.wales Domain: The English-Spelled Address for Wales
The .wales extension entered the root zone on 31 July 2014 and its registry operator is Nominet UK, the same organisation that runs the .uk zone. The registry's own site dates general availability to 1 March 2015, so root delegation and the day names went on sale are two different dates — mixing them up misstates the launch.
Businesses, associations, sports clubs and personal projects with a Welsh connection take names here. There is no eligibility test: the registration policy Nominet publishes jointly for .cymru and .wales contains no residency or connection requirement, and the application commitments section of the registry agreement is left blank. Compare candidate roots on the .wales domain search page.
.wales and .cymru answer to the same registry operator, follow the same registration policy and entered the root on the same day. The difference is language: Cymru is the Welsh word for Wales. The decision rule is simple — pick .wales when your audience reads English, and .cymru when you publish in Welsh or want local belonging to lead. Taking both is a common approach; check the pair in one pass with bulk domain search.
.WALES Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator Nominet UK
- Root zone entry 31 July 2014
- General availability 1 March 2015 (registry's own statement)
- Eligibility None; policy shared with .cymru
- Zone size 16,301 registrations (14 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .wales domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.wales 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
$19.90 /year -
Transfer
$19.99 /year -
Renewal
$21.99 /year -
Restore
$44.16 -
Late Renewal
$4.40
Included With Every .wales 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.
.wales Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .wales 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 .wales 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 .wales 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 $4.40 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 .wales 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
.wales Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.wales Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .wales domain
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.wales Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .wales Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No. The registration policy Nominet publishes jointly for .cymru and .wales sets no residency, citizenship or connection condition.
The line on the registry's website about underlining your Welsh connection is marketing copy, not a rule, and the application commitments section of the registry agreement is deliberately left blank. A business in Turkey can hold a name here. The practical question is different: the extension makes a geographic statement, so it works when your site really addresses the Welsh market and jars when it does not.
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Only the language: Cymru is the Welsh word for Wales.
Both belong to Nominet UK, follow one shared registration policy and entered the root zone together on 31 July 2014. There is no technical difference at all. Choose by the language you publish in — .wales for English, .cymru for Welsh. Brand owners often register both and redirect one to the other; you can test the pair in a single pass with bulk domain search.
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Because this extension has no WHOIS service on port 43.
The IANA root zone record for .wales publishes only an RDAP endpoint, with no classic WHOIS field at all. Querying the server Nominet runs for .uk returns the message that Nominet is not the registry for the name. To read registration data, use your registrar's control panel or an RDAP-capable client; our whois search tool still answers for extensions that kept the older service.
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Any project where you want the address itself to say Wales.
Concrete cases: a hotel or restaurant trading in Wales, a regional sports club, a local festival, an online shop selling into the Welsh market, a travel guide about the region. The flip side is that the extension carries a location claim, so an unrelated business ends up fighting visitor expectations. The zone held 16,301 registrations on 14 August 2026, which means short, meaningful roots are still available.
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Yes, .wales names move between registrars like any other gTLD.
Remove the registrar lock, request the transfer authorisation code and start the move from the domain transfer page. A 60-day hold can apply to names registered or transferred very recently. Check that your registrant contact details are current before you begin: the confirmation message goes to that address, and the request expires if nobody acts on it.
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