.wien Domain
Vienna's Official City Domain
Register your .wien domain from just £56.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
A .wien may only be held by someone able to show an economic, cultural, tourist, historical or social connection to Vienna, and who uses the domain accordingly. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .wien domain?
The .wien domain is the city-level TLD for Vienna (Wien in German), Austria's capital. Managed by punkt.wien GmbH, it's one of Europe's most successful city domains. Vienna consistently ranks among the world's most liveable cities and is a centre for arts, music, diplomacy, and international organisations (including the UN). Registration requires a connection to Vienna. The city has 1.9 million residents and millions more tourists annually.
Who should register .wien?
Vienna-based businesses, Austrian cultural institutions, tourism operators, international organisations with Vienna offices, and hospitality brands.
Why choose .wien?
- Official domain for one of Europe's great capital cities
- Connection to Vienna required (keeps the namespace local)
- Vienna is a global hub for culture, diplomacy, and tourism
- Managed by punkt.wien GmbH
Who runs .wien, and since when
Registry data from the .wien 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
- punkt.wien GmbH
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2013
- Delegated 19 December 2013
- Who can register
- Anyone showing an economic, cultural, tourist, historical or social link to Vienna
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £56.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
The Vienna nexus rule, and how .wien enforces it
.wien is a community extension, which in ICANN terms meant the applicant had to define who the community was. punkt.wien did that with what its guidelines call nexus conditions: registration is open to any natural person, legal person, organisation or association intending to show an economic, cultural, tourist, historical, social or other affinity with Vienna. The obligation continues too, because the guidelines require the domain to be used in connection with that affinity throughout the term of registration.
Now the honest part. The registry says outright that, as with .at, no verification procedure is carried out at the time of registration. You certify your own connection and the order goes through. What the guidelines keep is a challenge route: the Eligibility Requirements Dispute Resolution Policy lets a third party ask an independent panel whether you actually met the condition, and a separate ICANN procedure aims at the registry itself where it hands names to unqualified applicants.
Details worth having: .wien went live in March 2014 after a sunrise phase that ended on 30 April 2014, names take lower-case letters, digits and hyphens with a sixty-three character ceiling, and a new registration carries a sixty-day transfer lock.
Who is allowed to register .wien?
A .wien may only be held by someone able to show an economic, cultural, tourist, historical or social connection to Vienna, and who uses the domain accordingly.
- The nexus condition
- punkt.wien limits registration to any natural person, legal person, organisation or association intending to show an economic, cultural, tourist, historical, social or other affinity with the Austrian capital. A tour operator selling Vienna trips qualifies on the tourist limb; a business with no Viennese connection at all does not.
- Use, not just ownership
- The guidelines require the domain to be used in connection with that affinity for the whole term of registration, so the condition is ongoing rather than something satisfied once at the point of order.
- No check at registration
- The registry states that, as with .at, no verification procedure is carried out when a name is registered. The applicant is expected to check their own position first, and is not eligible for a .wien if they do not meet the requirement.
- If you do not qualify
- Eligibility can be reviewed after the fact through the Eligibility Requirements Dispute Resolution Policy, which puts the question to an independent panel and can take the name away. A separate ICANN procedure lets third parties act against punkt.wien itself where it has knowingly allocated names to unqualified applicants.
Rules taken from the .wien General Guidelines. Registry policy can change, so check before you buy if the answer matters to you.
Not sure whether you qualify? Ask us before you order and we will check the registry rules with you. We would rather answer the question than take an order the registry will refuse.
Is .wien the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.wien works well if
- You run a Vienna hotel, restaurant, gallery or venue and want an address that places you in the city rather than in Austria generally.
- You are an international organisation with a Vienna office and want a local address for the local site.
- The .at version of your name has gone. .wien is a much younger namespace and short names still exist in it.
Look elsewhere if
- You have no Viennese connection. The nexus condition is a continuing obligation, and a third party can put it before a dispute panel.
- Price. .wien is one of the dearer endings on this site, it recurs annually, and it addresses an audience of one city.
- You trade across Austria. Vienna in the address reads as a limit to a customer in Graz or Salzburg, and .at does not.
Trading across Austria rather than in the capital? A .at is cheaper here and does not narrow you to one city. See .at pricing.
.wien vs .at: which should you register?
.at is Austria's country code, run by nic.at, open to anyone, and the address an Austrian customer expects by default. .wien is a city extension with a condition attached and a narrower claim. Both point at the same country in a reader's mind, but only one of them narrows to a single city.
The practical difference is what the address rules out. A .at works for a business in Vienna and for one in Innsbruck; a .wien really only works for the first. So it suits businesses whose customers choose on location, hotels, restaurants, clinics and trades, and it suits organisations that want to be visibly of the city. For anything selling across Austria, .at costs less here and does not fence you in. Where both matter, hold the .at and point the .wien at it.
.wien domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .wien domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyYes, if it can show a real connection to Vienna. The nexus condition is about affinity rather than nationality: an economic, cultural, tourist, historical or social link to the city qualifies you wherever you are based. A UK tour operator selling Vienna trips, or a UK company with a Vienna office, is on solid ground. A UK company with no Viennese connection at all is not, and the obligation to use the domain in line with that connection runs for the whole registration.
Not at registration. punkt.wien states that, as with .at, no verification procedure is carried out when a name is registered: you confirm your own position and the order completes. The check comes afterwards, if somebody asks for it. The Eligibility Requirements Dispute Resolution Policy lets a third party put the question of whether you met the condition to an independent panel, and losing that means losing the domain. Self-certification is not the same thing as permission.
For a business whose customers pick on location, yes. A Vienna restaurant, clinic or trade gains from an address that names the city, and the .wien namespace is young enough that short names still exist in it. For a business selling across Austria it is harder to justify, because the city name narrows the claim and .at costs less here. The usual compromise is to keep the .at as the permanent address and run the .wien as the city-facing one.
Included with Your .wien 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 .wien domain today
Secure your .wien domain from just £56.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
