.vet Domain
The Trusted Domain for Veterinary Practices
Register your .vet domain from just £34.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .vet domain?
The .vet domain gives veterinary surgeries, animal hospitals, and pet care professionals an address that pet owners recognise on sight. When someone's dog is limping or their cat won't eat, they're not browsing leisurely. A .vet domain cuts through the clutter and tells them they've found qualified help.
Who should register .vet?
Veterinary surgeries, animal hospitals, mobile vets, and pet healthcare providers.
Why choose .vet?
- Instantly recognised by pet owners
- Short enough for van signage
- Builds trust before the first visit
- Clear alternative to longer .co.uk addresses
Who runs .vet, and since when
Registry data from the .vet 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
- Dog Beach, LLC
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 22 May 2014
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no veterinary registration check
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £34.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
What .vet means on either side of the Atlantic
Say vet in Kettering and everyone pictures an animal. Say it in Kansas and a good number of people picture a military veteran, and the .vet domain has been sold into both meanings since it launched. For a British practice that ambiguity costs nothing at home, where the word has one reading and pet owners get it on sight. It only matters when the same address has to work for an American audience, where those three letters point two ways.
The more useful thing to understand is what the word carries in UK law. Veterinary surgeon is a protected title under the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966, and section 20 makes it an offence for an unregistered person to use that title or any name, title or description implying registration. The same section reaches descriptions used in connection with a business. A domain name is a description, and it ends up on the van, the invoice and the sign above the door. Groomers, pet physiotherapists, hydrotherapy centres and pet food brands should weigh that before buying one. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons keeps the register anybody can check.
Nothing at the registry end restrains any of this. Dog Beach operates .vet on the Identity Digital platform, it was delegated in May 2014, and there is no registration check of any kind. Its ICANN agreement adds the general safeguards written for regulated sectors, but not the credential promise that its sibling .lawyer carries.
If a person not registered in the register takes or uses the title of veterinary surgeon or any name, title, addition or description implying that he is so registered, he shall be guilty of an offence.
What that means if you are buying one
This is a description test rather than a title test, which is the part people miss. Nobody is going to prosecute over a domain in isolation. But an address gets quoted on signage, invoices and adverts, and if the business behind it offers animal treatment with no registered surgeon involved, the domain becomes one more piece of the same impression.
Is .vet the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.vet works well if
- You are an RCVS-registered practice and the address has to survive being read out over the phone by a worried owner with a dog in the car.
- Your practice name is long. A short front name plus .vet fits a van door and a Google Business Profile far better than the four-word .co.uk you were quoted.
- You run several branches under one brand and want a clean hub address that no single town name would suit.
- You want a distinct address for out of hours or emergency cover that a client can remember without looking it up.
Look elsewhere if
- You are not on the RCVS register. Grooming, boarding and pet retail are legitimate businesses, but a .vet address implies clinical qualification you do not hold.
- Almost all your clients live within a few miles. A .co.uk carries a UK signal in Google that .vet does not, and costs far less every year.
- You market to the United States as well, where vet is read as veteran at least as often as veterinarian and the address stops explaining itself.
One practice serving one town? The .co.uk is still what local owners type, and it costs a fraction of this. See .co.uk pricing.
.vet vs .co.uk: which should you register?
Nearly every veterinary practice in Britain already sits on a .co.uk, so the real question is whether .vet is worth adding or worth moving to.
.co.uk wins on the things that decide most cases: it is what a local owner types without thinking, Google reads it as a United Kingdom site, it costs a small fraction as much, and a transfer between registrars is near instant because it is only an IPS tag change. .vet wins on brevity and on meaning. It gets a long practice name down to something that fits a van, and it tells a stranger what you are before they read a word of the page.
The pragmatic answer for most practices is to keep the .co.uk as the address on the paperwork and register the .vet alongside it, as a redirect or for a campaign. That is one extra renewal a year and it removes the choice entirely.
| .vet | .co.uk | |
|---|---|---|
| UK search signal | None | Yes, treated as UK-targeted |
| Annual cost | Several times higher | Low |
| Transfer speed | Hours to days | Near instant via IPS tag |
| WHOIS privacy | Paid add-on | Free for UK individuals |
| Says what you do | Immediately | Only if the name does |
.vet domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .vet domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. There is no check at registration and the registry agreement contains no clause asking you to represent that you hold veterinary credentials. UK law is the real constraint. Section 20 of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 makes it an offence for an unregistered person to use a description implying registration, and that section covers descriptions used in connection with a business, which a domain name plainly is.
It is risky and usually unnecessary. Nothing stops the registration going through, but a .vet address on a business offering animal treatment invites the reading that a registered surgeon is involved. If one is not, you are relying on the rest of the site to correct an impression the address created. A .pet or a .co.uk built on your own trading name does the job without the ambiguity.
Both, depending on where the reader is. In the UK, Ireland and Australia the word means veterinary surgeon and nothing else in everyday speech. In the United States it is read as military veteran at least as readily, and the extension has been marketed to that audience too. For a British practice serving British owners this is a non-issue; for anything with an American audience it is worth a moment.
Not for local search, which is where practices win clients. Google treats .co.uk as a United Kingdom signal and .vet as a generic extension with no country attached, so the .co.uk starts marginally ahead on searches like vets near me. Where .vet wins is brevity and recognition: it shortens a long practice name and identifies you before anyone reads the page. Holding both is the common answer.
Included with Your .vet 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 Professional Domains Extensions
Register your .vet domain today
Secure your .vet domain from just £34.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
