.cafe Domains: A Name for Coffee and Small Rooms
.cafe entered the root zone on 12 March 2015, and the IANA record names Binky Moon, LLC as the sponsoring organisation. The defining quality of this ending is how many languages share it: Turkish, French, German, Spanish and many more spell it the same way and mean the same thing. Whoever reads the address knows what waits there, whatever language they think in.
No published eligibility condition could be verified, so a coffee shop, a breakfast room, a roastery and a small chain all apply on the same terms. The decision rule is identity rather than scale: if the room already has a name people use, a short root plus this ending gives the most natural address. Note that the accented spelling used in some languages cannot appear in the domain, so the sign above the door and the address may differ slightly. Test candidates with a domain name search.
.CAFE Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Binky Moon, LLC (Identity Digital)
- Root zone record 12 March 2015
- Eligibility condition No verified restriction
- Reach of the word Understood with the same spelling in many languages
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .cafe domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 1 - 13 servers
.cafe 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.
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New Registration
$8.99 /year -
Transfer
$51.99 /year -
Renewal
$55.99 /year -
Restore
$134.90 -
Late Renewal
$7.32
Included With Every .cafe Domain
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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.
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Domain lock
While the lock is on, nobody can move your domain to another registrar without your approval.
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Domain forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
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Free WHOIS privacy
Your name, address and phone stay out of public WHOIS records, which cuts down spam and scam calls.
.cafe Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .cafe 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 .cafe 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 .cafe 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 $7.32 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 .cafe 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
.cafe Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.cafe Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .cafe domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 1 - 13 servers
.cafe Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .cafe Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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The ending itself is written without an accent, and according to the project's registry data this extension carries no international character support. If your sign uses an accent, a small gap opens between the address and the shopfront; that causes no practical trouble, but decide early so printed material stays consistent. Keeping the root simple also makes the address easier to pass on by phone or by word of mouth.
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No published eligibility condition could be verified; the name appears open on a first-come basis. No premises licence, food registration or chamber membership is requested, and the ordering flow carries no extra approval step. That means a place not yet open can reserve its name in advance. Licences and food permits for trading itself vary by country and are independent of the domain.
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A menu, a location, opening hours and contact details; anything beyond that is usually surplus. Publish the menu as text rather than as an image, because neither search engines nor screen readers can read words inside a picture. If you add a booking form, personal data collection begins and an encrypted connection becomes necessary. Install it from the SSL certificate page and cover the rest with a small plan on the hosting page.
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The difference is the hour of the day and what is served. This name suggests daytime, coffee and a short seated break, while .bar settles into the evening and drinks service. If both run under one roof, decide which identity dominates, because an address can only make one promise. When the call is genuinely close, reserving both and redirecting one is a common solution.
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Yes, the extension is transferable. You remove the lock, collect the authorisation code and start the request at the new registrar; the name is expected not to have been registered or transferred in the previous 60 days. Even with the site live, the move does not cut access, because DNS records are managed separately. Run it from the domain transfer page.
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