.zone Domain: A General Ending That Marks an Area
The .zone extension entered the root zone on 9 January 2014; its ICANN agreement is dated 14 November 2013 and the contracting party is Binky Moon, LLC, part of Identity Digital. The word describes an area, a district or a topic, and because it also means a zone file in DNS terminology, technical projects reach for it as well.
The public interest section of the agreement commits the operator to open registration, so eligibility cannot be limited by identity. On 14 August 2026 the zone held 108,532 registrations. Try combinations that pair the ending with a subject word on the .zone domain search page.
This ending names no sector on its own — it defines an area. It therefore performs best when the root is a precise word that fills that area in: a gaming community, a campus, a service territory, a product category, an event space. The decision rule: if your root answers the question "an area of what?" in one word, the address explains itself; if it does not, the ending stays vague too. Technical teams add a second common use — gathering internal tools and environments under a root kept separate from the main brand.
.ZONE Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator Binky Moon, LLC
- Root zone entry 9 January 2014
- Registry agreement 14 November 2013; carries an open registration clause
- Eligibility None; registration cannot be limited by identity
- Zone size 108,532 registrations (14 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .zone domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.zone 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
$11.49 /year -
Transfer
$38.99 /year -
Renewal
$41.99 /year -
Restore
$129.90 -
Late Renewal
$6.73
Included With Every .zone 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.
.zone Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .zone 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 .zone 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 .zone 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 .zone 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
.zone Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.zone Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .zone domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.zone Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .zone Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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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 and forbids excluding legitimate users who are not associated with the most common use of the word. A community site and an internal corporate tool can therefore hold names in the same zone. Registration runs exactly as it does for any other generic extension.
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Because the word means a zone file in DNS terminology and is already familiar to them.
A common pattern is to gather internal tools and test environments under a root kept apart from the main brand: monitoring dashboards, documentation servers, development environments. That separation simplifies access rules and keeps the corporate address out of unrelated search results. If you need web space alongside the domain, look through our hosting plans.
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The root has to answer the question "an area of what?" in a single word.
Clear words such as a game, a campus, a service territory, a product category or an event space make the address self-explanatory. Pick something vague or abstract and the ending stays vague as well. With 108,532 registrations two-part combinations are still findable; try your candidates together on the bulk domain search page.
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IANA publishes no classic WHOIS server for this extension; only an RDAP endpoint exists.
Querying the canonical host on port 43 returns the message that the TLD is not supported. That is not a fault but the result of the operator's move to RDAP, and it applies across many extensions in the same group. Read registration data from your registrar's panel, and use our whois search tool for extensions that kept the older service.
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Yes, it is a generic top-level domain and the standard transfer rules apply.
Remove the lock, request the authorisation code and start the process from the domain transfer page. A 60-day hold can apply to recently registered names. If you run several subdomains, preparing the DNS records at the new provider before the move keeps the name server switch free of downtime.
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