.foundation Domain
Build Trust with a .foundation Domain
Register your .foundation domain from just £28.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .foundation domain?
The .foundation domain lends credibility and gravitas to charitable trusts, research foundations, and philanthropic organisations. It signals serious purpose and long-term commitment to a cause.
Who should register .foundation?
Charitable foundations, research trusts, philanthropic bodies, and grant-making organisations.
Why choose .foundation?
- Conveys credibility and purpose
- Ideal for charitable trusts
- Signals long-term commitment
- Professional and authoritative
Who runs .foundation, and since when
Registry data from the .foundation delegation record held by IANA, which maintains the internet's root zone. Eligibility comes from the registry's own policy, and the prices are ours.
- Extension type
- Generic (gTLD)
- Registry operator
- Public Interest Registry (PIR)
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 6 February 2014
- Who can register
- Open to anyone, with no charity number or foundation status checked at registration
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £28.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
What PIR checks before selling you a .foundation
The interesting thing about .foundation is who runs it. Public Interest Registry, the not-for-profit behind .org, holds the contract, and PIR publishes a Registration Policy that names .FOUNDATION in its list of extensions required to comply, alongside .NGO, .ONG, .CHARITY, .GIVES and .GIVING.
Read that policy and the picture sharpens. The substantive part, seven characteristics an organisation must meet to count as a non-governmental organisation, along with the audit process that backs it up, applies to .NGO and .ONG only. Nothing in it sets an eligibility test for .foundation. So the extension is open: no charity number, no Charity Commission registration, no trust deed, nothing checked before your order completes.
PIR's own description is broader than the word suggests. It positions .foundation for philanthropic entities including non-profit philanthropic foundations and for-profit corporations with a philanthropic arm, which is a door deliberately left open for a company's charitable wing rather than only for registered charities.
What that means for a UK reader. If you are a registered charity, the extension is credible and cheap enough to be worth holding, but it proves nothing on its own, and a donor who cares will look for your registered charity number on the page rather than in the address. If you are a company running a foundation, this is a clean way to keep that work on its own address without diluting the corporate site. If you are neither, using the word because it sounds established is the one case where we would say no. It is exactly the sort of claim that invites somebody to read the small print.
Is .foundation the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.foundation works well if
- You are a registered charity, trust or grant-making body whose legal name contains the word Foundation, so the address matches the paperwork.
- Your company runs a charitable arm and you want it on its own address, clearly separated from the commercial site.
- You want a not-for-profit signal that .org lost through twenty years of open commercial use.
- You are a research or endowment body where credibility rests on the trustees and the published accounts, and the address should simply read plainly.
Look elsewhere if
- You are a commercial business with no charitable activity. The word claims a status nobody checked, and the readers who care will check it.
- Budget is tight and the money is donated. A .org costs a good deal less here and every donor understands it without explanation.
- Your supporters find you through local UK search. A .co.uk carries a geographic signal in Google that .foundation cannot carry.
Registered charity on a tight budget? A .org costs a good deal less and every donor already understands it. See .org pricing.
.foundation vs .org: which should you register?
Both extensions come from the same registry, which makes this an unusually clean comparison: one operator, one set of abuse handling, different price and different meaning.
.org has been in the root zone since 1985 and needs no explanation to anybody anywhere. It is open to all comers and always has been, which is why the non-profit association it carries is softer than most people assume. At our current prices it is also the cheaper of the two by a wide margin.
.foundation is specific where .org is general. It suits a body whose legal name contains the word, and a corporate philanthropic arm that wants daylight between itself and the trading company. It does not prove charitable status and nobody at the registry checks it, so if the word is not already yours, the honest answer is .org.
| .foundation | .org | |
|---|---|---|
| Registry operator | Public Interest Registry | Public Interest Registry |
| In the root zone since | 2014 | 1985 |
| Charitable status verified | No | No |
| Donor recognition | Needs explaining | Understood everywhere |
| Annual cost | Higher | Lower |
.foundation domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .foundation domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. There is no charity number to supply, no Charity Commission registration to evidence and no trust deed to file. PIR names .FOUNDATION among the extensions that must comply with its Registration Policy, but the substantive eligibility criteria in that policy, the seven characteristics of a non-governmental organisation and the audit behind them, apply to .NGO and .ONG. Nothing is checked before a .foundation registration completes.
Only when the word is already in your name. A .org is cheaper, understood by every donor without a second thought, and comes from the same registry. A .foundation is the better address when your legal name contains Foundation, or when a trading company wants its charitable arm clearly separated from the business. As a credibility signal on its own it does very little, because nothing behind it is verified by anyone.
Public Interest Registry, the not-for-profit that also runs .org, .ngo, .ong and .charity. That matters more than the usual registry trivia. It means .foundation sits inside the same policy framework as PIR's other mission-focused extensions and is named in the same Registration Policy, even though the eligibility criteria in that policy bind only .ngo and .ong. It is an unusual case of a policy naming an extension it does not actually gate.
Less than a registered charity number on the page will. Donors who are careful with money look for evidence, and the address is not evidence, because anyone can buy this extension without proving a thing. Where it does help is clarity: an address ending .foundation tells a first-time visitor what kind of organisation they have reached. Pair it with your charity number, your trustees and your accounts in the footer, and the reassurance comes from those.
Included with Your .foundation Domain
DNS Management
Full DNS zone editor to manage A, CNAME, MX, TXT, and all record types.
Email Forwarding
Set up professional email addresses and forward to any inbox.
Auto-Renewal
Never lose your domain with automatic renewal protection.
Free 10GB Mailbox
One 10GB mailbox (POP3/IMAP) included with every domain, on any TLD.
Other Business Domains Extensions
Register your .foundation domain today
Secure your .foundation domain from just £28.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
