.town Domain: An Address for Local Community Sites
The .town extension entered the root on 3 April 2014; its ICANN agreement is dated 6 March 2014 and the contracting party is Binky Moon, LLC. Neighbourhood and small-town guides, local event calendars, trader associations, residents' groups and businesses serving small settlements all use the zone. The word carries a sense of scale: not a metropolis, but a place people know by name.
The real caution here concerns the authority the name suggests, because the extension carries a place word yet belongs to no municipality or local authority. Registration asks for no residence, local connection or official role. Measured on 14 August 2026 the zone held 38,409 registrations, a fraction of the largest zones. Test settlement and service combinations on the .town domain search page.
No local authority operates .town, and holding such an address does not show that you represent an official body. Since the registry cannot impose identity-based eligibility, the name says nothing about a link to a council or a village office. If you build a local community site, state plainly on the page who you are, because being mistaken for an official body is a misunderstanding that is hard to undo.
.TOWN Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator Binky Moon, LLC (Identity Digital)
- Root zone entry 3 April 2014
- Eligibility None; no residence, local link or official role is requested
- Agreement obligation Consumer protection and applicable-law compliance enter the registration agreement
- Zone size 38,409 registrations (14 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .town domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.town 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
$8.99 /year -
Transfer
$36.39 /year -
Renewal
$39.19 /year -
Restore
$124.90 -
Late Renewal
$6.73
Included With Every .town 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.
.town Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .town 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 .town 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 .town 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 $6.73 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 .town 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
.town Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.town Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .town domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.town Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .town Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No, it has no link to any local authority. Binky Moon, LLC operates the extension and the agreement treats it as a dictionary term, so the registry cannot impose identity-based eligibility. The practical result: the address does not show that its holder is an official body. If you run a local news or guide site, state who you are on the front page, or visitors may read it as an official source.
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No, you do not. Residence, premises and any local connection sit outside the rules, because this is a generic word rather than a geographic extension. That flexibility works both ways: you can build a community site easily, and somebody else can take the same settlement name. Registering the name you plan to use early costs less than negotiating for it later.
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Putting the settlement name in the root is the most direct route. The address stays short and visitors know what they will find. Where a place name is very common, name the service instead of stacking a region on top; join the two words and avoid hyphens. Build sections such as events, traders and transport as subdirectories rather than separate domains, so links gather at one address.
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It is a mid-sized zone: on 14 August 2026 it held 38,409 registrations. Most English settlement words are taken, yet place names in other languages and district combinations remain largely open. Trying one root across several patterns is the fastest route, so check candidates together with bulk domain name search.
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A shared company mailbox and an encrypted connection. Sites run by volunteers most often fail on access, because the domain stays tied to one person's private account and management gets hard once they leave. Attach the account to a shared address and switch on two-step verification. If you publish a contact form, install the certificate on day one; options are on the SSL certificate page.
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