Buy .az Domain Name

Under the rules approved by Resolution No. 63 of the Cabinet of Ministers, the registrant may be either a natural person or a legal entity and is free to choose its registrar. The rules set no limit based on the applicant's nationality or country of incorporation, and the service may be provided by local or foreign registrars. Reserved names, and the names of state bodies, international companies and associations, are subject to separate consent.

The rules ask for a set of data centred on identity:

• Natural persons: name, surname, patronymic, citizenship, address, phone and email
• The number, series, issuing authority and date of the identity document
• A taxpayer identification number for sole proprietors
• Legal entities: the director's identity details, the full name of the entity, its country of registration, address and taxpayer number

Supplying all of this up front keeps the application from being sent back.

The governing source is the set of rules on the registration, use and administration of domain names in the .az zone, approved by Resolution No. 63 of the Cabinet of Ministers, dated 25 February 2019. That text states that the right of use is allocated by the National Administrator, while registration and maintenance services are provided by local or foreign registrars. The list of second-level zones open for general use appears in the same document.

The rules enumerate the second-level zones open for general use one by one: biz.az, co.az, com.az, info.az, int.az, edu.az, gov.az, mil.az, name.az, net.az, org.az and pp.az. If you want the structure of the address to signal commercial standing, .com.az does that; if you are after a shorter, more general alternative, .co.az belongs to the same scheme.

The rules state that applications are reviewed on the same basis and in order of receipt, within at least three working days. Allocation therefore rests on the priority of the first applicant, and the process is tied to a queue on paper. Reserved names, and applications close to institutional or brand names, take longer because they enter an additional approval step. If the name you want is free, waiting gains you nothing.

The rules make a change of domain ownership conditional on a written request and a new registration agreement, so a transfer never runs on a verbal understanding. The registrar must also warn the holder at least one month before expiry, so keep renewal and transfer timings apart. Your website and email keep working as long as you do not change name servers. You can start on the domain transfer page.

You can see whether a .az name is registered, and the general state of the record, through its WHOIS entry. Because of data protection obligations, registrant contact details are published only in limited form, so a lookup will usually show the status of the name and its registration dates. Run the lookup on the whois search page, and check whether a name is still free with domain search.