.vip Domain
Exclusive Access Starts Here
Register your .vip domain from just £21.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .vip domain?
The .vip domain is for brands that offer premium experiences, exclusive memberships, or VIP services. Nightclubs with VIP lists, loyalty programme portals, and premium subscription services all benefit from a domain that tells visitors they're getting something special. It's also used by Chinese businesses, where "VIP" is widely understood as a marker of prestige.
Who should register .vip?
Nightclubs, loyalty programmes, premium membership platforms, and exclusive service providers.
Why choose .vip?
- Signals exclusivity and premium access
- Widely understood internationally
- Popular in Chinese business culture
- Perfect for membership portals
Who runs .vip, and since when
Registry data from the .vip 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
- Registry Services, LLC
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2015
- Delegated 30 July 2015
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide on a first-come, first-served basis, with no membership scheme
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £21.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
What .vip promises, and who should avoid it
Every other extension on this page describes the site. .vip describes the visitor. That is an unusual thing for a domain to do, and it sets a bar. The address tells somebody they are about to be treated as important, and the next thing they see either honours that or does not. A members area, a concierge booking form and a priority support desk all clear it. A brochure page with a contact form does not, and the gap between the promise and the page shows up faster here than anywhere else in this category.
Mechanically it is the cheapest extension on this page and one of the shortest strings in the root zone at three characters. GoDaddy Registry, trading as Registry Services, LLC, has held the contract since 14 September 2021, when it transferred from Minds and Machines Group Limited, the operator that ran it from delegation in 2015. The registry states on its own site that anyone can register a .vip worldwide on a first-come, first-served basis, so there is no membership scheme behind it, no verification and no gate of any kind.
The trap is outbound email. An unsolicited message from an address ending .vip, offering exclusive access, is the exact shape of the thing recipients have been trained to delete. If your .vip is a portal people log into after they already know you, that never comes up. If it is the return address on cold outreach, expect resistance a .co.uk would not attract, and expect some of it from spam filters rather than people.
Is .vip the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.vip works well if
- You run a membership, a loyalty tier or a concierge service and want a separate address for the people already inside it.
- You need the shortest possible address for a QR code, a wristband or a lanyard, and three characters after the dot helps.
- Your main site sits on another extension and this becomes the door to the paid or private side of it.
- You sell an experience where priority is the product, so an address that sets that expectation is doing useful work.
Look elsewhere if
- It will be the return address on cold email. VIP plus an unknown sender reads as a scam long before it reads as an offer.
- Nothing behind the address is actually exclusive. An ordinary brochure site on a .vip invites the visitor to ask what they were promised.
- Your customers search locally in the UK. A .co.uk is what Google reads as British, and it costs less than half as much each year.
Just want a normal business address? A .co.uk sets no expectation you then have to live up to. See .co.uk pricing.
.vip vs .com: which should you register?
A .com makes no claim at all, and that is its strength. It fits a plumber, a hedge fund and a charity equally well because the word after the dot means nothing. A .vip makes a specific claim about the person reading it, which is either the best thing about the address or the worst, depending entirely on what is behind it.
Both are three characters, both are open to anyone, and both are cheap by the standards of this category. Where they part company is expectation. Nobody arrives at a .com braced to be impressed. Somebody clicking a .vip has been told they are getting special treatment before the page has loaded, so the design, the copy and the service all have to be a notch above what would pass elsewhere.
The usual answer for a business running a paid tier is both: the .com or .co.uk as the public address, the .vip as the members entrance. That keeps the promise attached to the part of the business that can keep it.
| .vip | .com | |
|---|---|---|
| What it describes | The visitor | Nothing in particular |
| Registry | Registry Services, LLC (GoDaddy Registry) | VeriSign |
| In the root zone since | 2015 | 1985 |
| Typed by default | Never | Almost always |
| Expectation it sets | High, and yours to meet | None |
.vip domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .vip domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyAnyone in the world. GoDaddy Registry states on its own .vip page that registration is open globally on a first-come, first-served basis, with no membership, no verification and no local presence rule. There is nothing to prove and nothing to send in. That also means the extension guarantees your visitors nothing, so whatever exclusivity the address implies has to be delivered by the site rather than by the registry.
It depends who they already are. Existing members clicking through to a portal read it as a badge, and it works. Strangers meeting your brand for the first time on an unsolicited email read it as a warning sign, because the same word has been used by a great many things they would rather not open. The rule of thumb we give customers is simple: a .vip is for people who already know you. Use something plainer for first contact.
Registry Services, LLC, which trades as GoDaddy Registry, according to the IANA root zone database. It has held the contract since 14 September 2021, when it transferred from Minds and Machines Group Limited, the company that took .vip through delegation in 2015. For a registrant nothing about the technical service changed with the handover, but pricing and policy for the extension are now set by the same operator that runs a large portfolio of other strings.
It is neutral. Google treats new generic extensions the same as .com and .org, and states that a keyword in the extension gives neither an advantage nor a penalty. The practical search question is geographic rather than lexical: a .vip carries no country signal, so if your customers search from the UK, a .co.uk will do more for local visibility. Use the .vip where it earns its place, which is the click and the membership framing, not the ranking.
Included with Your .vip 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 Lifestyle Domains Extensions
Register your .vip domain today
Secure your .vip domain from just £21.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
