.st Domain
Sao Tome and Principe's Versatile Domain
Register your .st domain from just £36.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
Anyone worldwide can register a .st, but names are capped at 23 characters, accented spellings are refused, and a list of names is reserved. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .st domain?
The .st domain is the country code for Sao Tome and Principe, a small island nation in the Gulf of Guinea. While the country itself is tiny, .st has found popularity beyond its borders. In Portuguese-speaking countries, "ST" is sometimes read as a brand-friendly abbreviation. The extension is also used creatively by tech startups and businesses in other markets. Registration is open worldwide, with three limits worth knowing before you pick a name: 23 characters maximum rather than the usual 63, no accented characters, and every single letter A to Z plus a dozen category words are reserved.
Who should register .st?
Creative brands, Portuguese-speaking businesses, startups wanting a short memorable domain, and companies with names ending in "st".
Why choose .st?
- Short two-letter extension with wide availability
- Open worldwide, with a 23-character name limit
- Creative branding potential (e.g. "fir.st", "be.st")
- Works well for domain hacks
Who runs .st, and since when
Registry data from the .st 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
- Tecnisys
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1997
- Delegated 7 November 1997
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, though names are capped at 23 characters
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £36.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
The 23-character limit that shapes every .st name
Almost every extension lets a name run to sixty-three characters. ST Registry does not. Its published rules allow as few as one character and, in its own words, "as many as 23 characters are permitted". That is the tightest ceiling you are likely to meet on anything we sell. Accented names are refused as well, so internationalised spellings are out.
Registration itself is open to all. The registry says any corporation or individual in the world can register a domain ending .st, and allocation is first come, first served. Single letters A to Z are reserved, though single digits are not, and a short list of names is held back for Sao Tome and Principe itself, including saotome.st, principe.st, gov.st, org.st, com.st and net.st.
Read the expiry rules before you buy. A .st stops resolving the day after it expires, sits in a forty-day renew grace period, then enters a thirty-day redemption during which the registry states it may use the domain for its own purposes or sell it at auction, with a ninety euro fee on any operation. Five more days of pending delete and it is gone for good.
Who is allowed to register .st?
Anyone worldwide can register a .st, but names are capped at 23 characters, accented spellings are refused, and a list of names is reserved.
- Maximum 23 characters
- ST Registry permits names of one to twenty-three characters, against the sixty-three most extensions allow. A long brand name will not fit, and there is no appeal against the limit.
- No accented characters
- Internationalised names are not accepted, so any spelling that needs an accent has to be written without one.
- Reserved names
- Every single letter from A to Z is reserved, though single digits are not. Also held back are saotome.st, principe.st, consulado.st and embaixada.st, plus the category names gov.st, org.st, edu.st, net.st, com.st, store.st, mil.st and co.st.
- If you break the rules
- The registry states it does not monitor content but can remove domains without warning and without refund, and it prohibits registering names for spam, adult content or illegal gambling. A refund otherwise applies only within five days of registration.
Rules taken from the ST Registry terms of service. 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 .st the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.st works well if
- Your name ends in st and the split reads naturally, so the extension becomes part of the word rather than an ending bolted on.
- You want something short. The 23-character cap only bites if your name is long, and short names still exist here.
- You are building a link shortener, a campaign address or an internal tool where brevity beats recognition.
Look elsewhere if
- Your brand name is long. Twenty-three characters is a hard ceiling and no registrar can raise it for you.
- You cannot afford to lose the name. During redemption the registry states it may use or auction the domain, and any operation then costs ninety euros.
- Customers will type it from memory. A word split across the dot, like first written as fir.st, is read easily and typed wrongly.
Want the name spelled out in full? A .co.uk takes sixty-three characters and costs less every year. See .co.uk pricing.
.st vs .co: which should you register?
Both are two-letter country codes sold to a worldwide audience for reasons that have nothing to do with their countries. The difference is what people do with them. A .co is used as a shortened .com, so the name in front of the dot is still the whole name. A .st is used to finish a word, so the dot lands inside it.
That makes .co the safer buy for a business address and .st the more interesting one for a project or a shortener. .co is also the better recognised of the two and it does not cap your name at twenty-three characters. Where .st wins is when the split really works, because a name that reads as one word across the dot sticks in the memory in a way a conventional address never does. Where it loses is on the telephone, every single time.
.st domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .st domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyTwenty-three characters, which is unusually short. ST Registry states that names may be as few as one and as many as twenty-three characters, where most extensions allow sixty-three. Accented characters are not accepted at all, so internationalised spellings are out. Check the length of the name you have in mind before you get attached to it, and remember the limit applies to the label in front of the dot rather than to the whole address.
It stops working the day after expiry, when the registry applies a server hold and the name leaves the zone. You then have a forty-day renew grace period in which it can be restored normally. After that it enters a thirty-day redemption period, and the registry states that during redemption it may use the domain for its own purposes or sell it at auction, with a ninety euro fee on any operation. Five days of pending delete follow, and then it is gone.
It is memorable and it is hard to communicate, and which of those wins depends on how people find you. Dictated over the phone or read off a printed leaflet, a split word invites mistakes, because the dot is silent when you say it. Arriving from a link, a social post or a QR code, it costs nothing and looks sharp. Use one where traffic comes from links, and register the conventional spelling alongside it if the budget allows.
Included with Your .st 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 .st domain today
Secure your .st domain from just £36.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
