The .forum Domain: An Address for Communities
.forum was recorded in the root zone on 11 June 2015; both the IANA entry and the IANA RDAP record name Fegistry, LLC as the contracting party. Commercially the ending is offered within the Internet Naming Co. portfolio. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 shows 78,850 registrations, of which 61,868 appear in the zone file.
The ending closes directly on community platforms, support boards, user groups and brand discussion spaces. Placed after a product or topic word, the address tells a visitor what they will find, which shortens the decision to sign up. See what is open with a .forum domain search, and if the project is about collecting opinions rather than hosting debate, compare the .feedback page.
The moment you open a discussion space you are publishing text written by other people. That calls for moderation, a complaints route and a retention period to be planned from the start rather than after the first incident. Three things cover most of it: a written set of rules, a named person who can be contacted, and a short note explaining how removal requests are handled. What the law requires beyond that depends on where you operate; the registry publishes no rule on the subject and checks nothing at registration.
.FORUM Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Fegistry, LLC
- Commercial operator Internet Naming Co. portfolio
- Root zone record 11 June 2015
- Registered names 78,850 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 61,868 names, about 78%
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .forum domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.forum 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
$59.99 /year -
Renewal
$59.99 /year -
Restore
$159.90
Included With Every .forum 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.
.forum Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .forum 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 .forum 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 .forum 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 .forum 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
.forum Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.forum Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .forum domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.forum Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .forum Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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According to the IANA entry and the IANA RDAP record, the contracting party is Fegistry, LLC.
That record was last changed on 18 December 2025. Commercially the ending is offered in the Internet Naming Co. portfolio, and the canonical nic.forum address redirects to that company's site. The older address shown in the IANA registration services field does not respond today, so the current one was confirmed by following the redirect.
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It does. A user community tends to grow more freely on an address of its own.
Discussion traffic then stops distorting the measurements on your product pages, and moderation rules live in their own frame. Starting the address with your brand tells members they have arrived in the right place. A visible link from the main site keeps the community part of the ecosystem rather than an island.
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Moderation tooling, data export and mobile readability are the three that matter.
What a growing community needs most is a moderation screen that can act on many items at once. Being able to export your data in a standard format is what makes changing software possible later. For a site that leans on constant database access, compare the options on the hosting page before the archive grows.
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Of 78,850 registrations, 61,868 appear in the zone file — around 78%.
That rate shows most names have genuinely been pointed at a server. For your search it means a short generic word almost certainly belongs to a working community. Narrowing the topic, or pairing the word with your brand, is the fastest way to something available.
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Yes. The move runs on an authorisation code and requires no extra documents.
On community sites, schedule it for a quiet hour: when logged-in members lose their connection, half-written posts can disappear with it. A short notice to members beforehand cuts the number of complaints noticeably. Start the process from the domain transfer page.
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