Buy .com.sg Domain Name

SGNIC's category rule requires an applicant to be registered, or in the process of registering, with ACRA, Enterprise Singapore or any professional body in Singapore. An application is therefore allowed even while your company registration is still under way. Foreign companies may apply too, provided they appoint a local agent in Singapore as their administrative contact. If you would rather not rest on such a record, .sg is open to all persons.

The category rule names three sources:

• ACRA — a company or business record with the Accounting & Corporate Regulatory Authority
• a record with Enterprise Singapore
• a record with any professional body in Singapore

The rule treats being in the process of registering as sufficient. In practice that means incorporating in Singapore and applying for the domain can run in parallel.

The difference lies in the category condition. com.sg rests on a business record: ACRA, Enterprise Singapore or a professional body. .sg, in SGNIC's words, is open to all persons and asks for no such record. An applicant from abroad appoints a local agent in Singapore as administrative contact in either zone, and VerifiedID@SG applies to both alike.

VerifiedID@SG is SGNIC's mandatory identity verification; its purpose is to mitigate the use of fake identity information associated with a .sg registration and to enhance trust in .sg websites. It is carried out by the administrative contact of the domain name, who verifies the identity and contact information of the registrant. Names registered from 2 May 2013 onward are covered, as are older names whose registrant or administrative contact details change.

The administrative contact has 21 calendar days from the date of registration, with a one-time seven-day extension available through the portal. Miss the window and the new domain stays suspended — in SGNIC's words, its website and emails will cease to function. An unverified name also cannot be renewed. Settle who will perform the verification, and when, before you register rather than after.

Verification uses Singpass for individuals with a Singapore NRIC or FIN and Corppass for organisations with a UEN; SGNIC puts the process at under five minutes. The administrative contact signs in to the portal and confirms the registrant's identity and contact details. Foreign applicants without those credentials may, in exceptional circumstances, ask their administrative contact to apply for an 'SGNICID'; in every case the administrative contact must hold a valid Singapore postal address.

In SGNIC's own words, the term options for a new registration are 1 year, 2 years and 3 years. The same options apply on renewal, provided the expiry date after renewal does not exceed three years from the date SGNIC receives the instruction. Bear in mind that an unverified domain cannot be renewed; a long-term plan only means something once VerifiedID@SG is complete.

You can see whether a .com.sg name is registered, and the general state of the record, through WHOIS; SGNIC governs this area with a separate WHOIS/RDAP policy. A lookup will usually show the status of the name and its registration dates, while contact details are published only in limited form. Run the lookup on the whois search page, and check whether a name is free with domain search.