About .ca Domain Names

Eligible applicants can register .ca domain names on a first-come, first-served basis. However, .ca domain names use the bundle approach. This means the registrant of a .ca domain name has exclusive rights to every variant of that particular domain name. For example, only the registrant of grace.ca has the rights to register grâce.ca, and vise-versa.

Applicants must meet the Canadian Presence Requirements. See Registering .ca Domain Names for more information.

Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is the registry for .ca domain names.

You can register .ca domain names for a minimum of one year and a maximum of 10 years.

CIRA automatically renews .ca domain names on their expiration dates. If you do not pay for the renewal within 42 days of the expiration date, you can attempt to recover your .ca domain name, and there might be a fee to do so. See Recovering Expired Domain Names for instructions.

NOTE: Renewals are refundable during the 45-day grace period after the original domain name expiration date.

Yes. See Transferring Domain Names to Us for more information about the transfer process in general.

The following are exceptions to the transfer process for .ca domain names:

• When a domain transfer takes place, it must be initiated for every variant (IDN) of that .ca domain name. If all variants of the same domain name are not transferred, the transfer will fail.
• On the Pending Transfers page in the Domain Manager, your administrative contact's email address displays as nocontactsfound@secureserver.net because we cannot access your Whois contact information.
• We normally send the transaction IDs to the administrative contact's email address. For .ca transfers, we send them to the email address on file in your account with us.
• Transfers normally take five to seven days from the time you authorize them. However, a .ca transfer goes through immediately after you enter the transaction ID, security code, and authorization code, and then click Finish.

If the domain name expired, you have 30 days from the expiration date to transfer it to us. To transfer a .ca domain name to us within that 30-day expiration grace period, contact our Support department for assistance.

WARNING: For security purposes, CIRA locks .ca domain names for 60 days after transfers, new registrations, and updates to registrant contact information.

During that 60-day period, you cannot update your domain name's registrant contact information or transfer it to another registrar. For more information, see section 8.1 of CIRA's General Registration Rules.

For general information about transferring your domain name to another registrar, see Transferring Domain Names to Another Registrar.

For most domain name extensions, transfers take five to seven days from the time you authorize them. However, .ca transfers go through immediately upon authorization.

WARNING: For security purposes, CIRA locks .ca domain names for 60 days after transfers, new registrations, and updates to registrant contact information.

During that 60-day period, you cannot update your domain name's registrant contact information or transfer it to another registrar. For more information, see section 8.1 of CIRA's General Registration Rules.

CIRA automatically applies its own private registration to new .ca domain names that individuals register. Specifically, CIRA limits the personal information that displays in the Whois database for the following legal types:

• Canadian citizens
• Permanent residents
• Legal representatives
• Aboriginal persons

If you registered a .ca domain name as an individual registrant, you can contact our support department to cancel or re-add private registration.

For more information about what CIRA keeps private, see CIRA's Whois FAQ and CIRA's Privacy Policy.

Contact our customer support to submit a request for private registration.

CIRA works with several firms to handle disputes regarding .ca domain names. If you hold rights to a name that is already registered, you can apply for arbitration to solve the dispute. The process takes up to 120 days to complete, and the price depends on the number of domain names and panelists involved in the dispute.

No. We do not currently support the backorder of .ca domain names.

Yes. All .ca domain names that belong to the same variant bundle are moved into the other account when an account change is requested. See Moving a Domain Name Out of Your Account for information on initiating the move.

NOTE: CIRA periodically audits domain names to ensure they conform to eligibility requirements. If CIRA cannot confirm the new registrant's eligibility status, CIRA might request information from us to prove your eligibility. You must send us the requested information within the specified time frame to avoid deactivation of your .ca domain name(s). Do not send the information directly to CIRA.

Yes. All .ca domain names that belong to the same variant bundle must have the same contact information. If the contact information does not match, the contact update request will fail. For more information, see Updating Your Domain Name Contact Information.

NOTE: CIRA no longer requires you to use Preset Profiles to manage your .ca domain names. You can continue to use Preset Profiles if you want, or you can delete them. For more information, see Managing Domain Name Preset Profiles.

WARNING: For security purposes, CIRA locks .ca domain names for 60 days after transfers, new registrations, and updates to registrant contact information.

During that 60-day period, you cannot update your domain name's registrant contact information or transfer it to another registrar. For more information, see section 8.1 of CIRA's General Registration Rules.

You can have a maximum of six nameservers per .ca domain name.

If you want to use custom .ca nameservers for your .ca domain name, you must complete a two-step process in the Domain Manager.

First, follow the instructions in Registering Your Own Nameservers/Hosts to set the host name and IP addresses for each nameserver. Then, follow the instructions in the Setting Nameservers for a Domain Name Registered with Us section of Setting Nameservers for Your Domain Names to set the nameservers in our system.

Yes. All .ca registrants must pay the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and might need to pay Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), which is GST and the Provincial Sales Tax (PST).