.in Domain
India's National Domain
Register your .in domain from just £12.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .in domain?
The .in domain is India's country code, managed by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). India has over 900 million internet users and is the world's fastest-growing major digital economy. A .in domain is the primary choice for businesses targeting Indian consumers, and it performs strongly in Google India search results. Registration is open to anyone worldwide, making it accessible for UK businesses entering the Indian market.
Who should register .in?
Indian businesses, IT services companies, UK firms targeting Indian consumers, and startups building for the Indian market.
Why choose .in?
- India's official country code
- Targets 900+ million internet users
- Open to worldwide registration
- Strong geographic SEO signal for Google India
Who runs .in, and since when
Registry data from the .in 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
- Country-code (ccTLD)
- Registry operator
- National Internet Exchange of India
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1989
- Delegated 8 May 1989
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no nexus test and no local presence requirement
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £12.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
How NIXI opened .in to registrants worldwide
India's country code has been in the root zone since May 1989, but the .in domain anyone registers today is barely twenty years old. For its first fifteen years the extension sat under a restrictive regime that most businesses never bothered with. The National Internet Exchange of India was authorised as the .IN Registry in January 2005, a sunrise window for Indian trade mark holders ran from 1 to 21 January that year, and open registration for everybody else began on 16 February 2005. That is where the modern .in really starts.
What arrived with it was a plain rule that has not changed since. The registry's own policy page says registration in the .in zone is "available freely to all parties worldwide, and there are no nexus or other qualifications". No Indian address, no company registered in India, no documents at the point of order. Five zones are held back for qualified Indian organisations only: ac.in for academic institutions, edu.in for colleges and universities, res.in for research institutes, plus gov.in and mil.in. The plain .in that a UK exporter would want is not one of them. NIXI restated the position in an advisory dated 29 July 2025, saying there had never been any direction restricting .in registration to Indian nationals.
The rules NIXI does enforce
WHOIS privacy is not one of your options. Registry Advisory LA 02 states that "Services like Privacy Protection are not permitted", and that where the registry finds a proxy or privacy registration it can suspend or delete the name. Your registrant details go into the public .in WHOIS and stay there. Only the billing contact is withheld. That is a real difference from a .co.uk, where Nominet's consent rules keep a UK individual's name and address off the public record for free.
NIXI also advised in May 2026 that "auctioning, bidding, speculative sale, or facilitation of auction" of a .in domain is not permissible and counts as a policy violation. If you were eyeing .in as something to buy now and sell on, that is the registry telling you not to.
Mechanically it is undemanding. Names run from three to sixty-three characters, terms from one to ten years, and a domain cannot change registrar in the sixty days after it is created. Our steer is to register a .in when you have a reason to look Indian to Indian customers, and to run it alongside your main address rather than in place of it. Point it at an India-focused page and keep the .co.uk on your invoices.
Is .in the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.in works well if
- You sell into India, or you are hiring there, and you want an address an Indian customer reads as local rather than as a foreign site.
- Your .com and .co.uk are both gone, and the name you actually wanted is still free in a namespace that only opened to the public in 2005.
- You run IT services, software development or outsourcing with an Indian delivery team, and both sides of that relationship recognise the extension on sight.
- You want a country extension you can order this afternoon. There is nothing to evidence, nothing to certify and no waiting on a registry check.
Look elsewhere if
- All your customers are British. Google reads .in as an Indian signal, so on UK searches it works against you rather than for you.
- You want your name and home address kept off the public record. .in forbids privacy services, so whatever you supply gets published.
- You are buying the name to sell on later. NIXI treats auctioning and speculative sale of .in domains as a breach of its policies.
- You wanted something tight and memorable. The minimum length is three characters, so the very short names other extensions still offer do not exist here.
Selling only to UK customers? A .co.uk costs less every year and carries the UK signal in Google that .in cannot. See .co.uk pricing.
.in vs .com: which should you register?
The mistake is treating .in as a cheaper substitute for a .com you could not get. It is not a substitute. It is a geographic claim.
Where .com wins: it is what a customer types by reflex anywhere in the world, it carries no country meaning that could count against you, and privacy is available as a paid add-on if you would rather not publish your home address. Where .in wins: availability, price, and the fact that an Indian customer reading your address in a search result can tell at a glance that you are aimed at them.
If India is one of several markets, run the .com as the permanent address and point the .in at a country page. That gets the local signal without betting the business on one national extension.
| .in | .com | |
|---|---|---|
| Who may register | Anyone worldwide, no nexus test | Anyone worldwide |
| Geographic signal | India | None |
| WHOIS privacy | Prohibited by the registry | Sold as a paid add-on |
| Resale and auctions | Advised against by NIXI | A mature aftermarket |
| In the root zone since | 1989, reopened to all in 2005 | 1985 |
| Good names left | Plenty, in most categories | Very few without hyphens |
.in domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .in domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyYes, with nothing extra to supply. The .IN Registry states that registration is available freely to all parties worldwide with no nexus or other qualifications, and NIXI issued an advisory in July 2025 confirming that .in has never been restricted to Indian nationals. You do not need an Indian address, an Indian company or a local representative. The restricted zones are ac.in, edu.in, res.in, gov.in and mil.in, which are held for qualified Indian organisations, and none of those is the plain .in.
No, and this is the one that catches British buyers out. The .IN Registry's Advisory LA 02 says privacy protection services are not permitted, and that a proxy or privacy registration found by the registry can be suspended or deleted. The registrant, administrative and technical contacts you supply are published in the .in WHOIS; only the billing contact is held back. If you work from home, register the .co.uk instead, where Nominet withholds a UK individual's address at no cost.
It is good for India and unhelpful everywhere else. Google treats .in as a country extension rather than a generic one, so it carries a clear signal that the site is aimed at Indian users. That signal cannot be turned off: Google removed the country targeting setting from Search Console in September 2022, so URL structure now does that work. If your buyers search from Britain, a .in is pointing them away from you, and a .co.uk is the better purchase.
Nothing in eligibility, and very little in practice. Both sit in the unrestricted list on the .IN Registry's policy page, both are open to anyone worldwide, and the co.in level is priced lower at wholesale. The .in at the second level is shorter, more recognisable and the one Indian consumers expect, so it is what most businesses should buy. A co.in is worth taking when the .in has gone and the name still matters more than the extension.
The National Internet Exchange of India, a not-for-profit company registered on 19 June 2003 under section 8 of India's Companies Act. NIXI was set up to run domestic internet peering, and the Government of India authorised it as the .IN Registry from January 2005. It also operates IRINN, the Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers. Because the registry sits under government authority rather than a commercial contract, its advisories carry weight and are worth reading before you register.
Usually a few days rather than the near-instant IPS tag change a .uk domain gets. You will need the authorisation code from your current registrar, the domain unlocked, and it must be more than sixty days past its creation date, because the registry blocks registrar-to-registrar transfers inside that window. The transfer adds a year to the registration and your existing time carries over, so nothing is lost. Every domain we hold includes free DNS management, email forwarding and one free 10GB mailbox.
Included with Your .in 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 Geographic Domains Extensions
Register your .in domain today
Secure your .in domain from just £12.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
