.works Domain: An Address for Projects and Workshops
The .works extension entered the root zone on 16 January 2014; its ICANN agreement is dated 14 November 2013 and the contracting party is Binky Moon, LLC, part of Identity Digital. The word says several things at once in English: a body of work, a workshop or plant, and the plain statement that something functions. That range opens the zone to creative portfolios and manufacturing sites alike.
The root decides which sense wins: beside an artist's name it reads as a body of work, beside an engineering brand as a plant, beside a product name as a claim that it functions. The public interest section of the agreement commits the operator to open registration. On 14 August 2026 the zone held 48,118 registrations. Try roots on the .works domain search page.
The two look like plural and singular, yet they answer to different registry operators: .works to Binky Moon, LLC and .work to Registry Services, LLC. Their agreement dates, public interest duties and zone sizes differ too. Knowing that has a practical effect: a rule that holds in one may not hold in the other, and treating them as one contract with one renewal calendar invites mistakes. The decision rule: singular for a service or a trade, plural for a body of work or a set of projects.
.WORKS Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator Binky Moon, LLC
- Root zone entry 16 January 2014 (same day as .watch)
- Registry agreement 14 November 2013; carries an open registration clause
- Similar string .work — different operator and separate agreement
- Zone size 48,118 registrations (14 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .works domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.works 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
$7.99 /year -
Transfer
$38.99 /year -
Renewal
$41.99 /year -
Restore
$129.90 -
Late Renewal
$6.73
Included With Every .works 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.
.works Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .works 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 .works 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 .works 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 $6.73 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 .works 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
.works Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.works Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .works domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.works Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .works Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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It reads well when the root describes a body of work or a place where things are made.
Concrete cases: architecture and design portfolios, joinery and metal workshops, film and music production companies, open source project collections, industrial plant pages. If you are describing a single service, the singular form sounds more natural. Try your candidates together with bulk domain search.
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No. .works belongs to Binky Moon, LLC and .work to Registry Services, LLC.
Their agreements were signed on different dates and their public interest duties are not identical. The zone sizes are not comparable either. The practical consequence: if you hold both, track renewals and notices separately, because a change on one side does not automatically cover the other.
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No. The public interest section of the agreement commits the operator to open registration.
The clause forbids limiting eligibility by identity, so no profession-based or sector-based restriction can be imposed. That is not an interpretation but a direct consequence of the contract. There is no reason to delay an application while waiting for paperwork requirements; the process matches any other generic extension.
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Because IANA publishes no classic WHOIS server for this extension, only an RDAP endpoint.
Querying the canonical host on port 43 returns the message that the TLD is not supported. That follows from the operator's move to RDAP and applies across many extensions in the same group. Read registration data from your registrar's panel or an RDAP-capable client; our whois search tool still answers for extensions that kept the older service.
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Installation is the same as for any other extension; .works needs no special step.
The certificate provider verifies your control of the domain through a DNS record or file check and then issues the certificate. Installing it before the site goes live is the cleanest order, because search engines then see the encrypted version on their first crawl. Compare certificate types on our SSL certificate page.
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