.airforce: A Commercial Ending With an Aviation Ring
.airforce was delegated to the root zone on 17 April 2014 and is sponsored by Dog Beach, LLC, part of the Identity Digital portfolio. Despite what the word suggests, no government or military body stands behind this extension. It is an open namespace run by a commercial registry operator, and registering a name confers no official title, authority or affiliation.
Used with that distinction in mind, it does real work: aviation-themed communities, model aircraft and simulation projects, history archives, gaming groups or brands playing on the word all get a readable address out of it. If you need a verified aviation identity, the route is different — in civil aviation that is .aero. You can try candidates with a domain name search.
.AIRFORCE Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Dog Beach, LLC (Identity Digital)
- Delegated to the root zone 17 April 2014
- Institutional link None — no government or military ownership
- Eligibility No published registry restriction could be verified
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .airforce domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.airforce Domain Prices — No Surprise Fees
Registration, transfer and renewal fees are listed separately. The renewal price can differ from the first-year price, so you see both up front.
-
New Registration
$35.90 /year -
Transfer
$35.99 /year -
Renewal
$39.59 /year
Included With Every .airforce Domain
-
Free DNS management
Change A, MX, TXT and CNAME records yourself from the panel — no waiting on anyone when you move a site or mailbox.
-
Domain lock
While the lock is on, nobody can move your domain to another registrar without your approval.
-
Domain forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
-
Free WHOIS privacy
Your name, address and phone stay out of public WHOIS records, which cuts down spam and scam calls.
.airforce Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .airforce domain is put on Client Hold on its expiry date, so the site and e-mail stop that same day. You can still renew during the first 20 days, but from this point a late renewal fee is added on top of the renewal price. On day 20 the registration is deleted and until day 50 only a paid restore brings it back. Nothing at all can be done in the 5 days that follow, and on day 55 the name is open to anyone. There is exactly one way never to enter this chain: keep auto-renewal on.
Domain Is Available (Available)
A .airforce address at this stage has not been taken yet, and it goes to whoever registers first. Check the name you have in mind — if it is free, it can be yours within minutes.
Domain Is Active (Active Period)
Once registration is complete, the domain is registered to you for the term you selected. You can renew at any point before it expires to keep it active, or switch on auto-renewal so you never have to watch the date.
Renewal Window (Client Hold)
On its expiry date your .airforce domain is put on Client Hold: the site and e-mail go down that day, but the registration is still yours. A single renewal within these first 20 days brings everything back exactly as it was — nothing is lost. The only difference is that a late renewal fee is now added to the renewal price; renewing before the expiry date avoids that fee entirely.
Redemption Period (Redemption / RGP)
On day 20 the registration is deleted and the 30-day redemption period that ICANN requires of every gTLD registry begins. The name is not released to anyone during this time; only you can take it back, by paying the restore fee, until day 50. That fee is far higher than a renewal — renewing on time is always the cheaper route.
Pending Delete (Pending Delete)
Once the redemption window closes too, the domain enters its final 5 days and there is no way back. Neither renewal nor restore works here; nobody — your registrar included — can return the name to you. The registry uses this window as the last hold before the name goes back into the pool.
Open to Anyone Again (Released)
On day 55 the name .airforce returns to the pool and anyone can register it. Sought-after names are often gone within seconds, and there is no guaranteed way to get one back. Yet staying out of this timeline is entirely in your hands: leave auto-renewal on and the expiry date will never catch you off guard.
The timeline above is the schedule Atak Domain applies and publishes. The ICANN chart you will find elsewhere shows a renewal window of up to 45 days after expiry; ICANN's policy on expired registrations (section 2.2.1) lets registrars delete an expired domain at any time, provided they disclose their policy in advance. We apply that window as 20 days and publish it here in plain sight. Full text of the policy: ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy
.airforce Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.airforce Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .airforce domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.airforce Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .airforce Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
-
No, it belongs to no government or military organisation. The sponsoring organisation in the root zone record is Dog Beach, LLC, a commercial company within the Identity Digital portfolio. The distinction matters: registering a name grants you no official standing, and using it to imply a link to an air force would be misleading. A whois search shows who currently holds any given name.
-
No verifiable eligibility restriction applies. We could not reach a primary source showing that the registry asks for service history, institutional affiliation or documentation, so the extension appears open in practice. If you run an aviation-themed community, a simulation group or an archive project, it makes a fitting address. For a verified civil aviation identity, the checked route is .aero.
-
The difference is structural and shows up in how you register. .aero is a sponsored extension reserved for the civil aviation community, and your eligibility is verified before the name is registered. .airforce is an open generic ending with no such check. One is a namespace where professional standing has been established; the other is on-theme but available to anyone. Which fits depends on who you are.
-
If the theme matches, yes — the word states your subject without help. For a model aircraft club, a flight simulation community or an aviation history archive, the address sticks in the memory and needs no explanation when shared in a forum. Just avoid claiming an institutional connection on the site itself: that misleads readers and invites legal trouble you do not need.
-
The shape of the content decides. A brochure site with a blog runs without trouble on shared hosting. If you are building a community platform with forums, memberships or live data, choose by runtime instead: Node.js hosting or Python hosting. With high-resolution photo archives, bandwidth rather than processing is what drives the cost.
Ready to Claim Your .airforce Domain?
Type a name and see in seconds whether it is free on .airforce. If it is taken, we list close alternatives right away.
Get Help for .airforce Domain Registration
Need help registering a .airforce domain? Our team is ready to assist.