The .restaurant Domain: An Address That Needs No Explaining
The .restaurant domain entered the root zone on 31 July 2014 under an ICANN agreement dated 3 July 2014, with Binky Moon, LLC of the Identity Digital group as contracting party. On 13 August 2026 the zone held 10,695 registrations and 8,405 of them appeared in the zone file, a publication rate of seventy-nine per cent.
The word is long but unambiguous: spoken over the phone, printed on a sign or read by a visitor from abroad, it means exactly one thing. Independent kitchens, chain brands, hotel dining rooms and booking pages make up the registrant base. Try your candidates in .restaurant domain search and say the finished address aloud once.
The four-letter .rest is shorter but reads three different ways, and the two extensions belong to different companies in different countries. The full spelling costs length, and buys something in return: it is easier to dictate on the phone, easier for a concierge to write down and easier to find in a maps application. The rule follows from that. If the address is mostly spoken, spell it out; if it is mostly seen, the short form earns its place.
.RESTAURANT Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator Binky Moon, LLC (Identity Digital)
- Root zone entry 31 July 2014
- Eligibility None — the agreement commits to open registration and protects minority usage
- Zone size 10,695 registrations, 8,405 in the zone file (nTLDstats, 13 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .restaurant domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.restaurant 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
$21.90 /year -
Transfer
$64.99 /year -
Renewal
$69.99 /year -
Restore
$159.90 -
Late Renewal
$11.12
Included With Every .restaurant 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.
.restaurant Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .restaurant 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 .restaurant 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 .restaurant 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 $11.12 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 .restaurant 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
.restaurant Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.restaurant Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .restaurant domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.restaurant Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .restaurant Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No. The agreement commits the registry to open registration, and no trading licence, food register entry or tourism permit is verified. That means the address proves no standard of its own; if you hold inspection certificates, showing them on the site says far more to a guest. Try your candidates on the .restaurant search page and check the spelling aloud.
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Look at where the address will be used. If you take bookings by phone, leave the address with hotel concierges or host visitors from abroad, the full spelling travels more safely. If it mostly appears in a social profile or on a QR label, the short form saves room. The two extensions belong to different companies and their zones differ sharply in size; the .rest page covers that.
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The common pattern keeps the brand in the stem and gives each branch a sub-page. Buying a separate name per location complicates administration and splits whatever standing the sites accumulate in search. Collecting branch pages under one address also lets you manage menus, booking links and opening hours from a single place. Test several brand candidates at once with bulk domain search.
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On 13 August 2026 the zone held 10,695 registrations with 8,405 in the zone file, a rate of seventy-nine per cent. That describes a zone made of real businesses. The rule that follows: if a short name you like is taken, an open restaurant is probably using it. Patterns adding a city or a neighbourhood are easier to secure and match local search intent more closely anyway.
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A long extension lengthens the mailbox too, so a short, memorable local part is worth the thought when you create the reservations address. If your booking form lives on a third-party platform, pointing a sub-page at it rather than a subdomain keeps links intact even if the provider changes. For certificate coverage of the full name, see the SSL certificate page.
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