The .food Domain: An Address for Kitchens and Brands
.food was recorded in the root zone on 4 November 2016; the IANA entry names Internet Naming Co. as the sponsoring organisation and Tucows.com, Co. as the technical contact. It is one of the two youngest zones in this group. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 shows 34,224 registrations, of which 22,683 appear in the zone file.
Restaurants, producers, suppliers, writers and recipe archives all share the same ending, because the word states the category in one step. What makes an address distinctive is the root: a cuisine, a city or the brand itself. Check where your candidates stand with a .food domain search, or scan a list of cuisine words in one pass through bulk domain name search.
Most food businesses first become visible inside a delivery app or a map listing. That is a quick start, but the rules, the layout and the visibility of that page are not yours to control. When the menu, opening hours, contact details and booking form also live at your own address, a change of platform does not move your customers anywhere. You do not have to close the app listing — run both, and print your own address on anything that leaves the kitchen.
.FOOD Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Internet Naming Co.
- Infrastructure provider Tucows.com, Co.
- Root zone record 4 November 2016
- Registered names 34,224 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 22,683 names, about 66%
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .food domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.food 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
$4.99 /year -
Transfer
$50.01 /year -
Renewal
$50.01 /year
Included With Every .food 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.
.food Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .food 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 .food 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 .food 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 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 .food 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
.food Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.food Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .food domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.food Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .food Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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The registry asks for no business registration, hygiene certificate or permit at the point of sale.
Producing and selling food is governed by its own rules, and permits, hygiene duties and labelling obligations follow the trade rather than the domain. Showing your business name, address and any registration numbers on the site helps a visitor confirm who you are, which shortens the path to an order.
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The menu, opening hours, location and how to order should be visible without scrolling.
Someone looking for a meal decides quickly, and putting the menu inside a file to download slows that decision down. Publish it as text on the page itself so search engines can read it too. Keeping photographs to a size a mobile connection can handle protects both load time and the order rate.
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Of 34,224 registrations, 22,683 appear in the zone file — around 66%.
One name in three has never been pointed at a server. So a name showing as taken may have nothing behind it, though waiting for an expiry is an uncertain plan. Adding a cuisine word or a city to the root usually gets you a workable address faster.
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It suits one well, because the ending states the subject at address level.
Recipe archives grow over time and most search traffic lands on inner pages, which makes a short, easily typed address worth the effort. For an image-heavy archive, storage and bandwidth deserve a thought before launch rather than after. Compare suitable packages on the hosting page.
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Yes. It runs on an authorisation code and no additional documents are needed.
In restaurants the recurring problem is a domain still registered to the agency that designed the menu, or to a member of staff who has left. Update the registrant details to your business and lift the lock first, then start from the domain transfer page.
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Type a name and see in seconds whether it is free on .food. If it is taken, we list close alternatives right away.
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