.college Domains: An Ending for Educational Institutions
.college entered the root zone on 13 March 2014, with first delegation on 2 April 2014, and the IANA record names XYZ.COM LLC as the sponsoring organisation. No eligibility condition has been verified for registration. The ending is used by higher education institutions, vocational schools, student societies and education projects.
Two things need separating on a .college address: it can carry a school's name without showing that the school is recognised. The rule follows. Using it for an institutional site, state the accreditation and recognition position openly on the page. Setting up a separate address for a student society, an alumni network or a single programme, the ending already gives you a clear frame. Try candidates with a domain name search.
According to the nTLDstats page accessed on 11 August 2026, just 6,452 of 23,939 registrations appear in the zone file — around 27 per cent. That is the lowest ratio in this group and points to a zone weighted towards parked names and names held for resale. If the name you want looks taken, there may be no working site behind it, so look at the neighbouring names before deciding.
.COLLEGE Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation XYZ.COM LLC
- Root zone record 13 March 2014
- Eligibility condition No verified restriction
- Registered names 23,939 (nTLDstats, 11 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 6,452 names, about 27 per cent
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .college domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 1 - 10 servers
.college 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
$19.90 /year -
Transfer
$64.99 /year -
Renewal
$69.99 /year -
Restore
$199.90 -
Late Renewal
$12.87
Included With Every .college 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.
.college Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .college 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 .college 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 .college 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 $12.87 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 .college 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
.college Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.college Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .college domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 1 - 10 servers
.college Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .college Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No — no accreditation or institutional check is defined on the registry side.
The consequence matters for users: the address does not show that a school is recognised. As a student or parent, confirm recognition in the register kept by the relevant higher education authority. To find out whether a name is free, run a domain name search.
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Because only about a quarter of registrations in the zone are actually published.
The nTLDstats page accessed on 11 August 2026 puts 6,452 of 23,939 registrations in the zone file. The rest are registered without pointing at a site, usually parked. To see what stands behind a given name, use whois search.
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Very well — a separate address makes a society independent of the institutional site.
Alumni networks, student clubs and pages built for a single programme can be run without being squeezed into a university subdirectory. That also makes it easier to separate content and access rights. To run it on separate infrastructure, see the hosting plans.
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The scale of the institution and what it awards decide.
.college suggests a higher education or vocational structure and speaks to a reader expecting a campus, departments and a qualification. .academy is more flexible and stretches to courses, workshops and private training programmes. Details are on the .academy domain page.
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The institution's name, recognition status, programme list and contact details.
A page hosting an application form processes an applicant's identity and education data, so state what you keep and for how long. An encrypted connection should count as mandatory on pages like these — choose a certificate on the SSL certificate page.
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A transfer starts with the authorisation code from your current registrar.
The transfer lock has to be open, sixty days must have passed since registration, and the administrative email address has to work; on institutional records that address often belongs to someone who has left, so update it first. Start the process on the domain transfer page.
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