com.zm Domain: Zambia's Second Commercial Zone
com.zm is one of the commercial zones under Zambia's country extension and sits with the same registry as its sibling co.zm: ZICTA, the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority. The mandate comes from statute rather than a commercial contract — responsibility for the .zm name space was assigned to the authority by the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act of 2009. The two zones are indistinguishable in the registry record: both were created on 14 March 2013 in the bulk migration from ZAMNET to ZICTA, and both are held by the registry itself.
The difference lies in habit rather than rules: the overwhelming majority of Zambian commercial names sit under co.zm, and com.zm is noticeably thinner — measured today, some large international brands only picked up their com.zm counterpart in recent years, and others have not taken it at all. Viewed as usage rather than investment, that is an opening: if the co.zm form of your corporate name is taken, the com.zm form may still be reachable. Compare both on the domain name search page.
.COM.ZM Domain at a Glance
- Registry ZICTA — Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (Lusaka)
- Legal basis Electronic Communications and Transactions Act of 2009
- Zone object created 14 March 2013 (bulk migration from ZAMNET to ZICTA)
- Sales channel Only through registrars licensed in Zambia
- Dispute procedure No published procedure specific to the extension was found
- Document Requirement View required documents
- Country Zambia
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 2 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.com.zm 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
$349.00 /2 years -
Transfer
$349.00 /2 years -
Renewal
$383.90 /2 years -
Restore
$250.00
Included With Every .com.zm 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 forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
.com.zm Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: for .com.zm the post-expiry timeline is set by the registry, so it differs from one extension to the next. The diagram below shows the windows that actually apply to .com.zm, day by day. One thing never changes, whichever extension you hold: renewing before the expiry date is always the cheapest and safest route.
Domain Is Available (Available)
A .com.zm 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.
Domain Is Available Again
Once deletion completes, the domain leaves the system and anyone can register it — popular names are often taken the same minute by someone watching. Keep auto-renewal on so a name you care about never gets this far.
.com.zm Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.com.zm Domain Registration
- Document Requirement View required documents
- Country Zambia
- Character Length 3 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 2 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.com.zm Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support No
Documents Required for a .com.zm Domain
In order to register a .COM.ZM or .CO.ZM domain, the domain
owner must be a citizen or resident in Zambia.
If you do not meet this requirement, we can register the domain in the name of our local representatives and then make it available to you. This option has an additional cost.
The minimum domain registration period is 2 years.
Frequently Asked Questions About .com.zm Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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In rule terms there is no measurable difference: both zones are held by ZICTA, both registry objects date from 14 March 2013, and no separate rulebook is published for either. The difference is in usage. The overwhelming majority of Zambian commercial names sit under co.zm; com.zm is thinner, which is precisely why the com.zm form of a given word may still be free. In short, co.zm is the settled zone and com.zm the relatively open one.
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There is no measured barrier to being the holder — the zone contains live names held by foreign companies. The sales channel is local, however: every registrar observed so far is licensed in Zambia, and no direct registration through an international registrar was measured. Since ZICTA publishes no eligibility text, ask the registrar to state the conditions in writing before you apply.
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No published text can confirm that. The complete guidelines and legislation lists on ZICTA's site were read and contain nothing about domain names; the claim in industry sources that a Zambian presence is required could not be confirmed from a primary source, and the presence of foreign-owned names in the zone partly contradicts it. That is why no document list is given here. The only reliable source is your registrar.
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No post-expiry chain is published. Measurement also showed that the expiry date in this registry's WHOIS is not a reliable indicator: names whose stated expiry passed years ago still read "active" and have not been dropped. The practical conclusion is that you should not judge availability from an expiry date — query the name directly and confirm the result with a registrar before you count on it.
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No published dispute procedure specific to this extension could be found, and that is a measured absence. CoCCA, the supplier of the registry software, names the countries that adopted its complaint resolution service and Zambia is not among them; ZICTA publishes no procedure either. What remains is a complaint to the regulator and the Zambian courts. The most practical protection is to register the com.zm form of your brand yourself.
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