.uk

.uk

Introduced	24 July 1985(1985-07-24)
TLDtype	Country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	Nominet UK
Sponsor	Nominet UK
Intended use	Entities connected with theUnited Kingdom
Actual use	Very popular in the United Kingdom
Registered domains	10,508,932 (9,314,572 third level and 1,374,360 second level) (January 2024)
Registration restrictions	No general restrictions. Some second-level domains have specific restrictions.
Structure	[name].uk [name].[generic domain].uk
Dispute policies	.UK Domain Disputes
DNSSEC	yes
Registry website	theukdomain.uk

.ukis theInternetcountry code top-level domain(ccTLD) for theUnited Kingdom.It was first registered in July 1985, seven months after the originalgeneric top-level domainssuch asand the first country code after.us.

As of April 2021,it is the fifth most populartop-level domainworldwide (after,.cn,.deand.net), with over 10 million registrations.

.uk has usedOpenDNSSECsince March 2010.

History

See also:Internet in the United Kingdom § History,andNominet UK § History

In October 1984, RFC 920 set out the creation ofccTLDsusing country codes derived from the corresponding two-letter code in theISO 3166-1list."GB" is the UK'sISO 3166country code. However, the UK academic network Name Registration Scheme,JANET NRS,had defined "UK" as the top-level domain a few months before the compilation of the ISO-derived list. Consequently,.uk was chosen and registered on 24 July 1985..gbwas reserved but never widely used and it is no longer possible to register domains under that ccTLD.

As with other ccTLDs in the early days it was originally delegated byJon Postelto a "trusted person" to manage. Andrew McDowell atUCLwas assigned.uk, the first country code delegation.In time, he passed it to Willie Black at theUK Education and Research Networking Association(UKERNA). Originally, domain requests were emailed, manually screened by and then forwarded to theUK Naming Committeebefore being processed by UKERNA. Membership of this committee was restricted to a group of high-endISPswho were part of a formalpeeringarrangement.

The Naming Committee was organised as a mailing list to which all proposed names were circulated. The members would consider the proposals under a ruleset that insisted that all domain names should be very close if not identical to a registered business name of the registrant. Members of the Naming Committee could object to any name, and if at least a small number of objections were received, the name was refused.

By the mid-1990s the growth of the Internet, and particularly the advent of theWorld Wide Webwas pushing requests fordomain nameregistrations up to levels that were not manageable by a group of part-time volunteers. Oliver Smith ofDemon Internetforced the issue by providing the committee with a series of automated tools, called the "automaton", which formalised and automated the naming process end to end. This allowed many more registrations to be processed far more reliably and rapidly, and inspired individuals such asIvan Popeto explore more entrepreneurial approaches to registration.

Various plans were put forward for the possible management of the domain, mostlyInternet service providersseeking to stake a claim, each of which were naturally unacceptable to the rest of the committee. In response to this Black, as the.uk Name, stepped up with a bold proposal for a not-for-profit commercial entity to deal with the.uk domain properly. Commercial interests initially balked at this, but with widespread supportNominet UKwas formed in 1996 to be the.uk Network Information Centre, a role which it continues to this day.

The general form of the rules (i.e. which domains can be registered and whether to allow second level domains) was set by the Naming Committee. Nominet has not made major changes to the rules, although it has introduced a new second level domain.me.uk for individuals.

Until 10 June 2014 it was not possible to register a domain name directly under.uk (such asinternet.uk); it was only possible as a third-level domain (such asinternet.co.uk).

However, some domains delegated before the creation of Nominet UK were in existence even before 10 June 2014, for examplemod.uk(Ministry of Defence),parliament.uk(Parliament),bl.ukandbritish-library.uk(theBritish Library),nls.uk(theNational Library of Scotland),nhs.uk(TheNational Health Service), andjet.uk(UKAEAas operator of theJoint European Torusexperimental fusiontokamak).

Currently management of the.uk domain name is delegated byIANAto Nominet UK.It is possible to directly register a domain name with Nominet UK at £80+VAT as of 2021,but it is faster and cheaper to do it via a Nominet-accrediteddomain registrarcosting in the region of £10+VAT in 2021.

.uk right of registration

New registrations directly under.uk have been accepted by Nominet since 10 June 2014 08:00BST;however, there was a reservation period for existing customers who already had a.co.uk,.org.uk,.me.uk,.net.uk,.ltd.uk or.plc.uk domain to claim the corresponding.uk domain, which ran until 06:00 BST on 25 June 2019.

If a domain was registered before 23:59 UTC on 28 October 2013 the user had the rights to the equivalent.uk domain (providing there was no other corresponding.co.uk,.org.uk, me.uk,.ltd.uk,.plc.uk or.net.uk registered).For example, if "your-company.co.uk" was held since 2 October 2013, the registrant of 'your-company.co.uk' had the reserved right of registering "your-company.uk", up until 06:00 BST on 25 June 2019.123-regandNamesCoboth created such domains for their customers for free but then began demanding payment in September 2019.

Second-level domains

".gov.uk" redirects here. For the government information website, seegov.uk.

Active

• .ac.uk– academic (tertiary education,further educationcolleges, research establishments (such as theBritish Antarctic Survey) andlearned societies)
• .bl.uk– used solely for theBritish Library
• .co.uk– commercial entities and purposes (the most popular second-level domain for.uk, majority of.uk registrations are on.co.ukdomain)
• .gov.uk– government (central,devolvedandlocal)
• .judiciary.uk–judiciary of England and Wales
• .ltd.uk–limited companies
• .me.uk– personal names
• .mod.uk– armed forces andMinistry of Defenceestablishments and systems
• .net.uk– ISPs and network companies (unlike.net,use is restricted to these users)
• .nhs.uk–NHSorganisations and trusts
• .nic.uk– network use only (reserved exclusively for Nominet UK)
• .org.uk– not-for-profit entities
• .parliament.uk–Parliament of the United Kingdomand the devolved national parliaments and assemblies
• .plc.uk–public limited companies
• .police.uk– police forces in the UK and law enforcement organisations.
• .rct.uk– used solely for theRoyal Collection Trust
• .royal.uk– used solely for theroyal familywebsite
• .sch.uk–local education authorities,schools, primary and secondary education, community education
• .ukaea.uk– used solely for theUnited Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

.co.uk,.ltd.uk,.me.uk,.net.uk,.nic.uk,.org.uk,.plc.uk and.sch.uk are managed by Nominet UK and except for.nic.uk are available for registration by the public (though they all carry various degrees of restrictions). Other second-level domains are managed by various government agencies, and generally more strongly controlled.

Inactive

• .govt.uk– former government domain, now deleted and replaced by.gov.uk.
• .orgn.uk– former non-profit organisations domain, now deleted and replaced by.org.uk.
• .lea.uk– local education authorities; since fallen out of use.
• .mil.uk– the Ministry of Defence have always used.mod.uk for their external domain, but use.mil.uk on their private network..mil.uk exists only as aCNAMEfor.mod.uk in the.uk zone file.

Rejected

• .cym.uk– A second-level domain forWales;it did not have support of the Welsh Internet community, with a.cymdomain being proposed, though later rejected. Top-level domains of.cymruand.waleshave since been delegated to the root in 2014.
• .scot.uk– A second level domain forScotland;it was rejected by Nominet.A top-level domain of.scotapproved on 10 June 2014and been delegated to the root since 13 June 2014.
• .sco.uk– A second level domain for Scotland.
• .soc.uk– proposed for Social and Society use.

Allocation of domain names

Allocations are on a strictfirst-come, first-servedbasis to qualified applicants. There are no territorial restrictions: applicants need not have any connection to the UK other than those outlined below for.ltd.uk and other restricted domains.

.co.uk is by far the most used of the domains, followed by.org.uk then.me.uk..plc.uk and.ltd.uk are only rarely used. The number of new registrations for each of the different.uk domains on a month by month basis can be seen on the Nominet UK website.

The intended restriction of.co.uk to companies is purely nominal; in practice it is open to any and all applicants. Likewise, whilst.org.uk is for organisations, there are no restrictions on registering domains. While.me.uk originally had no restrictions on registrants it has since been tightened up to require registrants to benatural persons(i.e. not companies, etc.).

However, registrants in.ltd.uk must be, and remain,private limited companiesincorporated under the UKCompanies Acts.In addition, names can only be registered if they correspond (in accordance with the algorithm in the rulesof registration) with the exact company name, as recorded at the companies registry atCompanies House.The same conditions apply forpublic limited companieswhich wish to use a.plc.uk domain name. Neither of these domains is widely used.

.net.uk is more open, but the Nominet regulations still mean that a registrant must be an ISP, or a similar body, and that the domain is not used for providing services to end-users..nic.uk, however, is limited solely to domains operated by Nominet.

.ac.uk domains are intended for the use of higher education institutions and further education colleges, and are also used by some academic support bodies such as theUniversities and Colleges Admissions Servicepublic research establishments, and learned societies such as theRoyal Society.Primary and secondary education uses.sch.uk.

sch.uk

Unusually,.sch.uk domains are allocated at the fourth level, with the third level being taken up by the name of thelocal authority(LA, previously LEA orlocal education authority) e.g. schoolname.leaname.sch.uk. For example, theLittle Ilford SchoolinNewhamhas the domain name littleilford.newham.sch.uk and theWest Exe SchoolinExeter, Devonhas the domain name westexe.devon.sch.uk. Previously applications were made in the normal way, but after Nominet came to an arrangement with the education authorities, one domain per school was issued automatically. Those that had already used another domain were still given one and were able to redirect it to their main domain.

United Kingdom-related top level domains (TLDs)

Country-Code TLDs (ccTLDs)

• .ac–ccTLDforAscension Island
• .ai– ccTLD forAnguilla
• .aq– ccTLD forAntarctica(including theBritish Antarctic Territory)
• .bm– ccTLD forBermuda
• .fk– ccTLD for theFalkland Islands
• .gb– former ccTLD for the United Kingdom
• .gg– ccTLD for theBailiwick of Guernsey
• .gi– ccTLD forGibraltar
• .gs– ccTLD forSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
• .im– ccTLD for theIsle of Man
• .io– ccTLD for theBritish Indian Ocean Territory
• .je– ccTLD for theBailiwick of Jersey
• .ky– ccTLD for theCayman Islands
• .ms– ccTLD forMontserrat
• .pn– ccTLD for thePitcairn Islands
• .sh– ccTLD forSaint Helena
• .tc– ccTLD for theTurks and Caicos Islands
• .vg– ccTLD for theBritish Virgin Islands

GeoTLDs

• .cymru–GeoTLDforWales(Welsh:Cymru), UK
• .london– GeoTLD forLondon,England,UK
• .scot– GeoTLD forScotland,UK
• .wales– GeoTLD for Wales, UK

See also

• Internet Provider Security (IPS) tags
• .ac (second-level domain)
• .edu (second-level domain)
• .eng
• .eu

External links

• Nominet.uk registry website
• .uk official website
• .uk official lookup service
• .uk Whois service
• .uk RDAP service