Buy .ca Domain Name

Registration is open to individuals and legal entities meeting one of the Canadian presence requirements; the policy sets out eighteen categories. The most commonly used are Canadian citizens of the age of majority, permanent residents, individuals ordinarily resident in the country, corporations incorporated in Canada, and holders of a trademark registered there. If no category applies to you, eligibility cannot be established and the registration does not complete.

The requirement keeps .ca names with people and organisations that genuinely connect to Canada. The evidence differs by category: citizenship, permanent residency, incorporation documents in the country, or a trademark registration. The policy is called the Canadian Presence Requirements, and you are assessed against the category you declare at registration. Choosing the right category from the start means the evidence you may later be asked for is already in hand.

Where you have no corporation established in Canada, the recognised route is a trademark: the owner of a mark registered under the Trade-marks Act (Canada) may register a .ca name consisting of or including the exact word component of that mark. This ties your choice of name to the words of the mark; an abbreviation or a freely derived variant cannot be obtained this way. If your trademark application is still pending, plan the process accordingly.

The policy defines this with a number: an individual who resides in Canada for more than 183 days in the twelve months immediately preceding the application is ordinarily resident. The same condition is expected to hold in each twelve-month period for the duration of the registration. So the category rests on continuous presence rather than a short visit; if you leave the country, your eligibility has to rest on another category.

Yes. The registry reviews registrations regularly and may request proof of your Canadian presence after the registration has completed; the process is called Registrant Information Validation. In practice, do not treat the eligibility declaration as a step closed on the application form — keep your registration details current. When a company name or residency situation changes, the record needs updating too.

.ca names can be moved between providers. A transfer does not remove the eligibility obligation: under the new record you must still meet one of the Canadian presence requirements. The remaining registration period is preserved after the move, and your website and email are unaffected as long as you do not change name servers. You can start on the domain transfer page.

You can see whether a .ca name is registered and what state the record is in through WHOIS. Because of data protection obligations, registrant 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.