We’ve spoken about the impact of Brexit on .eu domain names several times over the last couple of years. Most recently here.
To recap the .eu domain name registration rules very briefly:
- If you are a citizen of an EU member state you can register a .eu domain name
- If you have an address in an EU member state you can register a .eu domain name
When the United Kingdom left the European Union back on January 1st that meant that any .eu domain name registered to UK organisations or people in the UK were no longer compliant with the rules, unless they qualified via another means.
Since last year our domains’ team have worked closely with clients to help them keep their .eu domain names working as normal.
So what’s the current state of play?
As of January 1st 2021 impacted domains are “SUSPENDED”. This means that they do NOT work, but they can be reactivated quite easily.
From July 1st 2021 the impacted domains will be moved to a status of “WITHDRAWN”. From July 1st reactivating an impacted .eu domain name is going to become more complicated and time consuming
On January 1st 2022 any impacted domain names will be deleted completely and will be made available for registration on a first come first served basis. The release of the Brexit domains will be staggered for security reasons.
Admittedly if your .eu domain name is impacted it’s been offline now for 6 months, so I doubt there’s a lot of urgency around getting it back working. However, some businesses that might have been impacted by restrictions in the past months could have domains that they overlooked.
In any case, if you are impacted please contact our sales team ASAP and they’ll try to assist you.
About the Author: Michele Neylon
