.gov Registration

Introduced in the year 1985, the .gov domain is a top level generic domain name registration service exclusively intended for the use of the United States governmental entities. It is an active domain operated by ZoneEdit. The General Services Administration (GSA), an independent agency of the federal government, is the registrar for .gov domain names.

The United States of America is the only country that has a government specific top level Internet domain. Since the .gov domain is restricted to US governmental entities, no other country can use .gov as their top level domain. Instead, they can use it as their second-level domain (eg: .gov.au for Australia, .gov.uk for the United Kingdom).

At first, .gov domain names were solely reserved for federal governmental entities, but now they are being made available to: governmental departments, programs and agencies serving the states; federally recognized Indian tribes; cities, townships, counties and parishes represented by an elected body of officials; and U.S. territories. For the registration of a .gov domain, a letter of authorization should be submitted to the GSA.

The US government accredited entities, agencies and programs are allowed to use the .gov domain. The registrants must follow the guidelines on naming conventions provided by the General Services Administration (GSA). To ensure consistency in addresses, GSA advises .gov domain users to use official names of the cities and towns and the formal abbreviations. Modification and deletion of an existing .gov domain is also possible. The GSA currently charges $125 annually for a .gov domain registration. The payment should be made with a credit card.

Registering a governmental agency or a program with the .gov domain name gives the website the status of an official government website. The website for General Services Administration, Dotgov.gov, provides information about the eligibility requirements, availability and registration procedures for obtaining a .gov domain name. If you have any questions regarding .gov registration, you should contact GSA by phone, fax or email for assistance.