.FR

TLD Specifications

 
Country
Registration Time
up to 2 working days
Registration period
1-10 years
Renewal period
1-10 years
Allowed character length
1 - 63 characters
Allowed characters
a-z, 0-9, MUST NOT contain two consecutive hyphens in the third and fourth character positions and MUST NOT start or end with a hyphen.
TLD supports
IPv6
DNSsec
Trustee
IDN
Transfer locks possible
no
Renewal on transfer
yes
Transfer time
8 days
Authcode length
12 - 32 characters
Handle updates
yes
Preconfigured DNS
yes
Allowed Nameservers
2 - 12
Local contact requirements
Owner contact required Admin contact required
Deletion Timeframe
1 day prior to paiduntil date
Redemption Period
30 days
WHOIS Update
real-time
WHOIS Server
whois.nic.fr
 
 

Domain Restrictions

  • The tech contact must NOT be identical with the owner contact.
  • COM.FR, ASSO.FR and TM.FR 3rd level domains are not available for registration anymore since December 6th 2012. It is also not possible to change the registrant for a .COM.FR, ASSO.FR and TM.FR domain names.
  • Both owner and admin contact require a local address within the European Union (please see below list). If one of the contacts has no local address in European Union, you may use our trustee service for both contacts; the trustee service cannot be used only for one of the two contacts.
  • Name servers for .fr domains have to be correctly configured prior to the actual registration.
    • The registry does not use name server objects; instead, only glue records are supported, wherefore a ModifyDomain has to be issued and a ModifyNameserver is not sufficient

Registrants from the following European countries are allowed to register domain names under .fr and the other AFNIC TLDs:

  • AT - Austria
  • AX - Aland Islands
  • BE - Belgium
  • BG - Bulgaria
  • CH - Switzerland
  • CY - Cypress
  • CZ - Czech Republic
  • DE - Germany
  • DK - Denmark
  • EE - Estonia
  • ES - Spain
  • FI - Finland
  • FR - France
  • GB - United Kingdom
  • GF - French Guiana
  • GI - Gibraltar
  • GP - Guadeloupe
  • GR - Greece
  • HU - Hungary
  • IE - Ireland
  • IS - Iceland
  • IT - Italy
  • LI - Liechtenstein
  • LT - Lithuania
  • LU - Luxembourg
  • LV - Latvia
  • MQ - Martinique
  • MT - Malta
  • NC - New Caledonia
  • NL - Netherlands
  • NO - Norway
  • PF - French Polynesia
  • PL - Poland
  • PM - Saint Pierre and Miquelon
  • PT - Portugal
  • RE - Reunion
  • RO - Romania
  • SE - Sweden
  • SI - Slovenia
  • SK - Slovakia
  • TF - French Southern Territories
  • WF - Wallis and Futuna
  • YT - Mayotte

Restrictions on individuals and corporate entities which are eligible to register a domain name
Any individual residing and any legal entity having its headquarters or principal place of business as specified below may apply to register or renew a domain name in each of the top-level domains:

  • within the territory of one of the member states of the European Union;
  • within the territory of the following countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

The domain name holder and the administrative contact must be reachable. As such, both the holder and the administrative contact must provide details of a valid telephone number and e-mail address, including accurate information to establish their identities. While the domain name is active, they must ensure that such information is kept up-to-date at all times.

Reserved domain names
Reserved domain names of the registry for special use or special individuals or organizations can be found here http://www.afnic.fr/obtenir/chartes/fondamentaux

Prohibited terms
The list of terms that cannot be registered because they are "prohibited terms" includes, in particular

  • Abusive terms
  • Racist terms
  • Obscene terms
  • Terms relating to crime or offenses

Reserved terms
The list of terms that are "reserved" and can be registered only subject to special conditions, based on the identity or rights of the applicant include, in particular

  • Technical Internet terms
  • Names of regulated professions;
  • Terms relating to government operation;
  • Names of the signatory countries of the Paris Convention;
  • Dedicated names or terms of international organizations;
  • Names of French towns and villages in their base form: the list of reserved terms can be consulted directly on the INSEE website;
  • The name of the French Republic, its national institutions and public services, either alone or associated with words referring to such institutions or services
  • The name of a local authority, inter-municipal agreement with agglomeration-wide fiscal resources, either alone or associated with words or abbreviations referring to local institutions
  • The name of someone in office, associated with words referring to their elective functions.
    (Under Article R.20-44-43-IV, provisions 7 to 9 do not prevent the renewal of domain names registered before the enactment of France's Domain Name Allocation and Management Act 2007, amending the French Electronic Communications and Telecommunications Act)
  • By a company whose name is identical to the registered name and which registered that name as a trademark before 1st January 2004
  • By an association whose mission is to defend and promote a protected "designation of origin" for which the name has been registered.

The registration of reserved terms may be subject to specific provisions stipulated in the Procedures Manual.

  • The use of certificates for domain names using trustee service will not be possible.

Please Note:

AFNIC may delete, on its own decision, some domain names that do not follow the naming charter after identification operations and/or eligibility checks. From now on, these domain names will no longer be subjected to the redemption period and the outgoing registrar will not be able to restore them.
For technical reasons, the deletion operation will be in two steps:

  • AFNIC will transfer the domain names to its own account. In the Whois database, these domain names will appear under the registrar name : AFNIC -Opération-Interne
  • Definite deletion of the domain names by AFNIC.

This deletion without redemption starts immediately.

Updates:

UK residents are no longer eligible for .fr and other Afnic TLDs - Renewals still possible

With effect from 1 January, UK residents are no longer eligible for the .fr TLD or any of the other TLDs managed by Afnic and listed in the Naming Charter, i.e. .re, .yt, .pm, .wf and .tf

(see: https://www.afnic.fr/en/resources/reference/charters/naming-policy-in-force.html)

However, the Naming Charter provides that the application of new rules cannot be retroactively effective, with certain exceptions (see Article 1.3 of the Charter).

This means that these holders may keep their domain names without having to change address, since they complied with the eligibility rules in force at the time they registered their domain names.

In Summary, A holder resident in the UK who registered a domain name before 1 January 2021 can:

  • keep the domain name after that date
  • renew it
  • transfer (trade / owner change) it to an eligible new holder and
  • benefit from the forced transfer (trade / owner change) procedure in the particular cases provided for by the Naming Charter.

If a UK resident would like to register a .fr or another Afnic TLD domain name (i.e. .re, .yt, .pm, .wf and .tf) we offer a trustee service.

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