Enter Uganda market with a .COM.UG Domain

Anyone. The rulebook sets no condition on nationality, residence or registration in Uganda, and asks for neither a local contact nor documents. A measurement on 15 August 2026 found holders in the zone registered in Cyprus, Belgium, Tanzania, Ukraine and Uganda side by side, so the zone is genuinely open to registration from abroad. The registry's own account form does ask for an organisation name, but no supporting paperwork is required. Applications are handled first come, first served, and accurate data is a standing condition.

On paper there is none: both are official namespaces of the same registry under the same rulebook. The difference appears in measurement. On 15 August 2026 certificate transparency logs held 51 distinct names under .com.ug and 980 under .co.ug. Age separates them too: the oldest measured .com.ug registration dates from 2018, on .co.ug from 1998. The practical upshot is this — a label taken years ago on .co.ug may still be free here, but recognition is stronger on the older zone.

Two characters. On 15 August 2026 the registry's own availability service was asked directly: the two-character ab.com.ug, qz.com.ug and zq.com.ug all came back free, while the single-character q.com.ug and x.com.ug came back unavailable. This is not merely theoretical — the two-digit 21.com.ug was registered on 16 April 2026. The control name test123zz.com.ug showed as free in the service and unregistered in WHOIS. That is exactly where this zone parts from .ug, where two-letter names are reserved.

No. The registry's availability service rejects labels containing non-ASCII letters with a distinct error code: on 15 August 2026 the test queries kahvé.co.ug and münchen.com.ug both returned a «special character used» response. The registry publishes no documentation on internationalised domain names either. In practice you cannot use accented or non-Latin letters directly and must build the label from ASCII characters. Letters, digits and hyphens are allowed, and a hyphen may not open the label. If your brand contains accented letters, settle on an ASCII spelling before you order.

The name enters a grace period on its expiry date and can still be renewed there at the standard rate; that period lasts one month. Miss the window and the name is released for re-registration, so anyone may take it. The rulebook defines no separate redemption stage and no penalty recovery fee, so there is no second chance. Registration and renewal fees are excluded from refunds as well. Long terms do work in this zone — the oldest measured registration runs to 2028 — and thinning out the calendar is the practical safeguard.

A transfer runs on two-sided consent. The rulebook states it plainly: the move only completes when both the losing and the gaining party approve it. The gaining registrar starts the process from its own registry account, and the losing registrar confirms it through a link sent to the address registered with the registry. To block unauthorised moves the registry keeps the registrar lock enabled by default, and nothing proceeds until that lock is lifted. Start the process from the domain transfer page.