.win Domain: A Short Ending for the Gaming Community
The .win extension entered the root zone on 5 February 2015; its ICANN agreement is dated 20 November 2014 and the registry operator is First Registry Limited. The operator describes the zone as a home for the online gaming community: game providers, developers and anyone offering information or services to players. Day-to-day operating and coordination functions are provided by Global Registry Services Limited.
There is no eligibility condition, and the three-letter string is short and easy to say, which is why tournament, campaign and prize pages use it too. On 14 August 2026 the zone held 213,096 registrations. Try short, speakable combinations on the .win domain search page.
In most registry agreements the application commitments section reads "intentionally omitted". .win is the exception: section 2 of Specification 11 pulls the commitments from the application file into the contract by reference and makes them subject to ICANN's public interest commitment dispute process. The referenced section is a detailed abuse prevention and mitigation plan that includes establishing a single abuse point of contact. What that means in practice: the abuse-side duties here are not a voluntary policy but an enforceable contractual obligation.
.WIN Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator First Registry Limited
- Root zone entry 5 February 2015
- Registry agreement 20 November 2014; application commitments incorporated
- Operations Global Registry Services Limited (GRS Domains)
- Zone size 213,096 registrations (14 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .win domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.win 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
$29.99 /year -
Transfer
$29.99 /year -
Renewal
$34.99 /year -
Late Renewal
$7.00
Included With Every .win 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.
.win Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .win 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 .win 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 .win 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 $7.00 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 .win 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
.win Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.win Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .win domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.win Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .win Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No, the agreement sets no eligibility condition and anyone may register.
The operator positions the zone around the online gaming community, but that is a marketing stance rather than a rule. In practice sports tournaments, competition and prize draw pages, campaign microsites and award announcements all use the ending. The rule of thumb: when your root describes a result or an achievement, the address explains itself.
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No. A domain name never stands in for an operating licence.
Betting, gambling and games of chance fall under the law of the country you operate from and the countries you serve; licensing obligations arise from the activity, not from the extension. The ending only affects how the address reads and how well it is remembered. Publishing before the legal framework is settled can lead all the way to the name being suspended.
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It means the commitments made in the application file are pulled into the contract by reference.
Those commitments include establishing a single abuse point of contact and running a detailed prevention plan, all enforceable through ICANN's dispute process. The practical consequence for you: there is a defined recipient for abuse reports in this zone, and the rules are not a voluntary policy document. You can inspect a name's registration record with whois search.
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The zone held 213,096 registrations on 14 August 2026, so common single-word roots are mostly taken.
Because the ending itself is only three letters, however, the total address stays short and two-part combinations remain findable. Try a team name, a tournament name or a brand-plus-verb pairing. To review several candidates in one pass, use bulk domain search.
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Yes, it is a generic top-level domain and the standard transfer rules apply.
Remove the registrar lock, request the authorisation code from your current provider and start the move from the domain transfer page. A 60-day hold can apply to recently registered names. The name keeps resolving throughout; preparing your DNS records at the new provider first removes the risk of downtime entirely.
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