.fr Registration

The .fr extension, introduced in 1986, is for the intended use of entities associated with France. The official country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for France is .fr, just as there is a country code top level domain for other countries and territories in the world. The AFNIC (Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération) is the registration issuing authority. Once a .fr website is registered, it is accessible from anywhere in the world, just as other sites with domain names registered under other top level domains such as .com.

The AFNIC, a non-profit organization is responsible for allocating and managing .fr domain names. It is not a registrar and does not directly sell .fr domain names to customers. Applying with a registrar is compulsory to get a .fr domain name. You have to locate a registrar member of AFNIC to register your .fr domain name. The verifications are completed online by AFNIC for most of the registrants. Additionally, it is not essential to provide any documents for confirmation.

When submitting an .fr registration application, the holder of a domain name must authorize an administrative contact and maintain this contact throughout the entire registration period. This contact can be changed via the registrar of the .fr registration.

For .fr registration, alphanumeric terms consisting of letters between A and Z and numbers from 0 to 9 and the hyphen symbol "-" are acceptable as .fr domain names. However there are certain .fr domain names that cannot be registered. These include:

• Domain names which consist of a single character or only two letters
• Domain names which begin or end with a hyphen "-"
• Domain names that comprise more than 255 characters
• Domain names that begin with "xn--"

The AFNIC maintains a list of prohibited and reserved terms in connection with registering a .fr domain name. It also has a takeover authority and a pre-emptive power, in particular where a term would be required to be added to the list of basic terms that cannot be allocated for .fr registration.