The .gratis Domain: A Plain Address for What Costs Nothing
.gratis entered the root zone on 17 April 2014, and its ICANN registry agreement, dated 20 March 2014, names Binky Moon, LLC as the contracting party. The word means free of charge in Spanish, German, Dutch and Italian, so a single address reads across four markets. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 records 4,153 registrations, 3,062 of which appear in the zone file.
The ending suits one specific offer rather than a whole company: a trial edition, an open-source tool, a downloadable template, an advice line or a campaign page. The registry applies no eligibility condition at all. Test candidates through a .gratis domain search, or look at its neighbour on the support side on the .help page.
Specification 11 of the registry agreement requires registrars to bind registrants to comply with applicable law, and the clause names consumer-protection rules on misleading and deceptive conduct explicitly. In practice that means the word at the end of the address is a statement your page has to honour. Set out what is free, for how long, and at which point it becomes chargeable, all on the same screen. A trial that asks for card details up front turns this ending into a complaint magnet.
.GRATIS Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Binky Moon, LLC
- Infrastructure provider Identity Digital Limited
- ICANN registry agreement 20 March 2014
- Root zone record 17 April 2014
- Registered names 4,153 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 3,062 names, about 74%
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .gratis domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.gratis 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
$26.50 /year -
Transfer
$26.50 /year -
Renewal
$29.15 /year -
Restore
$109.90 -
Late Renewal
$5.83
Included With Every .gratis 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.
.gratis Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .gratis 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 .gratis 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 .gratis 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 $5.83 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 .gratis 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
.gratis Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.gratis Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .gratis domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.gratis Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .gratis Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No. The registry publishes no eligibility condition and no document requirement for this ending.
The registry agreement chain does bind registrants to comply with applicable law, and consumer-protection rules already prohibit misleading commercial practices. So the constraint comes from legislation rather than the registry: if the address promises something at no cost, the page is expected to deliver it. Where you cannot, choose a different ending.
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If the campaign runs on its own, a separate address helps; if it is part of the product, a sub-page is enough.
A short address reads well in print, on radio and inside a QR code. Against that, two addresses mean two sets of measurement, two certificates and two content jobs. When the campaign ends, redirect rather than drop the name, because printed links stay in circulation for years.
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Of 4,153 registrations, 3,062 appear in the zone file — roughly 74%.
Three names in four resolve to a server, so this is a small zone that is genuinely in use. Read it this way: short single-word roots are largely gone, while roots built on a product or campaign name remain findable. Trying several candidates at once through the bulk domain name search shortens the job.
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What is free, for how long, and what is excluded — all visible without scrolling.
Visitors arrive at this address with an expectation, and burying the conditions raises complaints rather than conversions. If you ask people to register, say on the same page which data you collect and how long you keep it. Where a paid tier follows, naming the moment of the switch matters more than any figure.
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Yes. The move runs on an authorisation code and the registry asks for no extra paperwork.
With campaign addresses the real risk is timing: moving while an advert is live wastes impressions even during a short propagation delay. Pick a week that does not collide with your campaign calendar, and start from the domain transfer page.
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