The .family Domain: An Address That Belongs to You
.family was recorded in the root zone on 6 August 2015, and the IANA entry names Dog Beach, LLC as the sponsoring organisation. The nTLDstats page accessed on 11 August 2026 shows 42,143 registrations in the zone, of which 36,102 appear in the zone file. At roughly 86%, that is the highest publication rate in the group examined here.
The ending serves two separate needs. The first is the family business running across generations: a bakery, a hotel, a workshop, a legal practice. The second is the private family site built on a surname — reunion calendars, shared photographs, genealogy archives. To see whether your surname is still free here, try a .family domain search.
Family pages tend to combine children's photographs, an address, a school name and a regular schedule — a combination that causes trouble on a page anyone can read. Three measures cover most of it: put the site behind a password-protected area, never publish details like location and school name, and strip the location data from photographs before uploading them. For an invitation page shared among relatives, all three take a few minutes to set up.
.FAMILY Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Dog Beach, LLC
- Root zone record 6 August 2015
- Eligibility condition No verified restriction
- Registered names 42,143 (nTLDstats, 11 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 36,102 names, about 86%
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .family domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.family 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
$16.90 /year -
Transfer
$38.99 /year -
Renewal
$41.99 /year -
Restore
$124.90 -
Late Renewal
$5.85
Included With Every .family 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.
.family Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .family 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 .family 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 .family 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 $5.85 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 .family 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
.family Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.family Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .family domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.family Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .family Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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Yes. The registry sets no eligibility condition and verifies no surname.
Dog Beach, LLC publishes no restriction specific to this ending and names go first come, first served. Common surnames may already be taken; adding a second word or your home region usually finds something. Try several candidates together in a bulk domain name search.
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Location, school name and a regular schedule become risky in combination.
Details that look harmless on their own can together describe where a child will be and when. Photographs also carry location data that should be stripped before upload. If the page is only for relatives, a password-protected area is the simplest answer and takes a few clicks in most hosting control panels.
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It does — the ending states continuity in a single word.
An address combining the founder's name with this ending implies how long the business has stayed in one family, and for a local trader that is a real element of trust. Showing the founding year and the handover between generations on the page makes the impression concrete. Trading permits, as ever, follow from your own jurisdiction rather than the domain.
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36,102 of 42,143 names appear in the zone file, which works out at about 86%.
That is the highest figure among the endings measured here. The plausible reading is that people choosing this ending have a specific use in mind, so parking behaviour is weak. The practical consequence: when the name you want is taken, it is probably genuinely in use rather than waiting to lapse.
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For low-traffic, photo-heavy pages, storage rather than bandwidth is the deciding factor.
A few hundred high-resolution photographs take real space even when only a handful of people ever visit. If sharing stays within the family, a password-protected directory is enough. Compare the options on the hosting page and size the plan to your photo archive.
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Yes. The move runs on an authorisation code with no supporting documents.
The recurring snag on family addresses is a name registered to a relative who has died or lost touch: the approval message goes to an address nobody reads and the window closes. Update the contact details on the registration record first, then start from the domain transfer page.
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