.vlaanderen Domain: The Identity of Flanders Online
The .vlaanderen extension entered the root zone on 5 June 2014; its ICANN agreement is dated 6 February 2014 and was renewed on 19 December 2023. The registry operator is DNS Belgium, which also runs the country's .be zone. Local authorities in Flanders, cultural institutions, associations, businesses and projects wanting to show their tie to the region all take names here.
Having a country-code registry as the operator makes a practical difference: naming rules, the dispute route and the technical infrastructure all sit with one organisation. On 14 August 2026 the zone held 6,151 registrations. Try a place, an institution or a service as the root and compare on the .vlaanderen domain search page.
The rules published by the registry define a distinct structure for this zone. A name may be at least two and at most 63 characters; letters a to z, digits and a hyphen are allowed; but a name may not carry a hyphen in the third and fourth position at the same time. Accented and non-ASCII letters are supported. Names matching country codes, country names and the names of international bodies are reserved, and can be released only with the consent of the government or organisation concerned.
.VLAANDEREN Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator DNS.be vzw (DNS Belgium)
- Root zone entry 5 June 2014
- Agreement 6 February 2014; renewed on 19 December 2023
- Naming rule A hyphen may not sit in the third and fourth position at once
- Zone size 6,151 registrations (14 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .vlaanderen domain
- Character Length 2 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
Related Domain Extensions
Registering the same name on more than one extension keeps someone else from taking your brand.
.vlaanderen 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
$39.90 /year -
Transfer
$39.99 /year -
Renewal
$43.99 /year -
Restore
$175.04 -
Late Renewal
$8.80
Included With Every .vlaanderen 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.
.vlaanderen Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .vlaanderen 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 .vlaanderen 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 .vlaanderen 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 $8.80 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 .vlaanderen 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
.vlaanderen Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.vlaanderen Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .vlaanderen domain
- Character Length 2 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.vlaanderen Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .vlaanderen Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No documented barrier to registration appears. The naming rules published by the registry state no eligibility or local presence condition, and the extension's ICANN agreement contains no community section. Even so, the value of a regional extension comes from the tie: without a connection to the region, the address raises an expectation your site cannot meet. For certainty, confirm the current zone-specific conditions with your registrar.
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The registry does not accept a name carrying a hyphen in the third and fourth position at the same time. The rule exists to avoid clashing with a pattern used in the technical representation of internationalised domain names, and in practice it affects only certain spellings. Reducing hyphens in your root is good habit anyway: hyphenated addresses get lost when described over the phone or passed on by word of mouth.
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It does if your aim is regional. The country extension speaks for the whole of Belgium, while this one points straight at Flanders and builds a local identity. Recognition, on the other hand, is higher on the country extension. The decision rule: this zone is right if your service area is confined to the region or you want regional identity in the foreground, and the country extension is the safer default if you sell nationwide. To see both side by side, use the domain search page.
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You can; the registry's naming rules state that accented and non-ASCII letters are supported. Two precautions help in practice: when taking the accented name, also register the unaccented form and forward it, and test your provider's support before using an accented form in email addresses. That way local spelling is preserved and access is not lost on older systems.
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Roots pairing a place name with a type of service give the most consistent results, because regional searches are made on exactly those two things. An organisation name is also strong and stays portable in the long run. With 6,151 registrations the zone is small, so combinations leave a wide field open. Test your candidate list in one pass with bulk domain name search.
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