The .gives Domain: An Address That Asks Out Loud
.gives entered the root zone on 29 May 2014, and its registry today is Public Interest Registry, the operator behind .org. The ending changed hands three times: delegated first to United TLD Holdco, Ltd, transferred to Dog Beach, LLC on 2 June 2021 and to PIR on 25 August 2022. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 shows 8,672 registrations, of which 3,443 appear in the zone file.
Because the label is a verb, an address built on it reads as a sentence: a fundraising appeal, a staff giving programme, a school campaign. PIR's registration policy covers .gives, but the seven-point eligibility standard in that document is written for .ngo and .ong only. Try candidates with a .gives domain search, and for a permanent institutional address compare the .foundation page.
Of 8,672 registrations, only 3,443 appear in the zone file — around 40%. That is the lowest rate measured in this group; the highest, for comparison, is 98%. The pattern is what you would expect of a campaign ending: a name is taken for an appeal, pulled from the server once the appeal closes, and left registered. Two things follow for a search — a taken name may have nothing running behind it, and waiting for it to lapse still will not help, because renewal is the holder's decision.
.GIVES Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Public Interest Registry (PIR)
- Root zone record 29 May 2014
- Transferred to PIR 25 August 2022
- Registered names 8,672 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 3,443 names, about 40%
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .gives domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.gives 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
$14.99 /year -
Transfer
$27.99 /year -
Renewal
$30.09 /year -
Restore
$129.90 -
Late Renewal
$5.72
Included With Every .gives 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.
.gives Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .gives 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 .gives 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 .gives 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 $5.72 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 .gives 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
.gives Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.gives Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .gives domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.gives Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .gives Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No. PIR applies no test of legal form to this ending.
The seven-point eligibility standard in the same policy document is written for .ngo and .ong. Schools, corporate social responsibility programmes and individual appeals all use this address. The obligations that come with soliciting donations arise from the law where you operate and are unrelated to the domain.
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It turns the whole address into a sentence, which means the root has to work as the subject.
Put an organisation, a school or a team in front and the address explains itself. Built on a generic word it hangs in the air, and a visitor cannot tell who is asking. Showing where the money goes, on the page itself, is the natural continuation of that same sentence.
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Both sit with Public Interest Registry today; the difference is how each names the actor.
The verb form wants a subject and puts whoever is running the appeal in front. The noun form names the act itself and settles better on pages about a giving day, a programme or a culture of giving. Compare the two on the .giving page.
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That the certificate has to cover the whole site, not only the page holding the form.
A donation flow usually hands over to a payment provider, and the visitor watches the address change at that moment. Serving every page on your own side over a valid certificate takes the hesitation out of it. Check the current state from the SSL checker page.
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Yes. It runs on an authorisation code and the registry asks for no documents.
The recurring problem with appeal addresses is a name still registered to the volunteer who set the campaign up; once they move on, the approval message lands somewhere nobody can reach. Move the registrant to the organisation's legal name first, then start from the domain transfer page.
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