.uk Domain
Britain's Modern Domain Extension
Register your .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 .uk domain?
The .uk domain offers a shorter, cleaner alternative to .co.uk. Launched in 2014, it provides the same Nominet registry reliability with a more concise web address. Perfect for brands wanting a sleek British identity without the extra characters.
Who should register .uk?
UK brands and businesses seeking a concise, modern British web address.
Why choose .uk?
- Shorter than .co.uk for cleaner branding
- Same trusted Nominet registry
- Strong UK identity signal
- Free Nominet WHOIS privacy for UK individuals
Who runs .uk, and since when
Registry data from the .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)
- Registry operator
- Nominet UK
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1985
- Delegated 24 July 1985
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no UK residency or company requirement
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £9.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
How .uk opened in 2014 and closed for good in 2019
Britain's extension entered the root zone on 24 July 1985, which makes it one of the oldest country codes there is, but for the first three decades you could not register directly underneath it. Everything lived a level down, in .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk, .ltd.uk, .plc.uk and .net.uk, and the bare .uk was reserved. That changed on 10 June 2014, when Nominet opened the second level to direct registration.
Opening it created an obvious problem. Millions of businesses already had a .co.uk, and releasing the matching .uk to whoever clicked first would have handed a competitor the shorter version of your address overnight. So Nominet attached a right of registration to existing holders. If you held a qualifying third-level domain registered before 23:59 on 28 October 2013, the matching .uk was reserved for you, with priority running .co.uk first, then .org.uk, then .me.uk where no earlier claim existed.
The deadline that changed what is left
That reservation ran five years and expired at 06:00 BST on 25 June 2019. Names nobody had claimed were released in daily batches from 1 July, with a second stage running from 8 to 12 July, and after that everything went to first come, first served. It has stayed that way since.
The consequence is the single most useful thing to know about this extension today. There is no reservation left and no way to reinstate one. If the .uk matching your .co.uk is still free, anyone at all may take it, including somebody who would like your traffic. If it is already gone, it is gone, and holding the .co.uk gives you no claim on it. That is why the honest reason to buy a .uk is usually defensive rather than aspirational.
On eligibility, the rules are as short as they get: any person may register at the second level. No UK address, no residency, no company, no documents. And on search, it is worth being clear that switching your site from .co.uk to .uk gains you nothing. Both sit inside the same country-code extension, so Google reads exactly the same geographic signal from either, while a move costs you redirects, reprints and the recognition your existing address has built.
Where we would spend the money: register it, redirect it to the site you already have, and leave it alone. Where we would think twice: making it your primary address for an established business, because your customers, your invoices and your van already say .co.uk, and three saved characters do not pay for changing all of them. A brand new business starting from scratch is the one case where picking .uk first is a reasonable call.
For some companies, they will really want to secure the shorter domain, for their own use, now or in the future, or to guarantee nobody else can use it. They need to take action quickly to avoid missing out. Others are happy with the domain they have, and don't want to register or use another. It's important to stress to those people that the existing domain will continue as normal, and no action is required.
What that means if you are buying one
This was said three months before the rights window shut, and half of it has since stopped being true. The reassurance still holds: your .co.uk carries on regardless and always will. The part that expired is the choice. Nobody now has a reserved claim on anything, so the shorter name is either free for the taking or held by someone else.
Is .uk the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.uk works well if
- You are naming a business from scratch, so there is no established .co.uk to walk away from and the shorter address costs nothing extra.
- You already hold the .co.uk and want the matching .uk closed off before somebody who is not you registers it.
- The name is long, and cutting three characters makes a real difference on a sign, an email address or a printed URL.
- You want a British signal without the slightly dated look of a three-part address.
Look elsewhere if
- Your .co.uk is established. Moving costs redirects, reprints and recognition, and search gains you nothing because both carry the identical country signal.
- The matching .co.uk belongs to somebody else. You will spend years losing traffic to a typo, because British visitors add .co.uk without thinking.
- You expect the shorter name to be free of the confusion. Read aloud, .uk and .co.uk sound close enough that people ask you which one it was.
- You wanted it reserved for you. Rights of registration ended in June 2019 and nothing has replaced them.
Already trading on a .co.uk? Keep it as the address and register the .uk beside it as a redirect. See .co.uk pricing.
.uk vs .co.uk: which should you register?
This is the comparison nearly every buyer on this page is actually making, and the useful answer is that they are far more alike than they look. Same registry, same rules on who may apply, same price here, same country signal in Google, same near-instant tag transfer. Nothing technical separates them.
What does separate them is habit. A .co.uk is what a British person types when they are guessing, which cuts both ways: it is the safer address to own, and it is the reason a .uk without the matching .co.uk leaks visitors to whoever holds it. A .uk is shorter and looks more current, which is worth something on a new brand and worth very little on a business whose customers already know where to find it.
The pragmatic answer for most people is to own both and pick one to live on. At these prices the second one is cheap insurance, and the redirect takes a minute in your control panel.
| .uk | .co.uk | |
|---|---|---|
| Registrable since | 10 June 2014 | Before August 1996 |
| Who may register | Anyone worldwide | Anyone worldwide |
| Signal in Google | United Kingdom | United Kingdom, identical |
| What people type first | Often mistyped as .co.uk | The British default |
| Rights of registration | Ended 06:00 BST, 25 June 2019 | Gave holders first claim on the matching .uk |
| Length | Three characters shorter | Longer, and expected |
.uk domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .uk domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNeither is better, they are the same product at different lengths. Both come from Nominet, both are open to anyone, both cost the same here, and Google reads the identical UK signal from each because both sit inside the .uk country-code extension. The only real differences are that .co.uk is what British visitors type by reflex and .uk is three characters shorter. Own both if you can, use whichever suits the brand, and point the other at it.
Only by registering it like anyone else, if it is still free. The right of registration gave holders of a qualifying third-level domain five years to take the matching .uk, and it expired at 06:00 BST on 25 June 2019. Unclaimed names were released in batches during July 2019 and everything has been first come, first served since. Holding the .co.uk gives you no reserved claim now, so check availability today rather than assuming it is waiting.
No. Nominet's rule for the second level is that any person may register one, with no residency test, no requirement for a UK company and no local contact to nominate. Addresses for service were dropped when the rules were aligned after GDPR, and PO boxes are accepted. That said, if your business has no UK connection at all, the extension is doing the opposite of what an extension is for: it tells Google and your visitors that the site is meant for a British audience.
No, and it can cost you in the short term. Both are inside the same country-code extension, so the geographic signal Google reads is identical and there is nothing to gain there. Against that, a migration means redirecting every URL, updating every link you control, and asking every link you do not control to catch up. Move for branding reasons if the shorter name matters that much to you, but do not move expecting a ranking benefit, because there is not one.
Usually minutes, which is unusual among extensions. A .uk moves by changing the registrar tag on the record rather than by an authorisation code, so there is no code to request from the losing registrar and no multi-day window to sit through. Ours is STACK. If the current registrar releases it promptly the change shows almost at once, and a registrar using manual acceptance has up to five days before the request times out. We do not charge for .uk transfers and your renewal date is unaffected.
The old protocol is, on 9 February 2027. Nominet is retiring WHOIS on port 43 and replacing it with RDAP, the modern equivalent, and it has said it will update the IANA records for .uk from August 2026 so some command-line WHOIS clients may stop finding the server before the cutover. Nothing about your domain changes and no action is needed from you. It only affects tools that query registration data, and our own lookup already reads RDAP.
Included with Your .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 .uk domain today
Secure your .uk domain from just £9.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
