.rest Domain
For APIs and Relaxation Alike
Register your .rest domain from just £32.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .rest domain?
The .rest domain pulls double duty. In tech circles, REST is the standard architectural style for web APIs, making .rest a natural choice for API documentation portals and developer platforms. Outside tech, "rest" means relaxation, which suits spas, wellness retreats, and sleep product companies. Two meanings, two audiences, one short domain. Worth knowing which one the registry had in mind: it created .rest for the restaurant trade and runs .bar alongside it, and its own policy describes it as an open, unrestricted extension for the restaurant industry.
Who should register .rest?
API documentation platforms, developer tools, spa and wellness retreats, and sleep product companies.
Why choose .rest?
- Dual meaning: APIs and relaxation
- Natural fit for REST API documentation
- Works for wellness brands too
- Four letters, memorable and versatile
Who runs .rest, and since when
Registry data from the .rest 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
- Punto 2012 Sociedad Anonima Promotora de Inversion de Capital Variable
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 6 March 2014
- Who can register
- Open to any person or legal entity worldwide, with no restaurant trade check
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £32.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
Why the .rest registry built it for restaurants
Here is something almost nobody publishes about .rest. The registry did not create it for REST APIs. Punto 2012, a Mexico City company that also runs .bar, opens its registration policy with a statement of intent: .rest is "an open, unrestricted Top Level Domain for the restaurant industry" and is "ideal for all restaurants and restaurant related services". The pairing with .bar gives the game away. Hospitality was the plan.
The word "unrestricted" in that sentence is doing real work, and it is what makes the extension useful well outside hospitality. Any person or legal entity anywhere in the world may register one, with no trade check and no documents. A developer platform putting its API documentation on a .rest is not breaking a rule. It is using a name the registry hoped a bistro would take.
The practical rules are short. Names run from 3 to 63 characters, terms from one to ten years, and internationalised names are supported although scripts cannot be mixed inside one name. At £32.99 a year, .rest costs about half what a .bar does here, which tells you which half of the pair the market actually went for.
Is .rest the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.rest works well if
- You run a restaurant or food business and the name you want is free at .rest while it has gone everywhere else.
- You are publishing API documentation for developers who read REST as an architectural style rather than as a nap.
- You want a short address for a sleep, recovery or wellness brand where rest is the product being sold, not a pun on it.
Look elsewhere if
- Your customers are local diners searching on a phone. A .co.uk carries a UK signal in Google that .rest cannot, at a third of the price.
- The name has to be unambiguous. Rest means an API to one reader, a nap to another and a restaurant to the registry, and the address alone will not say which.
- You want an extension people have seen before. Most of your customers will meet .rest for the first time on your business card, and unfamiliar addresses get retyped as .com.
Filling tables from local search? Put the money into a .co.uk and spend the difference on photography. See .co.uk pricing.
.rest vs .bar: which should you register?
Same registry, same launch, two very different price tags. Punto 2012 markets .bar and .rest together as the hospitality pair, and here .bar costs £62.99 a year against £32.99 for .rest.
Choose .bar when the venue really is a bar and the name is short enough that a three-letter extension carries it. Choose .rest when food is on the menu, or when the meaning you want is the technical one. Neither does anything for local search, because both are generic in Google's eyes, so a venue living on "restaurant near me" traffic should own the .co.uk first and treat either of these as the memorable address for menus, matchboxes and the shop front.
.rest domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .rest domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyThe registry built it for restaurants, and the technical crowd adopted it anyway. Punto 2012 describes .rest in its own registration policy as an open, unrestricted extension for the restaurant industry, ideal for restaurants and restaurant related services, and it runs .bar alongside it as the matching pair. Nothing in that policy stops a developer platform using it for API documentation, and plenty do. Both readings are legitimate. The one to plan for is that your visitor may hold the other one.
Yes. The registration policy states that any person or legal entity anywhere in the world may register a .rest name, with no trade verification, no local presence rule and nothing to supply beyond the usual registrant details. Names must be between 3 and 63 characters, can be registered for one to ten years at a time, and may use internationalised characters, although a single name cannot mix scripts. Everything else is the standard ICANN anti-abuse regime that applies to any new extension.
Some of them, and it is worth deciding whether you mind. The word carries three readings that pull in different directions, and the address gives no clue which one applies until the page loads. For a restaurant with a strong brand name and a printed menu carrying the address, the confusion is small and the memorability is real. For a business whose customers arrive cold from search, it is one more thing to explain. Register the .co.uk as well and redirect it if you want the ambiguity without the risk.
Included with Your .rest 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 Technology Domains Extensions
Register your .rest domain today
Secure your .rest domain from just £32.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
