.voting Domain: The Smallest Zone in the Programme
The .voting extension entered the root zone on 16 January 2014; its ICANN agreement is dated 13 November 2013 and the registry operator is Valuetainment Corp., registered in Taegerwilen, Switzerland. ICANN's renewal letter of 13 November 2023 extended the agreement by a further ten years, stating in its own words that none of its terms change as a result of the renewal.
This is the smallest zone in our catalogue: only 71 registrations on 14 August 2026. That scale reads two ways; almost every root is open, while recognition of the extension is very limited. Try an organisation or a process name as the root and compare on the .voting domain search page.
A zone being small is not a technical weakness; continuity is what decides the matter. Here there is concrete evidence of it: the ICANN agreement was renewed for a further ten years from 13 November 2023, and the renewal letter states plainly that its terms do not change. The zone is also signed in the root. The practical decision rule: with only 71 registrations, taking an address here lets you have the short root you actually want; but your visitor will most likely be seeing the extension for the first time, so write the address in full and as one piece everywhere.
.VOTING Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator Valuetainment Corp. (Taegerwilen, Switzerland)
- Root zone entry 16 January 2014
- Agreement 13 November 2013; renewed for ten years from 13 November 2023
- Agreement scope No additional public interest commitment and no community section
- Zone size 71 registrations (14 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .voting domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.voting 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
$1,329.00 /year -
Transfer
$1,329.00 /year -
Renewal
$1,461.90 /year -
Restore
$1,460.56 -
Late Renewal
$265.80
Included With Every .voting 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.
.voting Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .voting 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 .voting 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 .voting 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 $265.80 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 .voting 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
.voting Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.voting Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .voting domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.voting Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .voting Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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Durability is measured by the state of the agreement, not by the number of registrations. This extension's ICANN agreement was renewed for a further ten years from 13 November 2023, and the renewal letter states plainly that its terms do not change; the zone is also signed in the root. The technical and legal side is therefore in order. What smallness affects shows up elsewhere: the extension will be unfamiliar to visitors and the address is harder to pass on by word of mouth.
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It depends. This extension names the act and the process, while the other names the ballot itself; in English the difference is felt in institutional writing. The practical distinction is scale: 71 registrations here against 9,329 there. If you are after a short root exactly as you want it, this zone gives far better odds; if recognition comes first, look at the .vote domain search page as well.
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It imposes no direct obligation on the holder: the agreement carries no country, eligibility or community condition. Where a registry operator is registered matters for corporate and legal recourse; disputes, however, run under ICANN's uniform policies, and those are independent of the operator's country. In short, what should decide your choice of extension is the content of the agreement rather than the registry's address.
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It is, and the contrast is striking. Seventy-one registrations means very nearly every common single-word root is open; a root that takes weeks to find in a zone counting millions can appear on the first attempt here. The decision rule: this is the right place if you want the address itself to be short and descriptive. Keep your candidate list wide and run it in one step through bulk domain name search.
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Three things. Do not collect participation without an encrypted connection; a ballot flow carries identity and preference together. The second is concurrent load: participation usually concentrates in a short window, and a server that falls short at that moment makes the process disputable. The third is transparency: publish your method, your counting rules and the route of appeal on the page beforehand. Those are trust decisions, not technical ones.
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