.UK is changing: you need to get ready.
| Transition Date: | To be confirmed, expected early 2027. There will be a minimum of 6 months notice to transition when we issue formal notice. |
- Review agreements and policies
- Dragon Domain Manager
- Technical Integrations
- Preparing for transition day
- Full registry support
- TAGs becoming accreditations
- Consolidated Billing
- Engagement plan
Review agreements and policies
Registrar’s should review the following documents:
- .UK Registry-Registrar Agreement which incorporates the new Nominet Registry-Registrar Base Agreement
- .UK Registry policies
The actions required will differ per registrar dependant on how you incorporate per registry requirements but consider whether you need to update your:
- own contracts with registrants based on the new agreements; and if so any notice requirements to customers.
- business processes to support registrants.
- staff training materials.
- registrant support materials.
Consider your implementation approach:
- Registrars will need to make a choice between:
- ‘Auto-delete’, the behaviour you have today. Following the Principle of Least Surprise, the diverse registrar base and the many years of engrained expectation, this will be the default choice if you do not make a decision;
- ‘Auto-renew’, the approach utilised by gTLDs.
- There are pros and cons of each option and your operational behaviours will differ accordingly. Note: we have not yet enabled the mechanism to make this choice in our systems, but we will announce when that is available which will be in plenty of time for transition.
- Inter-registrar transfers will now be a pull mechanism, and registrars are required to enter an agreement with the registrant to transfer the domain in to their account but we have retained the possibility of transferring a domain with no renewal and no charge at the registry at the registrars discretion. This enables requirements of different business models to be support their needs, business models that transact:
- per domain may want to consider whether the jurisdiction of their contract with the registrant allows the establishment of their contract without consideration or if one method of applying consideration to their contract is to request a renewal at the time of transfer.
- as a bundled or portfolio service may wish to allow transfers without renewal or incremental cost at the time of transfer, enabling portfolio consolidation and enhanced security without registry outlays.
Dragon Domain Manager
If you utilise Web Domain Manager today for the management of domain names you will get a new user experience for .UK using Dragon Domain Manager. We will provide a demo of Dragon Domain Manager ahead of transition.
Technical Integrations
- You will need to update and test any technical integrations you have against testbed if you currently use any of the following:
- the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) API to manage domain names, it should be noted that we are making changes to the client certificate requirements for our RSP platform in the near future.
- The legacy Nominet Domain Availability Checker which is being replaced with the EPP check command and other reports, please see How to Check Domain Availability.
- port 43 WHOIS or WHOIS2 which is being replaced with RDAP, please see How to use RDAP to replace WHOIS and WHOIS2 protocols.
- REST API or SOAP API to reconcile your domain list which is being replaced with a Credentialled RDAP, which has not yet been released.
- Resellers – if you currently store reseller data in .UK registry we will convert this into Organisation objects and link to the resellers domains at the point of transition. If you wish to start utilising Reseller functionality post-transition please see EPP Organisation objects and commands.
The future state EPP Testbed is now available:
| Functionality | Notes |
| EPP (IETF STD69) | EPP status reasons can now be set and viewed. |
| RFC3915 grace periods | End date of each grace period now available: <rgp:rgpStatus s=”addPeriod”>endDate=2026-04-28T11:52:50.645Z</rgp:rgpStatus> |
| RFC9154: Secure Authorisation information for transfer with Transfer Authorisation Code (TAC). | TAC expiry set by the registry to a maximum of 14-days. |
| New Lifecycle | Add Grace period: 5 days Auto-renew grace period: <= 45 days Redemption Grace Period: 30 days Pending Delete Grace Period: 5 days |
| Inter-registrar transfer | Standard EPP Pull transfer. Option to renew for 1-to-10-years at the time of transfer; or transfer for free with no renewal. |
| RFC8748 Registry Fee extension | The introduction of the Fee extension enables registrars to have direct visibility of available balance or credit on the account. |
| Reseller support – RFC8543 and RFC8544 and RDAP publication of reseller information. | |
| REST/SOAP API Replacement with Credentialled RDAP | Release date to be confirmed. |
Prepare for Transition day
- Ahead of transition day make sure you understand how each of the domains in your accreditation will be treated by reviewing Legacy .UK to new .UK transition, we would specifically note:
- Deletion for non-renewal on legacy platform– we would recommend registrars consider a focus on ‘last chance to renew’ campaign for domains that will be in this period immediately before transition.
- Redemption Period – equally ahead of transition it makes sense for registrars to minimise the number of restores they may have to process so you may wish to include these domains in a renewal campaign ahead of transition.
It is best practice following a backend transition to re-synchronise your data from the registry and we provide guidance on how to do this and the state of domains listed on the Legacy .UK to new .UK transition page.
Full registry support
The .UK registry includes multiple suffixes and we encourage registrars to support all the suffixes in registration, transfer in and renewal processes.
| Suffix | Key registration characteristics | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| uk | Create commands result in immediate domain registrations. | Set as standard .UK pricing at £3.90 for a create or renew. |
| co.uk | ||
| org.uk | ||
| me.uk | ||
| ltd.uk | CREATE commands result in applications being submitted for manual approval by Nominet but all other technical operations are aligned with the other zones including transfer in and renewal processes. | |
| plc.uk | ||
| net.uk | ||
| sch.uk | sch.uk pricing is set at £3.90 for a create and £0.00 to renew. |
We strongly encourage all registrars to support the transfer in and ongoing management of all zones within the .UK registry. The EPP Fee extension can be utilised not only to confirm the pricing of a zone is as you expect it to be but also the balance on your account when a transaction happens.
TAGs become Accreditations
The change from TAG to Accreditation is one of naming, rather than any substantive detail beneath. However under the legacy .UK inter-registrar transfer process TAGs were a visible part of your brand at the start of your relationship with the registrant. This meant that some registrars chose to operate different TAGs for different brands for marketing purposes alone. With the introduction of pull transfers, we have heard some registrars wish to reconsider the way they operate. With that in mind you may want to consider whether you wish to:
- continue operating on multiple accreditations; or
- consolidate down to one accreditation but utilise the reseller functionality for publication on the Registration Data Directory Service accessible via RDAP.
If you need help or advice in this area please speak either to our support team or your account manager if you want to discuss this more.
Consolidated Billing
With the transition to the our RSP platform .UK will get the benefit of consolidated billing already available for other registries. In .UK today we send separate invoices for registrations and renewals and we do so for every accreditations on an account. Our new platform will instead issue a single monthly invoice for the entire account including all registrations and renewals on every accreditation within the account.
Engagement plan
Now that we have finalised the agreements, policies and technical requirements we will now transition into an engagement phase that will evolve based on your needs and feedback.
The first steps in that engagement phase are drop-in sessions announced at the end of the policy consultation:
- Tuesday 12th May, 11:00 – 12:00 UTC+1 (Now completed)
When we issue formal notice; we will start to schedule a series of webinars focussed on providing the necessary support for registrars to get ready for transition. Those webinars will cover topics such as:
- The operational and compliance aspects of the new:
- .UK Lifecycle
- Inter-registrar transfer process
- Registry-Registrar Agreement and .UK registry policies
- Technical integration with the platform
- Dragon Domain Manager – How to manage the full domain lifecycle
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