.org.uk Domain
For UK Organisations & Charities
Register your .org.uk domain from just £9.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included, plus free Nominet WHOIS privacy for UK individuals.
What is a .org.uk domain?
The .org.uk extension is the natural domain for UK-based non-profit organisations, charities, and community groups. It combines the trust of .org with a clear British identity, making it the preferred choice for UK charities registered with the Charity Commission.
Who should register .org.uk?
UK charities, non-profits, community organisations, and public-interest groups.
Why choose .org.uk?
- Trusted signal for UK organisations
- Recognised by the Charity Commission
- Nominet registry reliability
- Free Nominet WHOIS privacy for UK individuals
Who runs .org.uk, and since when
Registry data from the .org.uk 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)
- Registered under the .uk zone
- Registry operator
- Nominet UK
- The organisation that runs the extension
- .uk delegated
- 1985
- The date belongs to the .uk zone, not to .org.uk itself
- Who can register
- Open to anyone, with no charity, non-profit or UK residency test
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £9.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
No, .org.uk is not restricted to registered charities
Plenty of people believe you have to be a registered charity to hold a .org.uk. You do not, and Nominet says so in the rules rather than leaving it to be inferred. Clause 4.4 names two second levels as open, .co.uk and .org.uk, and states that Nominet imposes no restriction on your status as an applicant for either. No charity number is asked for. None is checked.
There is a charter, and it is worth reading precisely because of what it does not do. Clause 9.2 says registrants in .org.uk are intended to be not-for-profit or public service enterprises, and gives charities, trades unions, political parties, community groups, educational councils and professional institutions as examples. Then clause 4.4 explains the status of that intention: Nominet does not forbid applications that fall outside it, and will take no action over registrations that do not comply with the charter. It is a statement of purpose, not a gate.
Why the distinction is worth knowing in both directions
Compare it with its neighbours. A .ltd.uk applicant is checked against Companies House and refused if the algorithm cannot derive the name. A .me.uk registrant has to be a natural person and stay one, on pain of the registration being reversed. Those are enforced. .org.uk is not, and a page that tells you otherwise is repeating a myth that has followed the extension since the 1990s.
Which means the reassurance runs one way only. You can register one for a residents' association, an amateur club, a mutual aid group or a project that has never been near the Charity Commission, and nothing will happen. But a visitor who reads .org.uk as proof of charitable status is reading something into it that the registry never put there, so it is not a substitute for showing your registration number on the page.
One piece of history still shapes what is available. When Nominet opened registrations directly at .uk in June 2014, existing holders were given first claim on the matching second-level name, and the order of priority went .co.uk first, then .org.uk, then .me.uk. So an .org.uk holder had a real claim on the matching .uk, but only where no .co.uk of the same name existed. That window shut in June 2019, and both are now first come, first served.
Our steer is the plain one. If you are a charity, a community group or anything else that exists for a purpose rather than a profit, .org.uk is the right extension and it costs the same as everything else in the family. If you are a business, the extension says something about you that is not accurate, and .co.uk is both more expected and better understood.
Is .org.uk the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.org.uk works well if
- You are a UK charity, community interest company, trades union, amateur club or residents' association, and you want the extension to say so.
- You run a public interest project, a campaign or a register that is not selling anything and should not look as though it is.
- You are a professional body or a membership institution where .co.uk would read as commercial and .com would read as foreign.
- You already hold the .co.uk and want the matching .org.uk so that nobody sets up a lookalike in your name.
Look elsewhere if
- You are a trading business. The extension implies non-profit to a British reader, and starting from a wrong impression costs you more than the domain saves.
- You are counting on the extension to prove your charitable status. Nominet does not check it, so a sceptical donor will not accept it as evidence.
- Your audience is international. A .org carries the same non-profit convention with no country attached, and outside Britain that travels better.
- You want the shortest address you can get on a leaflet. Three labels is longer than a .uk and longer than a .org.
Trading rather than fundraising? A .co.uk sends the accurate signal and costs the same. See .co.uk pricing.
.org.uk vs .org: which should you register?
Both carry the same convention, that the site behind them exists for a purpose rather than a margin, and neither registry verifies it. So the real question is not which one proves more. It is whether your organisation is British in the eyes of the people looking for it.
Pick .org.uk when your beneficiaries, members or donors are here. Google treats .uk as a country-code extension and reads it as a signal that the site is meant for a UK audience, which a .org gives you nothing of. You also get Nominet's consent-based privacy at no cost, a tag-change transfer that finishes in minutes, and a lower annual price. Pick .org when you work across borders and a national extension would narrow you, or when your name is free there and gone here.
The .org registry, Public Interest Registry, sits in Virginia and answers to a different set of policies from Nominet's. That is not a criticism of either, but if being answerable to a UK registry matters to your trustees, it is a point worth putting in front of them.
| .org.uk | .org | |
|---|---|---|
| Who may register | Anyone, no charity test | Anyone, no non-profit test |
| Registry | Nominet, in Oxford | Public Interest Registry, in Virginia |
| Signal in Google | United Kingdom | No country at all |
| WHOIS privacy | Free, and on unless you opt in to publish | Usually a paid add-on |
| Moving registrar | Tag change, normally minutes | Auth code, hours to days |
| Annual cost here | Lower | Higher |
.org.uk domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .org.uk domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. Nominet's rules list .org.uk as one of two open second levels, alongside .co.uk, and say plainly that no restriction is imposed on your status as an applicant. There is a charter describing the intended use as not-for-profit or public service, but the same rules confirm that applications outside it are not forbidden and that no action is taken over registrations which do not comply. Nobody is asked for a charity number and nobody checks for one.
Yes. There is no eligibility test at all, so a company can hold one exactly as an individual or an unincorporated group can. Whether it should is a different question. The extension carries a strong non-profit convention with British readers, so a trading company using it invites an assumption it will then have to correct. Where the entity is a community interest company or a social enterprise, that assumption is close enough to the truth to be worth having.
For a charity whose supporters are in Britain, .org.uk. It is a country-code extension, which Google treats as a signal that the site is aimed at a UK audience, and a .org offers nothing equivalent. It also costs less here, transfers between registrars in minutes rather than days, and comes with Nominet's free privacy. Choose .org instead when you operate across several countries and a national extension would make you look smaller than you are.
It gives you the geographic signal, and nothing beyond that. Google documents country-code extensions as a strong indication that a site is intended for a particular country, so .org.uk is read as British in the way .org is not. What it will not do is rank you for anything on its own. The signal is worth having when your audience is local and worth avoiding when it is not, and everything else about your ranking comes from the site.
Check whether the registration is abusive before assuming it is. Different people holding the same string on different extensions is normal and Nominet says so. If the name is being used in a way that takes unfair advantage of your rights, Nominet runs a Dispute Resolution Service for .uk domains that is far cheaper than court. If it is simply somebody who got there first with a legitimate use, the practical answer is a different name, and to register the variants around it this time.
Yes, through a registrant transfer, which changes the legal owner rather than the registrar. Nominet charges ten pounds plus VAT for that transaction, and many registrars can run it for you. It is worth doing properly and worth doing early: domains registered personally by a departing trustee, volunteer or web designer are one of the most common ways a group loses control of its own address, and the fix is easy while everyone is still on speaking terms.
Included with Your .org.uk 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 UK Domains Extensions
Register your .org.uk domain today
Secure your .org.uk domain from just £9.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
