The .kaufen Domain: A German Invitation to Buy
.kaufen entered the root zone on 19 December 2013, under an ICANN registry agreement dated 7 November 2013, and the contracting party today is Dog Beach, LLC. The verb means to buy in German, so the address itself reads as an invitation to shop. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 records 5,776 registrations in the zone.
Small retailers with a product catalogue, single-product campaign pages, dealer networks and price-comparison projects all reach for this ending. The word is German, yet no country, residency or language condition applies and no paperwork is requested. Test candidates through a .kaufen domain search, or compare the .kitchen page, which sits in the same retail frame.
In Specification 11 §4(a) of its ICANN agreement the operator undertook to run this zone as an open top-level domain: no restriction may be placed on a registrant's eligibility, and the zone stays available for every lawful purpose. That wording is firmer than the one used across most sibling endings, where the promise rests on the string being a generic or dictionary term. What it means in practice: choosing a German word does not oblige you to incorporate in Germany or to publish in German. Read the agreement before ruling an ending out on an assumed restriction.
.KAUFEN Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Dog Beach, LLC
- Infrastructure provider Identity Digital Inc.
- ICANN registry agreement 7 November 2013
- Root zone record 19 December 2013
- Registered domains 5,776 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Eligibility requirement None; the agreement commits to open registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .kaufen domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.kaufen 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
$8.99 /year -
Transfer
$29.89 /year -
Renewal
$32.19 /year -
Restore
$124.90 -
Late Renewal
$6.29
Included With Every .kaufen 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.
.kaufen Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .kaufen 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 .kaufen 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 .kaufen 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 $6.29 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 .kaufen 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
.kaufen Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.kaufen Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .kaufen domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.kaufen Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .kaufen Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
-
No. The zone applies no country, residency or head-office condition.
The operator has undertaken in its agreement not to restrict registrant eligibility, so a retailer applying from Türkiye registers on the same terms as one in Berlin. Visitors, however, read a German address as a promise of a German page. If you are entering German-speaking markets, publish delivery, returns and contact details in that language too; translating the address alone does not meet the expectation.
-
It is worth it when the campaign carries its own name and runs for several months.
An independent address keeps advertising measurement apart from your main site and simplifies redirects. When the campaign ends, point the address at the relevant category page rather than switching it off, so older links and search results still land somewhere useful. To test several candidates at once, use the bulk domain name search.
-
The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 records 5,776 registrations.
Among new endings that is a small zone, and it converts into a direct advantage: descriptive two- and three-word stems are largely untaken. The trade-off is recognition, since a visitor may be meeting the ending for the first time. Keeping your brand in the stem and letting the ending do supporting work is therefore the safer construction.
-
Yes. The zone follows the standard gTLD transfer rules.
Before you start, lift the lock on the name and obtain the authorisation code. Timing matters more for shops than for most sites: plan the move outside peak promotional periods, because short interruptions can occur while name servers change. Begin from the domain transfer page and check your current record through whois search.
-
Any page that takes a payment or a form needs one.
The operator enforces no mandatory HTTPS regime in this zone, so the decision rests with you. Browsers, though, flag pages served without a certificate as not secure, and a shopper who meets that warning abandons the basket. Review the options on the SSL certificate page.
Ready to Claim Your .kaufen Domain?
Type a name and see in seconds whether it is free on .kaufen. If it is taken, we list close alternatives right away.
Get Help for .kaufen Domain Registration
Need help registering a .kaufen domain? Our team is ready to assist.