The .help Domain: A Home Address for Your Support Desk
.help entered the root zone on 15 August 2014; its ICANN registry agreement is dated 26 June 2014 and the current contracting party is Innovation Service Ltd, registered in the Seychelles. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 shows 294,795 registrations, of which 195,914 appear in the zone file.
Four letters say what the site does, which is why help centres, technical support portals, product documentation and assistance lines gather here. No eligibility condition applies. Try candidates through a .help domain search, and compare the explanatory alternative on the .guide page.
The sponsoring organisation in the IANA root zone record was updated on 4 January 2024 and now reads Innovation Service Ltd; ICANN's registry agreement page names the same party. The registry's own website, meanwhile, still carries the pre-transfer brand, and the ending is marketed inside a different portfolio altogether. None of that is contradictory — the contracting party, the commercial operation and the technical back end can be three different companies. When you want to know who actually runs an ending, read the IANA record rather than the marketing page.
.HELP Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Innovation Service Ltd
- IANA record updated 4 January 2024
- ICANN registry agreement 26 June 2014
- Root zone record 15 August 2014
- Registered names 294,795 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 195,914 names, about 66%
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .help domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.help 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.
-
New Registration
$3.99 /year -
Transfer
$28.59 /year -
Renewal
$30.79 /year -
Restore
$104.90 -
Late Renewal
$5.72
Included With Every .help Domain
-
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.
-
Domain lock
While the lock is on, nobody can move your domain to another registrar without your approval.
-
Domain forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
-
Free WHOIS privacy
Your name, address and phone stay out of public WHOIS records, which cuts down spam and scam calls.
.help Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .help 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 .help 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 .help 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 .help 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
.help Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.help Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .help domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.help Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .help Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
-
A separate address suits a support team that stands on its own; a sub-domain suits documentation tied to the product.
A sub-domain shares cookies, sessions and the certificate with your main domain, so a signed-in user is not asked to authenticate twice. A separate address reads short over the phone and in print. In multi-brand groups, one support address with a folder per brand is a common compromise.
-
There are 294,795 registrations and 195,914 appear in the zone file — about 66%.
This is the largest zone among its neighbours, yet one name in three has never gone live. Single-word roots will therefore look taken without necessarily having a site behind them. Build candidates on a brand-plus-support pattern and test them together through the bulk domain name search.
-
Titles that name the problem in the user's words, and one task per article.
Headings written in internal terminology never surface in search, because visitors type the symptom rather than the name of a product module. Number the steps, date the screenshots, and leave a contact route at the end of each article for the people it did not solve.
-
It does — a short address travels well on posters, on cards and when spoken aloud.
On an address like that, accessibility is the job rather than a technical detail: the page has to open on a slow connection, the text has to work with a screen reader, and the phone number has to be a tappable link. You can compare server-side options on the hosting page.
-
Yes. It runs on an authorisation code and the registry asks for no extra documents.
The risk with a support address is visibility: during any interruption, users cannot reach the very page they went looking for. Schedule the move for the hours when ticket volume is lowest, and keep your status page on a separate address beforehand. You can start from the domain transfer page.
Ready to Claim Your .help Domain?
Type a name and see in seconds whether it is free on .help. If it is taken, we list close alternatives right away.
Get Help for .help Domain Registration
Need help registering a .help domain? Our team is ready to assist.