France Domains: .fr, .paris, .bzh and More

France's country code extension is .fr, and Atak Domain sells four more France-linked extensions next to it. .paris is a city extension, while .bzh, .alsace and .corsica are regional endings for Brittany, Alsace and Corsica, each with its own registry and rules. The older .com.fr, .asso.fr and .tm.fr zones have been closed to new registrations since 15 March 2013.

Individuals residing, and companies with their registered office or main establishment, in an EU member state, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland can register a .fr domain. No French address is required, and Afnic applies the same test to the administrative contact. No documents are collected at registration, but eligibility can be checked later: if evidence does not follow, the names are suspended for up to seven days, then blocked for up to thirty, then deleted, and the registration fee remains owed whatever the outcome.

Not in your own name, because only holders in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland qualify; with Atak Domain's trustee service you can still use a .fr domain. Under the trustee arrangement the domain is registered to our European branch and made available to you, at an additional cost. If you have a subsidiary in an EU country, the name can instead be registered directly to that company. See the trustee service page for the details.

You can register a .paris domain if you have a bona fide presence and an administrative contact in the Paris area. It is a community extension, and its registry operator is the City of Paris. The address is checked partly automatically by postal code and partly through human review. You also declare how you intend to use the name, and a false statement of intended use counts as bad faith and can ground suspension. It suits shops, hotels, galleries and associations present in Paris.

.bzh and .corsica require a tie to their region, while .alsace is open to anyone. For .bzh, a postal address in one of the five Breton departments, a substantial part of the site devoted to Brittany or the Breton language, or membership of the Association www.bzh is enough; if you rely on site content, publish it within six months of registration. .corsica accepts a head office or branch on the island, a Corsican residence, a defensive trademark registration or an evidenced personal tie. For .alsace the registry expects a link to Alsace and may ask for proof.

Yes, for France: Google calls a country code domain such as .fr a strong signal that a site targets one country. .fr is not among the country codes Google treats as generic. Because a ccTLD can only target a single country, French speakers in Belgium, Switzerland or Canada are separate targets, reached with their own country domains or with country subfolders on a generic extension. .paris, .bzh, .alsace and .corsica carry no country signal, since Google said in 2015 that it treats city and regional extensions as generic domains. You still need French-language content written for users in France.

Choose .fr to sell across France, .paris if you have a presence in Paris, and the regional ending if your tie to Brittany, Corsica or Alsace is the point. A Lyon web shop shipping nationwide fits .fr, while a Breton cultural association fits .bzh. If you are not established in the EU, the EEA or Switzerland, order .fr with the trustee service; if you cannot meet a regional tie, skip that ending.

Search for your name on the domain name search page, choose the extension and complete the order with holder details that meet its eligibility rule. If you are ordering .fr from outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, add the trustee service to the order. Enter accurate holder details in every case: Afnic can check eligibility after registration, and a registration that fails the check costs you both the name and the amount paid. Move a .fr name held elsewhere through the domain transfer page.