.nyc Domain
New York City's Official Domain
Register your .nyc domain from just £31.00/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
Only people, businesses and organisations that can evidence a real connection to New York City may hold a .nyc domain, and the connection has to last as long as the registration does. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .nyc domain?
The .nyc domain is the official city-level TLD for New York City, operated by the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. It's one of the few city domains backed by a municipal government. Registration requires a nexus to New York City: you need a street address in one of the five boroughs. That restriction keeps the namespace credible and focused on the city's residents, businesses, and organisations.
Who should register .nyc?
New York City businesses, Manhattan-based startups, NYC restaurants and retailers, and organisations with a physical presence in the five boroughs.
Why choose .nyc?
- Official NYC government-backed domain
- Nexus requirement ensures only real NYC entities register
- Immediate geographic identity in the world's most famous city
- Strong local SEO signal for New York searches
Who runs .nyc, and since when
Registry data from the .nyc 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
- The City of New York by and through the New York City Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 13 March 2014
- Who can register
- Registrants must show a real connection to New York City; a PO box does not count
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £31.00 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
How the .nyc nexus check works in practice
The nexus rule is wider than most buyers assume and stricter than most expect. The City's published policy says a registrant must be a natural person, legal entity, organisation or association that can show an economic, cultural, historical, social or lawful connection to the City of New York. A freelancer living in Queens qualifies. So does a company with an office in Brooklyn, a student at a Manhattan college, and a body with a documented civic role in the five boroughs.
Evidence is where it bites. The registry's published list of acceptable proof runs across residence, employment or business, property ownership, educational ties, family and social ties, civic engagement, cultural or historical bonds, financial investments and legal ties, and every one of those categories ends the same way: the document must show a New York City address and must be current, meaning from within the last two years. A PO box in the city is expressly excluded.
Compliance runs for the whole registration rather than just the first day. The registry can act on a random spot check or on a third-party complaint, and either way the domain is locked first. A spot check gives you 30 calendar days to produce evidence and, if that fails, a further 30 days to cure the problem. A complaint halves both windows to 10 days. Miss the cure period and the name can be deleted, or transferred to a complainant who does meet the nexus. You also cannot license or sub-delegate a .nyc to somebody who would fail the test.
Buy this when the New York address is a fact you will still be comfortable evidencing in five years. A virtual office and a mail-forwarding arrangement is the wrong footing to start from.
Who is allowed to register .nyc?
Only people, businesses and organisations that can evidence a real connection to New York City may hold a .nyc domain, and the connection has to last as long as the registration does.
- What counts as a connection
- The policy accepts an economic, cultural, historical, social or lawful connection to the City of New York, held by a natural person, a legal entity, an organisation or an association. It is broader than owning premises: employment, study, property, civic roles and family ties all appear on the registry's own list of acceptable evidence.
- The document test
- Whatever category you rely on, the supporting document has to show a New York City address and be current, which the registry defines as dated within the last two years. A PO box address in the city does not qualify on its own.
- It is a continuing condition
- Registrants must remain in compliance with the nexus policy for the entire period of the registration, so moving out of the five boroughs and closing the New York operation puts the domain at risk even though it was correctly registered at the time.
- You cannot pass it on
- The policy forbids licensing, sub-delegating or otherwise transferring a .nyc to a third party that does not itself meet the nexus. That narrows your exit if you ever want to sell the name.
- If you cannot evidence it
- The domain is locked first, so it cannot be updated or moved, and a random spot check then gives 30 calendar days to produce evidence and 30 more to cure, while a third-party complaint gives 10 days for each. Failing to cure can end with the name deleted and released, or transferred to a complainant who does meet the nexus.
Rules taken from the official .nyc Nexus 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 .nyc the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.nyc works well if
- Your business trades from a real address in the five boroughs and you can put your hand on a lease, a utility bill or a payroll record.
- You are a restaurant, a shop, a studio or a trade whose whole market is people already in the city, where naming the city is worth more than naming the country.
- The .com of your name has gone to a company in another state and you would rather be specific about where you actually are.
- You want an extension where the registry actively removes holders who have no connection to the place, which keeps the neighbourhood cleaner than an open gTLD.
Look elsewhere if
- Your New York presence is a mail-forwarding address or a coworking day pass. That will not survive a spot check, and the domain gets locked before you get a chance to argue.
- You are a UK business selling to Americans generally. .nyc narrows you to one city and gives a customer in Chicago a reason to hesitate.
- You expect to sell the domain later. The policy blocks transfer to anyone who cannot meet the nexus, which removes most of the buyers who would pay a premium.
Selling across the United States rather than inside the five boroughs? The .com asks nothing of you and narrows nothing. See .com pricing.
.nyc vs .com: which should you register?
A .com asks nothing and says nothing. A .nyc asks you to prove where you are and then says it on every business card, every van and every search result. The trade is specificity for reach, and it is only a good trade if your customers are physically nearby.
.nyc works hardest offline. On a shopfront, a menu or a hoarding it reads as a local business without a word of explanation, and it removes the ambiguity that a generic name in a crowded category creates. .com works hardest at scale. It travels, it is what people type when they are guessing, and nobody has to be told it exists.
The usual sensible pattern is to hold the .com as the permanent address and run the .nyc for the local face of the business, or the reverse if all your trade is within the city. Two names is not extravagance here, it is insurance against the day your New York evidence gets harder to produce.
| .nyc | .com | |
|---|---|---|
| Who may register | Anyone with an evidenced New York City connection | Anyone worldwide |
| Checked after sale | Yes, spot checks and complaints | No |
| Resale | Buyer must meet the nexus | Open market |
| Geographic meaning | One city, unmistakably | None |
| In the root zone since | 2014 | 1985 |
.nyc domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .nyc domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo, an office is only one of the ways to qualify. The nexus policy accepts an economic, cultural, historical, social or lawful connection to the City, and the registry's evidence list covers residence, employment, property, study, family ties, civic engagement and financial investments among others. What every category has in common is the paperwork: your document must show a New York City address and be dated within the last two years. A PO box in the city does not qualify.
The domain is locked first, which stops any update or transfer while the question is open. If the challenge came from a random registry spot check you get 30 calendar days to submit evidence, and a further 30 days to cure the problem if that evidence falls short. A third-party complaint runs on 10-day windows instead. Failing to cure can end with the name deleted and returned to the available pool, or transferred to the complainant if they meet the nexus themselves.
It helps people more than it helps crawlers. .nyc is recorded in the root zone as a generic top-level domain rather than a country code, so it carries no automatic country-level signal the way a .co.uk does in the UK. What actually moves local rankings is a verified business profile, a consistent New York address across the web, and local links. The extension earns its place through recognition and click-through, which is worth real money in a crowded city market.
Only to someone who meets the nexus themselves. The policy stops a registrant licensing, sub-delegating or otherwise transferring a .nyc to a third party that fails the nexus requirements, so your pool of legitimate buyers is limited to people and organisations with their own New York City connection. That is worth knowing before you treat the name as an asset. It also means an acquirer outside New York would need its own qualifying entity to take the domain on.
Included with Your .nyc 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 .nyc domain today
Secure your .nyc domain from just £31.00/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
