The .okinawa Domain: A Regional Ending Without a Nexus
The .okinawa domain represents Okinawa Prefecture in southern Japan. It joined the root zone on 20 February 2014 under an ICANN agreement dated 5 December 2013, and the contracting party is BRregistry, Inc. of Tokyo. Measured on 13 August 2026, the zone holds 4,825 registrations of which 4,027 appear in the zone file.
Hotels, diving schools, restaurants, local producers and tourism operators on the islands make up much of the registrant base, alongside publications and cultural projects that promote the region. Although the label names a place, no connection requirement applies, and that is a deliberate choice explained below. Try candidates in .okinawa domain search, then contrast a strict Japanese zone on the .kyoto page.
The registration policy is explicit: any natural person or entity is eligible to register domain names in the .okinawa TLD. The registry also gives its reasoning, treating broad registration and use as necessary to the goal of promoting Okinawa as a brand worldwide. What the policy does hold back are the names of wards, cities, towns and villages in the prefecture, along with terms relating to tourism and transport; those were reserved from the start and are released only through the registry's own promotional programmes.
.OKINAWA Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator BRregistry, Inc. (Tokyo)
- Root zone entry 20 February 2014
- Eligibility None — the policy declares every person and entity eligible
- Zone size 4,825 registrations, 4,027 in the zone file (nTLDstats, 13 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .okinawa domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.okinawa 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
$18.90 /year -
Transfer
$18.29 /year -
Renewal
$20.99 /year -
Restore
$98.15 -
Late Renewal
$3.30
Included With Every .okinawa 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.
.okinawa Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .okinawa 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 .okinawa 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 .okinawa 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 $3.30 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 .okinawa 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
.okinawa Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.okinawa Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .okinawa domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.okinawa Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .okinawa Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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Yes, you can. The registration policy declares any natural person or entity eligible and asks for no residence, place of business or other connection. The registry frames this as a deliberate choice, treating broad use as a way to make the region known internationally. Review candidates in .okinawa domain search.
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The difference is policy rather than geography. This zone imposes no connection test at all, whereas .kyoto requires a valid physical address in Kyoto Prefecture at the moment of registration and rejects applications that fail it. One open Japanese city extension therefore says nothing about the next. Compare the rules on the .kyoto page.
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The registry reserved the names of wards, cities, towns and villages in the prefecture, terms connected with tourism and transport, and other labels serving the public interest. Two-character labels along with country and territory names are closed under the registry agreement itself. Reserved does not mean permanently banned: the operator can release them through programmes that promote the region.
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The registration policy sets a minimum of three characters and caps labels at sixty-three. A label cannot start or end with a hyphen, cannot carry two consecutive hyphens in the third and fourth positions, and underscores are not accepted. For internationalised labels the policy points to a separate set of rules maintained by the registry.
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Because the technical operator retired the classic port 43 whois service on 1 May 2026. Queries are now answered through RDAP in line with ICANN's transition policy, which is a change of route rather than a loss of data. The registration record still exists and is still published. See our whois search page for the general picture.
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It cuts both ways. At 4,825 registrations the zone is small, yet 4,027 of those names sit in the zone file, so most of them are genuinely in use. A small zone improves the odds that a short, meaningful label is still free. Against that, fewer visitors will recognise the ending, so printed material benefits from a short line of explanation beside the address.
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