.UK Registry (Future state)

Please bookmark this page – it is the landing page for all future updates on the transition of the .UK registry to the new RSP platform.

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2025-08-13: Policy consultation

Following last year’s policy consultation and ahead of the transition of .UK to our new Dragon Registry Services Platform in 2026, we are now consulting on the complete set of agreements and policies to ensure they are coherent and compatible with each other for the operation of the .UK registry.

Whilst reviewing the agreements and polices we set out with a very specific focus:

1. to make the RRA and policies compatible with the following policy drafts that were the result of last year’s consultation; and
2. tidy up, modernise and modularise our policies.

On that basis we have attempted to limit substantive changes, but we have significantly changed structure which can make the changes look more substantial than they are.  However, there are some small substantive changes that we think we need to specifically draw your attention to:

1. We have added DNS abuse clauses aligned with those negotiated in the ICANN community and discussed at the UKRAC for inclusion as part of this consultation.
2. We propose requiring registrars to be Nominet members as recommended by the UKRAC with an exception for .sch.uk portfolio holders as they tend to be local education authorities managing their local domains where we believe there is a legitimate case to operate independently from the membership.
3. .UK Transactional reporting policy – again the UKRAC recommended we consult more widely on these details.

Please do review all the documents and provide feedback to the consultation – it is key in the next steps of implementing the modernisation and standardisation for the .UK registry.

The new agreement structure is as follows:

1. The new .UK Registry-Registrar Agreement (.UK RRA) now binds registrars to version 2.0 of the Nominet Registry-Registrar Base Agreement
   • The intent here is to contain elements that will be common to all our TLDs in the future; but this is a newly created document and is not yet used by any other registries.
2. We have extracted some elements from the RRA (e.g. Reseller policy) and placed them in a standalone policies to make them more digestible.

We ask that all registrars review the new .UK RRA and policies and respond to our consultation by 12^th November 2025.

2025-08-13: .UK testbed on Dragon RSP platform now available.

We have deployed the first version of our new EPP testbed for the future .UK registry on our Dragon Registry Services Provider (RSP) platform. This new testbed is available on testbed.epp.nominet.uk port 700 and you can find the EPP documentation here.  The generic EPP documentation should be read in conjunction with the specific .UK registry configuration details are in the table at the bottom of this page. 

What’s in this testbed release?

1. A ‘standard’ EPP implementation for registrars for the .UK registry with a pull transfer system supporting.
   • The new registry lifecycle.
   • Pull transfers with 0-to-10-year renewal options at transfer.
2. Secure Authorisation Information required per RFC9154 with a registry-imposed time-to-live of 15-days on any Transfer Authorisation Codes (TACs).

What’s still to come in a future release?

1. Updated EPP Status reasons.
2. RFC8748 – An upgrade of our currently deployed EPP Fee extension. As .UK only has one price point per zone, the primary benefit and use case is to ensure your systems have visibility of your outstanding balance and credit limit on your account. 
3. RFC8543 and RFC8544 – for those registrars who have resellers or seek to comply with a privacy/proxy service implementation we will have a second release of EPP testbed which will include Organisation RFCs RFC8543 and RFC8544.
4. API replacements.

Product paper feedback results.

We received a total of 6 responses to our technical product papers (Legacy .UK to new .UK transition page and EPP status reason product paper) we sought responses on in June 2025. We have now clarified the behaviour of domains subject to auto-bill period on the legacy platform based on the Legacy .UK to new .UK transition page and responded to questions via the FAQ and intend to confirm the EPP statuses in a later testbed release.

Planning for the transition

In planning for the changes planned for Calendar Quarter 2 2026 as a registrar you should:

1. Familiarise themselves with the updated .UK RRA and policies.
   • Please provide feedback during the consultation period.
2. Review how the new .UK RRA and policies will require updates to their own agreements, staff training, support materials and if you have technical integrations your technical systems.

Key resources:

1. Legacy .UK to new .UK transition
2. How to check domain name availability
3. How to use RDAP to replace WHOIS and WHOIS2.
4. Frequently Asked Questions

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Registrar Resources Tidy up

We are utilising the process of .UK standardisation to tidy up our support materials and as such we have started evolving registrar resources as follows:

1. Technical documentation covering integrating with our Dragon Registry Services Provider (RSP) systems will appear in the https://registrars.nominet.uk/dragon/
2. Registry or top-level domain specific information will appear in https://registrars.nominet.uk/registry/
3. The older materials will gradually be reviewed and merged into the new structure.

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Type	ccTLD
Registrar eligibility	Open; subject to terms and conditions and membership.
Registry-Registrar Agreement	Updated version coming for consultation.
Registration Data Policy	Registrant required; Admin, Technical and Billing contacts accepted by consent.
Secure Transfer Authorisation Codes (RFC9154)	Required. Maximum Time-To-Live set by registry at 15 days.
IDN supported	No
Drop Lists	Yes
Unavailable names report	Yes
Registry Lock	Yes
Currency	GBP
Standard pricing (per annual increment excluding VAT)	3.90
Non-standard pricing	N/A
Restore price	0.00
Registry Lock pricing (per month)	7.50
Registry account type	Nominet
Marketing site	https://theukdomain.uk/

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Mailing list

To stay informed via email about the transition of the .UK registry to the new RSP platform, please ensure your mailing list preferences are up to date and that your Essential Updates contact information is correct. For details on how to manage your preferences or subscribe, visit: https://registrars.nominet.uk/news-formats/

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