Australian .au domain: who can register one and what the rules are

A .au domain is the country code domain of Australia. You can register one if you have a connection with Australia that the Australian domain authority recognises: you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident, your organisation is registered in Australia or has an Australian business number, or you hold an Australian trade mark. With only that trade mark, you can register a .au domain that exactly matches your brand name. You register it with an accredited registrar, and then connect it to your website and email at LJPc hosting.

Below you can read which .au options exist, who can register which one (also from outside Australia), which rules a .au name follows, how registration, transfers and renewal work, and how to connect your .au domain to your hosting at LJPc.

What is a .au domain?

.au is the domain extension of Australia. It is managed by auDA (.au Domain Administration), an Australian not-for-profit organisation endorsed by the Australian Government. The registry itself is operated by Identity Digital Australia. In September 2026, more than 4.4 million .au domains were registered.

auDA and the registry do not register domains for end users: accredited registrars and their resellers do. One thing that sets .au apart is that you do not buy a domain, you get a licence to use the name for 1 to 5 years. The rules are in the .au Domain Administration Rules: Licensing, published on the auDA website.

Which .au options are there?

There are several options under .au, each for its own audience:

Who can register a .au domain?

Every option first requires an Australian presence: a connection with Australia that auDA recognises. You meet it if, among other things, you:

• are an Australian citizen or hold an Australian permanent resident visa;
• have a company registered in Australia;
• have a foreign company registered in Australia as a foreign entity, with an ARBN (Australian Registered Body Number);
• have an organisation with an ABN (Australian Business Number);
• have an association, trust, partnership or other organisation registered in Australia;
• hold an Australian trade mark, registered or applied for with IP Australia. In that case your presence only counts for a domain name that exactly matches your trade mark.

On top of that, each option has its own requirement, as shown in the table above: com.au and net.au are for commercial entities, org.au for not-for-profits and id.au for individuals. You do not need a physical address in Australia, as long as you meet the Australian presence requirement.

Can I register a .au domain from outside Australia?

Yes, if you have one of the connections with Australia listed above. A business without an Australian office has three routes:

1. An Australian trade mark. If your trade mark is registered or applied for with IP Australia, you can register a .au, .com.au or .net.au domain that is an exact match of your trade mark. It contains all the words of the trade mark, in the same order. You may leave out punctuation, ampersands (&) and the words a, the, and, or and of. auDA's own example: with the trade mark The Little Red Wagon Bookshop you can register thelittleredwagonbookshop.com.au, but not an abbreviation like lrwb.com.au or a part like littlered.net.au.
2. Registering as a foreign company in Australia. If you register your business in Australia and receive an ARBN, you also have an Australian presence. For com.au and net.au, the regular name rules below then apply, which are broader than an exact match of your trade mark.
3. An Australian subsidiary. It can register the domain in its own name.

Keep that connection in place for the full licence period. If your Australian trade mark or registration lapses, you no longer have an Australian presence and the licence for your domain is cancelled.

Always register the domain in your own name or that of your organisation. auDA does not allow proxy services that register the domain in their own name on your behalf, so that you would not need a connection with Australia yourself. Someone else may submit the application for you, as long as you are listed as the registrant.

Which details you provide

When you register, your registrar passes these details to the registry on your behalf:

That is why your registrar's order form asks for the ID type, such as ABN, ACN, ARBN or trade mark number, and for the number itself. When you register, renew, or transfer the licence to a new registrant, the registrar checks your details, for example your ABN, an Australian driver licence or your trade mark in IP Australia's trade mark database. If they do not match exactly, the application is refused.

Keep your details correct

If any of your details change, tell your registrar within 14 days. If your details are incomplete or incorrect, or you no longer meet the rules, your domain can be suspended. A suspended domain does not resolve and cannot be transferred. You then have 30 days to fix the issue; if you do not, the licence is cancelled.

Which rules does a .au name follow?

auDA's rules apply to every .au name:

• Length. A name has at least 2 characters, not counting the extension. Single-character names are not possible.
• Characters. You can use the letters a to z, the digits 0 to 9 and the hyphen. Accented letters such as é or ü are not possible.
• Hyphens. A name does not start or end with a hyphen and has no hyphens in the third and fourth position.
• Reserved names. Words restricted under Australian law, names and abbreviations of Australian states and territories, the word Australia and names that pose a risk to the security of the internet are not freely available. auDA does not publish the list of that last group.
• No confusion with an option. A name that is deceptively similar to a .au option, such as co.au or comm.au, is not possible.

Which name fits com.au and net.au?

With yourname.au you can choose any available name that follows the rules above. With com.au and net.au the name has to relate to your organisation, in one of these ways:

• words from your company name, business name or personal name, in the same order and without added words, or an acronym of it. Legal suffixes such as Pty Ltd are left out;
• words from your Australian trade mark, or an exact match of it if the trade mark is your only connection with Australia;
• the name or a synonym of a product or service you provide, or of an event, activity or premises you organise or operate.

If your business is called Smith Bakery, names such as smith.com.au, smithbakery.com.au, smith-bakery.com.au and bakery.com.au fit. auDA is reviewing these rules; according to auDA, existing com.au and net.au domains stay under the current rules.

When is a .au domain the right choice?

According to Google's guidelines for multi-regional websites, a country code domain is a strong signal that a site targets that country. .au is not on the list of country code domains that Google treats as generic, so Google sees a .au site as a site for Australia. Here is how to choose:

How to redirect a second domain to your main site properly is explained in redirect a domain to another website.

How to register a .au domain

1. Check with the auDA WHOIS whether the name is available. An available name goes to whoever applies first.
2. Choose a registrar or reseller from auDA's list of .au domain name providers.
3. Register the name in your own name or that of your organisation, with the details that prove your connection with Australia, such as your ABN, ARBN or trade mark number.
4. Choose a licence period of 1 to 5 years. Not every provider offers every period. After you sign up, there is a 3-day cooling-off period.
5. Keep the authorisation code (authInfo) of your domain safe. You need it to transfer your domain to another registrar.
6. Enter the name servers your domain should point to. If you host with LJPc, those are our name servers: see below.

Connect your .au domain to your website and email at LJPc

Your .au domain stays with your registrar and we take care of your website and email. Here is how to connect it:

1. Open the order wizard in the customer portal, choose I already have one at another registrar and enter your domain, for example yourdomain.com.au. No account yet? Create one first.
2. Choose Keep domain elsewhere, connect hosting here.
3. Choose your hosting or redirect package and complete the order. LJPc then creates a DNS zone for your domain.
4. Then log in at your registrar and set the name servers of your .au domain to ns1.ljpc.network, ns2.ljpc.network and ns3.ljpc.network. How to do that is explained in change your name servers.

Only switch the name servers once your order with us is complete, so the DNS zone is ready and your website and email work at their new home right away.

Prefer to keep DNS at your registrar? Then add individual records there that point to your hosting with us, as described in point a domain at another provider to LJPc hosting. If DNSSEC is enabled for your .au domain, have the DS record removed before you change the name servers; what DNSSEC does is explained in what is DNSSEC. After the change, the new information still has to spread across the internet, as explained in what is DNS propagation. Other things to keep in mind, such as email that runs elsewhere, are covered in register a domain and link it to your hosting.

Transfer a .au domain to another registrar

You can move your .au domain to another registrar. You do that with the authorisation code of your domain, also called authInfo, EPP code or domain password.

1. Not sure which registrar your domain is with? Who manages your domain explains how to find your registrar, your DNS provider and your hosting.
2. Ask your current registrar for the authorisation code. It sends the code to the registrant email address listed in the registry. You can also retrieve it with auDA's .au password recovery tool.
3. Give the code to your new registrar, which requests the transfer and checks your details. At that moment you must still meet the rules for your .au option, and there must be no complaint or dispute about the domain.
4. Once approved, the transfer can take up to 3 days to complete. Under auDA's rules, a transfer between registrars is free of charge for you.
5. Change the authorisation code through your new registrar within 2 days of the transfer. Also check that your name servers still point to the right place. If you host with LJPc, those are ns1, ns2 and ns3.ljpc.network.

What a transfer code is in general is covered in get your EPP code and transfer your domain. For extensions we register, such as .nl and .eu, you move your domain to us as described in transfer your domain to LJPc.

Transfer a .au domain to a new registrant

You can transfer the licence of your .au domain to another person or organisation, for example when you sell your business. The new registrant must meet all the rules: an Australian presence and the requirements of the .au option. You request the transfer in writing from your registrar, the domain must not have expired and there must be no complaint or dispute about it. The new registrant enters into a new licence agreement and pays for it. Any full years remaining carry over, up to a maximum licence period of 5 years. What a change of registrant involves is explained in change the owner of a domain.

What does the WHOIS of a .au domain show?

With the auDA WHOIS you can see whether a .au name is available and, if it is registered, among other things:

• Public. The registrant's name, the organisation's number such as an ABN or ACN, the basis of its connection with Australia, the registrar, the status, the name servers and an email address to get in touch.
• Hidden. The address, the phone number and the creation, renewal and expiry dates.

If you register as an individual, your name is therefore visible. auDA does not allow privacy services that hide your details. You may, however, provide a general email address instead of your personal one. You can check the expiry date of your own domain with your registrar or with auDA's password recovery tool. What WHOIS data is and how to update it for your own domains is covered in manage the WHOIS data of your domain.

Renewal, expiry and cancellation

You renew your .au domain through your registrar, from 90 days before the expiry date. The new period starts on the old expiry date, so renewing early does not cost you any days. Your registrar notifies you at least 30 days before the expiry date. If you do not renew, this is what happens:

How this compares to the 40-day quarantine of .nl is explained in expired domain, redemption period or quarantine. How to try to catch a name when it becomes available is covered in domain backorder.

No longer need the domain? Cancel it in writing through your registrar. You can do that at any time. If you cancel after the 3-day cooling-off period, auDA's rules give you no right to a refund of the part of the price that goes to the registry. Ask your registrar what it refunds.

Someone else has your name as a .au domain

If someone has registered your brand name, business name or personal name as a .au domain, you can start a procedure under the .au Dispute Resolution Policy (auDRP). A panel of 1 or 3 experts then assesses whether:

1. the domain is identical or confusingly similar to a name or trade mark in which you have rights;
2. the registrant has no rights or legitimate interests in the domain;
3. the domain was registered in bad faith or was subsequently used in bad faith. For .au, either one is enough.

You file the complaint with one of the two providers auDA recognises: Resolution Institute or WIPO. Fees start at 2,000 Australian dollars. If the complainant wins, the domain is cancelled, or transferred to the complainant if the complainant meets the .au rules. More information is on auDA's auDRP process page.

If you believe a registrant does not meet the .au rules, for example because it has no connection with Australia, you can file a complaint through auDA's complaints page.

Want to connect your .au domain to your hosting at LJPc and running into something? Create a support ticket and we will look into it with you.