The .guru Domain: A Short Route to an Expertise Claim
.guru was recorded in the root zone on 31 October 2013 and its ICANN registry agreement is dated 27 August 2013, with Binky Moon, LLC as the contracting party — the earliest pair of dates among the endings around it. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 shows 83,362 registrations, of which 56,115 appear in the zone file.
Consultants, trainers, freelancers and personal brands built around one narrow subject make up most of the zone. There is no eligibility condition. Try candidates through a .guru domain search, and compare the ending that entered the root zone on the very same day on the .holdings page.
Under the commitment in the registry agreement, the operator runs this zone without any identity-based eligibility limit: nobody is asked for a qualification, a registration number or a reference. The address therefore asserts expertise rather than demonstrating it. Closing that gap is the page's job — three specific pieces of work, a named reference, a measurable outcome and, where relevant, a certificate number. Without them the same address works against you and reads as bluster.
.GURU Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Binky Moon, LLC
- Infrastructure provider Identity Digital Limited
- ICANN registry agreement 27 August 2013
- Root zone record 31 October 2013
- Registered names 83,362 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 56,115 names, about 67%
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .guru domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.guru 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
$3.99 /year -
Transfer
$42.89 /year -
Renewal
$46.19 /year -
Restore
$134.90 -
Late Renewal
$7.32
Included With Every .guru 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.
.guru Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .guru 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 .guru 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 .guru 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 $7.32 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 .guru 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
.guru Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.guru Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .guru domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.guru Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .guru Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No. The registry commits to running this zone without any identity-based eligibility limit.
Professional regulation, however, works independently of domain names. Where the work requires a licence, the authority comes from the activity rather than the address, so showing your registration number on the page is both accurate and protective. Where you hold no such authority, state the limits of the service plainly.
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A name lasts, while this ending explains the subject; most people end up using both.
Your field of expertise can shift, your name will not. Running the main site on your name and keeping the topic address on this ending gives you room to change without losing the identity. Link the two and avoid publishing the same text in both places.
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Of 83,362 registrations, 56,115 appear in the zone file — about 67%.
One name in three has never gone live, which is the pattern you would expect around a word with figurative weight: names get taken and held for later. If the root you wanted is gone, generate alternatives and run them together through the bulk domain name search.
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The one describing how you work and what falls inside the scope — that is what visitors come to check.
Say how long a first conversation takes, what gets delivered, and what the steps are. Give references with names and outcomes attached. Say what you do not take on as well: it keeps unsuitable enquiries from eating the time you meant to spend on clients.
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Yes. It runs on an authorisation code and the registry asks for no extra documents.
In one-person practices who holds the registration matters: if it stands in the name of an agency or a former developer, authorisation becomes the obstacle at exactly the wrong moment. Check who holds it today from the whois search page and fix the ownership first if needed.
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