.tax Domain
Clear Branding for Tax Professionals
Register your .tax domain from just £58.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
Anyone may register a .tax domain. The rules that actually bite in the UK come from HMRC, not from the registry. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .tax domain?
The .tax domain is a concise, no-nonsense choice for tax advisers, accountants, and firms dealing with HMRC compliance. It immediately positions your practice as a specialist.
Who should register .tax?
Tax advisers, accountants, bookkeepers, and HMRC compliance specialists.
Why choose .tax?
- Concise and professional
- Signals specialist tax expertise
- Easy to find at tax time
- Perfect for advisory practices
Who runs .tax, and since when
Registry data from the .tax 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; no accountancy qualification or HMRC agent code is checked
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £58.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
No accountancy licence is checked for a .tax domain
The most common question about this extension has a short answer. No, you do not have to be a qualified accountant to register a .tax domain, and nobody is going to ask. The registry turned that into a formal commitment to ICANN rather than leaving it to policy, promising not to limit registrant eligibility based on identity and not to reserve names for whoever represents the most common use of the word. A software company, a campaign group or somebody writing a blog about capital gains has the same claim on a name as a chartered firm.
Whether you should is a separate question, and in the UK it runs into HMRC rather than the registry. If you deal with HMRC about someone else's tax affairs and are paid for it, HMRC expects you to register as a tax adviser, and the conditions include supervision by an approved anti money laundering body and not misrepresenting any HMRC endorsement or affiliation. That last one is the condition a domain can break by itself. A name built around HMRC, or one implying an official refund service, is a problem that no disclaimer in the footer repairs.
The extension is three letters, the shortest thing in this batch and the easiest of the ten to say down a telephone. It went into the root zone in April 2014 under a Delaware company called Storm Orchard, LLC; IANA records the registry today as Binky Moon, part of Identity Digital.
Our steer for a UK practice: the .co.uk is what clients expect and what local search rewards. .tax makes a good second address on a service page or a January campaign.
Registry Operator will not limit registrant eligibility based on identity nor restrict availability of second level names to only registrants whose identity is associated only with the most common usage of the term.
What that means if you are buying one
This is why nobody asks for your qualifications. The registry promised ICANN it would keep the word open, including to people whose use of it is not the obvious one, so a tax software firm has the same claim on a name as an accountancy practice. The other side of that promise is that the extension certifies nothing whatsoever about whoever holds it.
Who is allowed to register .tax?
Anyone may register a .tax domain. The rules that actually bite in the UK come from HMRC, not from the registry.
- No professional check
- There is no qualification to evidence, no professional body membership to prove and no HMRC agent code to supply. The registry has committed to ICANN that it will not limit eligibility based on identity, so the domain says nothing about the competence or standing of the holder.
- HMRC agent registration
- HMRC guidance is that if you deal with HMRC about someone else's tax affairs and get paid for it, you may need to register as a tax adviser with HMRC. Its registration conditions include being supervised by an approved anti money laundering body. That obligation attaches to the business, and holding a .tax domain does nothing to satisfy it.
- Do not imply an HMRC connection
- HMRC standards for agent conduct include not misrepresenting HMRC endorsement or affiliation. A domain built around the letters HMRC, or one suggesting an official rebate or refund service, breaches that on the strength of the name alone, before any content exists.
- If you break the registry terms
- Identity Digital reserves the right to deny, suspend, cancel, redirect or transfer any registration at its sole discretion, including for activity contrary to applicable law. A suspension removes the website and the mail together, so a practice running its client correspondence through the domain loses both at once.
Rules taken from HMRC guidance on registering as a tax adviser. 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 .tax the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.tax works well if
- Three letters is the shortest extension in this batch, so the whole address stays short even when your firm name is long.
- You run a seasonal campaign around the self assessment deadline and want a memorable address to put on radio, a van or a leaflet.
- You publish tools or guidance about tax as a product in its own right, separate from the practice that pays the bills.
- You want an exact match on a niche, research and development or capital allowances or making tax digital, that has long gone on .co.uk.
Look elsewhere if
- You want clients to read the domain as proof of qualification. It proves nothing, and the registry has promised ICANN that it never will.
- Your work arrives through local search and referral. A .co.uk carries a UK signal that .tax cannot, and costs a fraction of the annual price.
- The word is narrow. If the practice grows into bookkeeping, payroll and advisory, an address that says tax and only tax starts to undersell you.
Running a UK accountancy practice on local referrals? A .co.uk reads better to clients and helps you in UK search. See .co.uk pricing.
.tax vs .financial: which should you register?
An accountancy practice weighing these two is really choosing how narrow to be. .tax names one discipline. .financial names an entire sector and leaves the discipline open.
.tax is the better buy for a specialist: a firm whose work is compliance, returns, investigations and planning, and which has no ambition to advise on investments. It is shorter, it is cheaper, and the word is unambiguous in a way that helps a client who is searching in a panic in the last week of January. .financial suits a broader practice where tax is one service among several and the address needs to still fit in five years.
Neither carries a country signal, so neither helps a UK firm in UK search. If most of your work comes from within thirty miles of the office, the honest answer is that the .co.uk matters more than the choice between these two, and either of them is a second address rather than a home.
| .tax | .financial | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of the word | One discipline | A whole sector |
| Letters after the dot | Three | Nine |
| Saying it aloud | Easy | Usually needs spelling |
| Annual cost | Higher | Lower |
| Ages badly if | You broaden the practice | You narrow to one service |
.tax domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .tax domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. There is no qualification check, no professional body membership required and no HMRC agent code to supply. The registry has committed in its agreement with ICANN that it will not limit registrant eligibility based on identity, so software companies, campaign groups and writers hold .tax names alongside practices. The reverse also follows: a .tax address is not evidence that whoever holds it is qualified, and clients should be checking a professional register rather than a domain name.
You should not. HMRC standards for agents include not misrepresenting HMRC endorsement or affiliation, and a domain containing HMRC implies exactly that before anybody reads a word of the site. The same applies to names suggesting an official refund or rebate service. Beyond the standards, HMRC and its brand are protected, and a domain built on somebody else's name is exposed to a dispute you would probably lose. Build the name on your firm, your town or your niche instead.
The traffic pattern is seasonal but the address is not. Practices that use .tax well point it at a service page or a deadline campaign all year, then push it hard from November to January when search volume climbs. The extension being three letters helps here, because a short address survives being read out on local radio or printed across the back of a van without anybody needing to spell it.
Usually not. If your .co.uk already ranks for your town and your services, moving off it gives up a UK country signal that Google reads from the extension and puts a redirect between every existing link and your content. The gain is a shorter, more descriptive name, which is real but rarely worth that trade. Register the .tax, point it at the page it suits, and leave the practice site where it is.
Included with Your .tax 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 Financial Domains Extensions
Register your .tax domain today
Secure your .tax domain from just £58.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
