Enter Australia market with a .COM.AU Domain

The namespace is open only to commercial entities. Local companies show eligibility with an ABN, ACN or ARBN, or a registered business name; companies abroad show it by owning an Australian registered trade mark. Not-for-profit associations and charities cannot use this namespace — theirs is .org.au. Without evidence of eligibility the application is refused at registration and the name is not held for you.

The name must connect to the applicant, but that connection is defined in more than one way. A match or acronym of your company, business or personal name qualifies; so does your Australian registered trade mark or the name of a related Australian body corporate. If none of those fit, you may choose a name that is a match or synonym of the services you provide or the goods you sell. In other words, a name describing what you do is also accepted.

Yes. For companies with no registered business in Australia, the recognised route is owning an Australian registered trade mark or having filed an application for one. There is no requirement for a physical address or office in Australia. However, choosing this route means your domain name must be an exact match to the words of your mark, which noticeably narrows your options. A pending trade mark application is accepted as well.

An applicant relying solely on a trade mark for Australian presence must choose a domain made up of the words of that mark. In the assessment, the extension itself, punctuation, linking words such as 'a', 'the', 'and', 'or', 'of' and the '&' symbol may be disregarded; abbreviations and partial use of the mark are not accepted. The test took effect on 12 April 2021, replacing the earlier 'close and substantial connection' standard. In practice, short acronym names cannot be obtained this way.

Both require Australian presence but are open to different applicants. .com.au is for commercial entities. .org.au is reserved for not-for-profit organisations: incorporated associations, companies limited by guarantee, charities, registered unions, political parties and similar bodies. Which one you belong in follows from your legal structure, so rather than aiming at both, pick the one that matches how your organisation is constituted.

.com.au names can be moved between providers. A transfer does not remove your obligations: under the new record you must still be a commercial entity and still meet the Australian presence requirement. The remaining registration period is preserved after the move, and your site and email keep running without interruption as long as you do not change name servers. You can start on the domain transfer page.

An ABN is not the only way to show eligibility. An ACN or ARBN, or a registered business name, does the same job. If you hold none of these and have no registered structure in Australia, what remains is the Australian registered trade mark route. Because that route ties the domain to an exact match of the mark's words, planning your preferred name before you file the trade mark makes the process considerably easier.