole traders: a sole trader name must not include "limited", "Ltd", "limited liability partnership", "LLP", "public limited company" or "plc".
A domain is not a company registration, so nothing stops the order and nobody at Companies House is watching. What matters is what you print afterwards. If you are incorporated, hartley.limited is your legal name with the space removed and it is fine. If you are a sole trader, you can hold the domain, but the trading name on your invoices, your signage and your site footer has to stay clear of the word.
One detail sets .limited apart from its neighbours. Its ICANN registry agreement carries the extra public interest commitments applied to sensitive strings, obliging registrars to pass on a requirement that registrants comply with consumer protection, fair lending and financial disclosure law. None of the other business extensions on this batch of pages carry those clauses. It changes nothing about who may register, and it tells you how the word was regarded when it was approved.
Is .limited the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.limited works well if
- You are a registered limited company and the .co.uk of your name has gone, so the domain becomes your legal name with the space taken out.
- Your name is long and moving the last word into the extension shortens it, turning acmelightingltd.co.uk into acmelighting.limited.
- You want a formal address for contracts, invoices and investor material sitting alongside a shorter marketing domain.
- You are defending the brand and would rather hold the obvious variants yourself than negotiate for them later.
Look elsewhere if
- You are a sole trader or an ordinary partnership. You may own the domain, but you cannot trade under a name containing "limited", so it will fight your own branding.
- You sell to UK consumers who search locally. A .co.uk costs roughly a third as much and carries a UK signal in Google that .limited does not.
- The word buys formality and nothing else. A visitor cannot tell an incorporated holder from a sole trader, so it is not the trust signal it looks like.
Not incorporated, or selling mainly to British customers? A .co.uk costs a fraction of this and works harder in local search. See .co.uk pricing.
.limited vs .ltd: which should you register?
These two say the same word and cost different money. The .ltd is shorter, cheaper here, and matches the abbreviation most British companies already use on their paperwork. The .limited spells it out, which reads better in a logo and worse in an email address.
There is one asymmetry worth knowing. Identity Digital runs both, and it publishes a form specifically for .ltd, addressed to a submitting government authority, asking for the domain, the registrant entity name and that entity's organisational status. Nothing equivalent is published for .limited. Neither extension checks eligibility at the point of sale, so read that as a route for a regulator to raise a question rather than as a gate you have to pass first.
For most incorporated UK businesses the decision comes down to how the name looks written down. Put both in an email signature, read both aloud, and keep the one that survives being repeated over the phone.
| .limited | .ltd | |
|---|---|---|
| What it spells | The word in full | The usual abbreviation |
| Characters after the dot | 7 | 3 |
| Annual cost here | Higher | Lower |
| Government query form | None published | Registry publishes one for authorities |
| Eligibility check | None at point of sale | None at point of sale |
.limited domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .limited domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. The extension has no eligibility rule and the registry checks nothing, so a sole trader, a charity or a private individual can register one. UK law is stricter about the name you trade under than about the domain you own, so the question that matters is not whether you can buy it but whether you can put "Limited" on your invoices. If you are not incorporated, you cannot.
You can own it, and you should be careful how you use it. Government guidance for sole traders states that the business name must not include "limited", "Ltd", "limited liability partnership", "LLP", "public limited company" or "plc", and Section 1197 of the Companies Act 2006 makes trading under such a name an offence carrying a fine. A domain on its own is not a trading name, but a site that reads "Hartley Limited" throughout is heading towards one.
The .ltd is shorter and cheaper, and it matches what most British companies already write on their letterheads. The .limited is the full word, which looks more deliberate in a wordmark and adds four characters to every email address. Both are open to anyone and neither verifies your Companies House record, so pick on how the name reads rather than on any assumed credibility.
It protects nothing on its own. Holding a domain gives you no rights over the name at Companies House, no trade mark and no claim against a similar name in another extension. It is a useful defensive registration if the name matters to you, in the same way as holding the .co.uk and the .com, but the legal protection comes from incorporation and from a registered trade mark, not from the address bar.
Included with Your .limited 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 Business Domains Extensions
Register your .limited domain today
Secure your .limited domain from just £31.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
