.nowruz Domain: The Current Status of the Nowruz Zone
.nowruz is a top-level domain named after Nowruz, the new year festival celebrated across a wide region stretching from Iran through Central Asia to Anatolia. One common misunderstanding is worth correcting at the outset: this is not a country code extension but a generic one, delegated under ICANN's new extension programme. It entered the root zone on 25 November 2015; the registry agreement signed with ICANN is dated 4 September 2014, and the operator was Asia Green IT System Bilgisayar San. ve Tic. Ltd. Sti.
The zone's present status is what anyone considering a registration should know first. On 3 July 2024 ICANN announced that it was placing .nowruz into the EBERO (Emergency Back-End Registry Operator) programme to protect domain name registrants; the reason was that the operator had failed to meet the contractual emergency threshold of downtime for its registration data directory service. On 21 December 2024 ICANN then served the same operator with a notice of registry agreement termination, and the agreement is listed as «Terminated» on ICANN's own page.
In practice that means the zone is served today by Nominet's emergency infrastructure, IANA's record shows ICANN's EBERO programme as the sponsoring organisation, and there is no published registration policy, fee schedule or registrar channel. The purpose of EBERO is to keep existing names working. If you are looking for a regional identity, .ir or, for commercial registrations, co.ir are options in force and open; check your candidate on the domain name search page.
.NOWRUZ Domain at a Glance
- Type of extension A generic top-level domain, not a country code extension
- Root zone record 25 November 2015; the ICANN registry agreement is dated 4 September 2014
- Original operator Asia Green IT System Bilgisayar San. ve Tic. Ltd. Sti.
- 3 July 2024 ICANN placed the zone into the EBERO programme; Nominet is the technical operator
- 21 December 2024 ICANN served a notice of registry agreement termination
- Status today IANA lists ICANN's EBERO programme as sponsor; no registration policy is published
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .nowruz domain
- Country Iran
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.nowruz 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
$19.90 /year -
Transfer
$19.99 /year -
Renewal
$21.99 /year -
Restore
$33.15
Included With Every .nowruz 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 forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
.nowruz Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .nowruz 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 .nowruz 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 .nowruz 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 .nowruz 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
.nowruz Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.nowruz Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .nowruz domain
- Country Iran
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.nowruz Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support No
Frequently Asked Questions About .nowruz Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No. .nowruz is a generic top-level domain delegated under ICANN's new extension programme; in ICANN's own records its agreement type is «Base, Non-Sponsored». It takes its name from Nowruz, the new year festival celebrated from Iran through Central Asia to Anatolia, but it is not any country's official domain. Its operator was likewise not a state body but a company registered in Türkiye.
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The zone has no published registration policy, fee schedule or registrar channel. ICANN placed the extension into the EBERO programme on 3 July 2024 and served a notice of registry agreement termination on 21 December 2024; the agreement is listed as «Terminated» on ICANN's own page. The purpose of EBERO is to keep existing names working rather than to sell new ones. Confirm the current position before committing to anything.
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EBERO is ICANN's Emergency Back-End Registry Operator programme, activated temporarily when a registry operator is at risk of failing to sustain any of the five critical registry functions. For .nowruz the reason was that the operator had failed to meet the contractual emergency threshold of downtime for its registration data directory service. ICANN appointed Nominet as technical operator, and the zone is served today from that emergency infrastructure.
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ICANN's registry agreements page lists the extension under «Registry Agreement – Terminated». The page records the operator as Asia Green IT System Bilgisayar San. ve Tic. Ltd. Sti., the agreement date as 4 September 2014 and the type as «Base, Non-Sponsored»; it further states that on 21 December 2024 ICANN provided the operator with a notice of registry agreement termination. What happens to the extension next rests on ICANN's further decision.
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That is precisely what the EBERO programme is for. ICANN writes that the programme is activated when a registry operator is at risk of failing critical functions, and that ensuring the availability of those functions helps keep registrants' domain names operating. The zone is served from Nominet's emergency infrastructure and registration data can be read from an RDAP service limited by ICANN's response profile. Even so, confirm the current position before a renewal or transfer.
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If you are after a regional identity, extensions with rules in force and a working registration channel are firmer ground. The second level of .ir is open to all four eligibility categories and asks for no document; for a commercial identity, co.ir is reserved for registered companies. You can see at once which extensions still have your candidate free on the domain name search page.
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No classic WHOIS server is published; IANA's .nowruz record leaves the WHOIS field empty. Registration data can be read only from the emergency operator's RDAP service, and responses come back in a form limited by ICANN's response profile. IANA lists ICANN's EBERO programme as the sponsoring organisation for the zone and Nominet as the technical contact.
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