.blue Domains: Short, Neutral and Easy to Say
.blue entered the root zone on 23 January 2014, and its registry is Identity Digital Limited; the extension comes from the former Afilias portfolio. Four letters and a single syllable make it easy to say over the phone, print on a card and hold in memory. Because it describes no sector, the meaning arrives entirely from the rest of the name and from the brand behind it.
No published eligibility condition could be verified. It shares a registry with its colour-family sibling .black, and the difference is one of tone: one reads sharp and high-contrast, the other calm and institutional. That is why community sites, public sector and health projects, and brands whose identity is already blue tend to reach for this one. Decide by reading the whole name aloud; if it is not clean in the ear, brevity alone will not save it.
.BLUE Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Identity Digital Limited
- Root zone record 23 January 2014
- Eligibility condition No verified restriction
- Sibling extension .black, from the same registry
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .blue domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 1 - 13 servers
.blue Domain Prices — No Surprise Fees
Registration, transfer and renewal fees are listed separately. The renewal price can differ from the first-year price, so you see both up front.
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New Registration
$22.99 /year -
Transfer
$24.69 /year -
Renewal
$26.59 /year -
Restore
$109.90 -
Late Renewal
$4.10
Included With Every .blue Domain
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Free DNS management
Change A, MX, TXT and CNAME records yourself from the panel — no waiting on anyone when you move a site or mailbox.
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Domain lock
While the lock is on, nobody can move your domain to another registrar without your approval.
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Domain forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
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Free WHOIS privacy
Your name, address and phone stay out of public WHOIS records, which cuts down spam and scam calls.
.blue Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .blue domain is put on Client Hold on its expiry date, so the site and e-mail stop that same day. You can still renew during the first 20 days, but from this point a late renewal fee is added on top of the renewal price. On day 20 the registration is deleted and until day 50 only a paid restore brings it back. Nothing at all can be done in the 5 days that follow, and on day 55 the name is open to anyone. There is exactly one way never to enter this chain: keep auto-renewal on.
Domain Is Available (Available)
A .blue address at this stage has not been taken yet, and it goes to whoever registers first. Check the name you have in mind — if it is free, it can be yours within minutes.
Domain Is Active (Active Period)
Once registration is complete, the domain is registered to you for the term you selected. You can renew at any point before it expires to keep it active, or switch on auto-renewal so you never have to watch the date.
Renewal Window (Client Hold)
On its expiry date your .blue domain is put on Client Hold: the site and e-mail go down that day, but the registration is still yours. A single renewal within these first 20 days brings everything back exactly as it was — nothing is lost. The only difference is that a $4.10 late renewal fee is now added to the renewal price; renewing before the expiry date avoids that fee entirely.
Redemption Period (Redemption / RGP)
On day 20 the registration is deleted and the 30-day redemption period that ICANN requires of every gTLD registry begins. The name is not released to anyone during this time; only you can take it back, by paying the restore fee, until day 50. That fee is far higher than a renewal — renewing on time is always the cheaper route.
Pending Delete (Pending Delete)
Once the redemption window closes too, the domain enters its final 5 days and there is no way back. Neither renewal nor restore works here; nobody — your registrar included — can return the name to you. The registry uses this window as the last hold before the name goes back into the pool.
Open to Anyone Again (Released)
On day 55 the name .blue returns to the pool and anyone can register it. Sought-after names are often gone within seconds, and there is no guaranteed way to get one back. Yet staying out of this timeline is entirely in your hands: leave auto-renewal on and the expiry date will never catch you off guard.
The timeline above is the schedule Atak Domain applies and publishes. The ICANN chart you will find elsewhere shows a renewal window of up to 45 days after expiry; ICANN's policy on expired registrations (section 2.2.1) lets registrars delete an expired domain at any time, provided they disclose their policy in advance. We apply that window as 20 days and publish it here in plain sight. Full text of the policy: ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy
.blue Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.blue Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .blue domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 1 - 13 servers
.blue Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .blue Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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Both answer to the same registry, so the choice is one of tone. If your identity is already blue, or you want a calm and reassuring register, this name reads more consistently. If you are building a sharp language — contrast, night themes, limited drops — the other lands better. When undecided, run the same root across both endings with a bulk domain name search.
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No published eligibility condition could be verified; the name appears open on a first-come basis. There is no restriction by sector, location or type of organisation, and the ordering flow carries no extra approval step. That means the name can be secured quickly — and equally that short roots go early. Keep your candidate list wide and settle on alternatives in advance.
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The ending itself brings no ranking; the contribution is indirect. A short address that is easy to say gets typed directly more often, shared more often and sits more cleanly inside link text, and those three add up over time. Content and page structure remain the deciding factors. So do not make brevity the only criterion — clarity in the ear and resistance to misspelling matter more.
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According to the project's registry data, DNSSEC is supported on this extension. DNSSEC signs DNS answers so that forged replies become detectable, which is a meaningful layer against redirection of a brand name. You enable it through your DNS provider, and the signing records must reach the registry. On the certificate side, you can inspect what is served with an SSL checker.
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Yes, the extension is transferable and the flow matches other generic endings. You remove the lock at the current registrar, collect the authorisation code and start the request at the new one. The name is expected not to have been registered or transferred in the previous 60 days. Checking who currently appears on the ownership record with a whois search is a good habit before you begin.
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