The .koeln Domain: Cologne Spelled the German Way
.koeln was recorded in the root zone on 20 February 2014 under an ICANN registry agreement dated 9 January 2014, and the operator is dotKoeln GmbH. The ending is a geographic extension for the German city of Cologne and carries the German spelling of the city's name. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 shows 19,158 registrations, of which 16,914 sit in the zone file.
Local traders, restaurants, cultural institutions, sports clubs, service providers and projects addressing the city all use the name. No residency or business-premises condition applies in Cologne, and no documents are requested. Try candidates through a .koeln domain search, and look at the .cologne page, run by the same operator.
This ending and .cologne are two names for one city, governed by the same operator under a single document: the registry's general registration terms of December 2023 are published for both at once. The difference between them is therefore not policy but language. That sets the pair apart from most endings that look like variants of each other, where separate companies and separate rules are the norm. The numbers show where it matters: the German spelling has reached 19,158 registrations while the English spelling holds about a quarter of that. The rule of thumb is simple: address a German-speaking audience with the German spelling and an international one with the English spelling; holding both makes sense only as brand protection.
.KOELN Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation dotKoeln GmbH
- Twin extension .cologne (same operator, same registration terms)
- ICANN registry agreement 9 January 2014
- Root zone record 20 February 2014
- Registered domains 19,158 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 16,914 names, about 88%
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .koeln domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.koeln 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
$39.99 /year -
Transfer
$39.99 /year -
Renewal
$44.99 /year -
Restore
$175.08 -
Late Renewal
$9.00
Included With Every .koeln 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.
.koeln Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .koeln 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 .koeln 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 .koeln 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 $9.00 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 .koeln 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
.koeln Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.koeln Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .koeln domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.koeln Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .koeln Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No. The registry's general registration terms state that anyone with full legal capacity may apply.
No residency, business premises or tax registration in the city is required, and no documents are requested. Among geographic endings this condition varies from operator to operator, so never judge one city extension by another. A visitor does expect something connected to the city, though, so without that connection the ending will not meet the expectation.
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The difference is language, not policy: they are two spellings of one city, run by the same operator under a single document.
The registration terms of December 2023 are published for both, so eligibility, terms and the rule set are identical. The choice follows your audience: the German spelling reads better to a German-speaking local audience, the English spelling to an international one. Holding both together only makes sense as brand protection.
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It makes the place you serve more visible in a list of search results.
A visitor scanning that list reads an address carrying the city name as a local provider, and that shapes the decision to click. The ending alone is not enough, however: the page still needs a street address, opening hours and contact details. If you want to test several district or branch names, the bulk domain name search speeds the work up.
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The operator closes strings open to unlawful or immoral use, along with names blocked by trademark holders.
So not every string is available, and an application can be refused if it meets one of those lists. Allow for that when you build a shortlist and pick reserve names in advance. To see whether a name is registered and who currently holds it, use whois search.
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Of 19,158 registrations, 16,914 sit in the zone file according to the nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026, roughly 88 percent.
For a city ending that is a high share and shows the zone is genuinely used by local businesses. The rule that follows: common single-word stems can be treated as largely exhausted, while patterns combining a district name or a service description remain more productive.
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