Buy .africa Domain Name

No. Neither the registry's published policy nor the mandatory terms binding registrants contain any requirement of African residence, a local company, a local address or a representative. The mandatory terms settle it in two sentences: names are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and the registry and registrar are under no circumstances obliged to determine an applicant's right to the name. The extension carries a continental identity narrative, but its registration works like that of a generic extension.

Yes. The policy addresses it directly: none of the mandatory fields in the contact data specification may be left blank, but a registrant who finds those requirements unfavourable to their privacy may elect to use a privacy or proxy service, in which case the information displayed in WHOIS is that of the service. The registrar remains obliged to hold the real data in full in its own database even when a privacy service is used.

The maximum length is 63 characters, excluding the extension. Names may contain only the letters a-z, the digits 0-9 and hyphens; only 7-bit ASCII values are allowed and spaces or special characters are not, which means internationalised names are not available in this extension. A hyphen cannot be the first or last character and no more than two consecutive hyphens may appear without an intervening character. One more restriction applies: two-character names are reserved and cannot be registered.

Terms are calculated on a one-year basis and registrations may be issued for up to ten years. Domains may be reinstated for up to nine years at a time, and on a successful transfer the expiry year increases automatically by one year. Every registration must be accompanied by at least two and at most ten name servers. The registry does not verify at registration whether those servers are authoritative, but it may run checks for non-responsive servers at any time.

There is a limited window. For new registrations a grace period of seven consecutive days after successful registration allows the registrar to cancel and claim a full refund of the registration fee. A cancelled name enters a pending-delete state, is not published in the DNS and returns to the pool at the end of the period. A cap applies: no refund is processed once such deletions exceed 10% of the registrar's net new registrations for the previous month or fifty names, whichever is greater.

Transfers follow ICANN's inter-registrar transfer policy. The registrant or administrative contact gives the gaining registrar the authorisation code; if the code is correct, the domain enters a pending-transfer state. The request lasts at most five consecutive days, and if the registrar of record has not responded by the end of that period the domain moves to the gaining registrar. No transfer is possible during the first 60 days after registration. You can start the process on the domain transfer page.

The registry has adopted ICANN's UDRP for disputes over second-level names, and every registration is subject to it. A complaint is filed with one of ICANN's approved providers; the registry is not the first point of contact, but it locks the domain on the provider's instruction and lifts the lock only on further instruction or a court order. If the decision favours the complainant, the registry processes the transfer and notifies all parties.

The policy lists the fields returned: domain name, domain ID, WHOIS server, referral URL, updated, creation and expiry dates, sponsoring registrar and its IANA number, domain statuses, registrant ID and registrant name. Public queries are additionally gated by a human verification test; the registry prohibits any use that results in a targeted contact campaign or an attempt to copy the register, and it may restrict access for those who abuse the service.