.cloud Domains: An Ending for Cloud and SaaS Products
.cloud entered the root zone on 18 June 2015, and the IANA record names the Italian company ARUBA PEC S.p.A. as the sponsoring organisation. The registry positions the ending for cloud computing, SaaS and technology businesses, startups, developers and creative professionals. The nTLDstats page accessed on 11 August 2026 shows 772,166 names in the zone, placing it among the larger zones in this group.
Although the name carries a technology in it, no requirement to be a cloud provider could be verified, and registry documents set out no such restriction. The rule that follows is useful. Where your product genuinely is a service reached over the network, the address sets the right expectation, because visitors anticipate a subscription rather than an installer. On a page selling desktop software or hardware, the same address makes a promise you do not keep. Try candidates with a domain name search.
.CLOUD Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation ARUBA PEC S.p.A.
- Root zone record 18 June 2015
- Eligibility condition No verified restriction
- Registered names 772,166 (nTLDstats, 11 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .cloud domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 1 - 13 servers
.cloud 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
$29.90 /year -
Transfer
$25.99 /year -
Renewal
$32.89 /year -
Restore
$99.90 -
Late Renewal
$4.38
Included With Every .cloud 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.
.cloud Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .cloud 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 .cloud 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 .cloud 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 $4.38 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 .cloud 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
.cloud Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.cloud Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .cloud domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 1 - 13 servers
.cloud Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .cloud Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No — no such requirement could be verified in registry documents.
ARUBA PEC S.p.A., the sponsoring organisation, defines no eligibility check, and registration appears open to all. The address does set an expectation in the visitor's mind, though, and meeting it gets harder if your product is not reached over the network. Check the state of a name with a domain name search.
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According to the IANA record, the sponsoring organisation is the Italian company ARUBA PEC S.p.A.
The ending entered the root zone on 18 June 2015. It is worth keeping the registry apart from whoever runs the technical backend; the latter can change over time and does not define the identity of the ending. To see the current state of your own record, use whois search.
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Products sold by subscription and reached through a browser or an API.
SaaS dashboards, developer tooling, backup services and hosting products all set the right expectation on this address. On a page offering a desktop installer to download, it promises something else entirely. For the infrastructure to run your application, see the hosting plans.
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What decides is where the product runs, not what it does.
.app points at an application and reads directly for mobile or web app download pages. .cloud foregrounds the infrastructure and the fact that a service is reached remotely, which suits dashboards, APIs and storage products. Details sit on the .app domain page.
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Hard for short names — at 772,166 registrations the zone counts as busy.
That figure comes from the nTLDstats page accessed on 11 August 2026. Most single-word technical terms have gone, while combinations of a brand name and a product name stay available. To sift dozens of variants quickly, use the bulk domain name search.
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Yes — for a service reached over the network, an unencrypted connection is not an option.
Every flow carrying a login, an API key or customer data needs encryption, and the browser warning damages confidence in your product within the first second. Choose a certificate on the SSL certificate page and verify the installation with the SSL checker.
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