.com
the real second-level .com, if the exact name is still available, with no third-level dependency on a private operator
Domains / Second-level registration namespace under .com
.it.com domains: what buyers need to know
.it.com is a second-level domain operated by it.com Domains Ltd, a UK company, under the .com zone that Verisign runs for ICANN. Names such as example.it.com are technically third-level domains rather than a true top-level domain, though registrars sell and treat them much like any other domain extension.
Facts reviewed 2026-09-12Prices checked 2026-09-12
.it.com at a glance
For a buyer, .it.com works like a budget alternative when the matching .com name is taken or expensive. Registration is open to anyone, with no residency or industry requirement, terms run one to ten years, and roughly 3,000 names are held back as premium listings at higher wholesale prices.
- Registry / delegated manager
- it.com Domains Ltd (UK-incorporated) operates the .it.com second-level namespace and sells third-level registrations under it. The parent .com gTLD itself is delegated by IANA to VeriSign Global Registry Services; .it.com has no separate IANA root-zone delegation of its own.
- Type
- Second-level namespace under the .com gTLD; names registered by customers (e.g. example.it.com) are technically third-level domains.
- Country association
- Not a restricted or officially country-linked namespace. Marketed with an Italy/IT (information technology) theme but there is no residency or citizenship requirement, unlike the Italian ccTLD .it.
- Delegated (IANA record date)
- Not applicable: .it.com has no independent IANA delegation record. The IANA record for the parent .com zone shows a registration date of 1985-01-01 for VeriSign, which predates and is unrelated to the .it.com namespace.
verified against the linked source not verified, not inferred from another extension sources disagree
Compare .it.com prices
| Provider | Registration | Renewal | Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenproviderNon-member prices | $31.901 year totalChecked 2026-09-12 | $31.901 year totalChecked 2026-09-12 | $31.90Transfer fee · confirm termChecked 2026-09-12 |
| AI VikingsPublic price list | $27.78Listed price · confirm termChecked 2026-09-12 · source 2026-09-12 | $34.79Listed price · confirm termChecked 2026-09-12 · source 2026-09-12 | $29.18Transfer fee · confirm termChecked 2026-09-12 · source 2026-09-12 |
| OpusDNSBusiness customers | Check dashboard pricingBusiness customers only | Check dashboard pricingBusiness customers only | Check dashboard pricingBusiness customers only |
| PorkbunPublic API prices | Check providerNo current public quote | Check providerNo current public quote | Check providerNo current public quote |
Advertised prices for standard names, not an availability check. USD as published; taxes and final fees are confirmed at the provider. How we compare All 28 extensions
Who runs .it.com?
- Policy authorityit.com Domains LtdSets the rules the registry and registrars follow
- Registry for .it.comit.com Domains LtdDelegated manager: VeriSign Global Registry Services (parent .com) · Owned by Intis Telecom · Backend: it.com Domains Ltd (RSP.it.com)
- RegistrarsOpenprovider, AI Vikings, OpusDNS, Porkbun and othersSell registrations and pass the wholesale fee to the registry
- RegistrantYouHold the individual name for the term you have paid for
The parent zone, .com, is delegated by IANA to VeriSign Global Registry Services, which has run .com since 1985. VeriSign has nothing to do with .it.com beyond hosting the zone it lives inside. The actual .it.com namespace is operated by it.com Domains Ltd, a UK-incorporated company that sells third-level names like example.it.com through registrars such as GoDaddy, Namecheap and Dynadot. ICANNWiki describes it.com Domains Ltd as a venture of Intis Telecom, a telecoms and messaging outfit that bought the it.com domain for roughly US $3.8 million in 2021. One registrar's help page names "Telecom Inc." as the sponsor instead of Intis Telecom, so the corporate paper trail doesn't quite line up across sources.
What this means in practice: the "registry" is it.com Domains Ltd, and it sets the prices, the premium name lists and the registration rules. The "registrar" is whoever you actually buy from, GoDaddy or Namecheap or similar, handling billing, support and your account. The "registrant" is you, whose name ends up in the WHOIS record for the third-level domain. Since .it.com isn't a separate entry in the DNS root, day-to-day technical policy rests with it.com Domains Ltd rather than any country registry or directly IANA-delegated operator.
- Delegated managerVeriSign Global Registry Services (parent .com)IANA-listed sponsoring organisation for the parent .com gTLD. This is the delegated manager of .com, not of the .it.com namespace, which sits beneath .com without its own root-zone entry. source
- Registry operatorit.com Domains LtdUK-incorporated private company (London) that operates the .it.com second-level domain and markets third-level registrations such as example.it.com; sold through registrars including GoDaddy, Namecheap, Dynadot and others. source
- Corporate parentIntis TelecomInternational telecoms/messaging company with offices in the UK, US and Hong Kong. it.com Domains is described as a private venture developed from Intis Telecom, which acquired the it.com domain for about US $3.8 million in 2021. source
- Technical backendit.com Domains Ltd (RSP.it.com)it.com Domains Ltd runs its own registry back end, marketed to other operators as RSP.it.com; no third-party back-end provider is named for the namespace. source
- Policy authorityit.com Domains LtdAs a privately operated namespace under .com, .it.com has no ICANN registry agreement of its own; it.com Domains Ltd publishes the registration, pricing and premium policies that registrars apply, while the parent it.com name remains subject to Verisign's .com rules. source
Who can register .it.com, and what are the rules?
.it.com is a free-for-all. Anyone anywhere, whether you're a lone freelancer or a multinational, can grab a name first-come, first-served. No citizenship test, no residency requirement, no industry restriction, per registrar documentation and the registry's own FAQ. That's a pointed contrast with Italy's actual ccTLD, .it, which locks registration to residents and organisations tied to the EU/EEA, as a guide to .it eligibility lays out. .it.com has no such tie to Italy, despite borrowing the country code wholesale.
The rules that do exist live at the registry level, spelled out in the pricing and policies document, and they govern the string itself rather than who's typing it. Names run 1 to 63 characters, English letters, digits and dashes only, no leading or trailing dash, no spaces. Individuals, businesses and organisations can all register for any legal purpose, on terms from 1 to 10 years. Anything beyond that, ID checks, WHOIS privacy, payment verification, comes down to whichever registrar you use. That's registrar policy, not registry rule, and it varies a fair bit from one provider to the next.
Renewing, transferring and expiring a .it.com name
.it.com registrations run for a minimum of one year and a maximum of ten, and renewals follow the same range, according to the registry's own pricing and policies document (it.com Domains). That document also states that a transfer automatically extends a name by one year, and lists a registry-level transfer price of USD 25, the same figure it gives for new registration and renewal.
Retail prices differ by registrar. Netim, for instance, lists a transfer fee of €23.50 excluding VAT and a restoration fee of €60 excluding VAT (Netim), which suggests some kind of redemption or restore process kicks in once a name lapses.
What the registry's policy document does not spell out is a grace period, a redemption period, or a pending-delete window, the stages .com itself and most gTLDs publish in detail. None of the available sources confirm how long a lapsed example.it.com stays recoverable before release, or exactly when the restoration fee kicks in. Because .it.com sits a level below .com, it is also unclear whether the standard ICANN transfer-authorisation and lock rules apply the same way they would to a direct .com registration. Check these points with your registrar rather than assume .com-style timelines carry over.
Is .it.com right for this project?
Three situations make the trade-offs clearer.
A small software consultancy wants a short, memorable address and finds every plausible .com already taken or sitting on a resale list with a painful price tag. Registering the equivalent name under .it.com costs far less and keeps the familiar .com ending visible in the address bar. The catch is that anyone who looks closely will see it is a third-level name under someone else's second-level domain, not a standalone .com.
A domain investor is drawn to the premium list, priced from USD 590 to USD 7,590 across seven tiers (pricing document). The namespace is young, one registrar's account describes it as opened for public registration in 2023, and it sits under a single private UK company rather than a globally delegated registry. Weigh that concentration of control, and the short track record, against any hope of future resale demand.
A business already holding its main .com wants a cheap defensive registration to stop someone else grabbing a confusingly similar name. An it.com equivalent handles that job for little money, without touching the primary domain.
None of this makes .it.com better or worse than a direct .com or another extension. It is a different kind of asset: a third-level name, sold through ordinary registrars, riding on the .com brand without actually being one. Whether that suits you comes down to a simple question: do you need a standalone, independently delegated domain, or can you live with a namespace layered on top of someone else's?
.it.com alternatives
.co
a short, globally open alternative when a wanted .com name is taken, without the it.com prefix or its wordplay
.io
widely used by software and tech products as an independent gTLD rather than a namespace layered under .com
.dev
aimed specifically at developers and technical projects, run as its own registry rather than a second-level scheme
.it.com questions
Is .it.com connected to Italy's official domain?
No. .it.com is a second-level namespace run by a UK company, it.com Domains Ltd, sitting under the regular .com gTLD. There's no residency or citizenship requirement attached to it. Italy's actual ccTLD, .it, is a completely different thing, and it does restrict registration to the EEA plus a short list of other states.
Sources: get.it.com, tld-list.com
Who actually controls .it.com if it has no IANA delegation?
it.com Domains Ltd is a UK-incorporated company that runs .it.com as a namespace sitting under the .com gTLD. That gTLD is delegated by IANA to VeriSign. VeriSign has no policy role in .it.com whatsoever, it just operates the parent .com zone.
Sources: iana.org, rsp.it.com
Can anyone register a name under .it.com?
Yes. Registration is open worldwide, first come first served. No citizenship requirement, no residency requirement, no need to be in a particular industry.
Sources: aeserver.com, get.it.com
What does a premium it.com name cost?
The registry has roughly 3,000 names flagged as premium, sorted into seven wholesale price tiers that run from USD 590 up to USD 7,590. Prices can shift too, and the only warning you get is that registrars are told first, not the rest of us.
Sources: get.it.com
Does .it.com support DNSSEC?
Sources disagree here. The registry's own blog talks up full DNSSEC support alongside SSL compatibility, but at least one reseller lists DNSSEC as unsupported for this extension. Check with your registrar before you rely on it either way.
Sources: get.it.com, netim.com
Sources and accountability
Facts on this page were checked against the sources below on 2026-09-12. Prices come from the public sources described in the methodology and carry their own check dates. Registry facts and retail prices are refreshed on different schedules.
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- IANA root zone record iana
- IT.COM registry
- Registry Service Provider – it.com Domains registry
- It.com - ICANNWiki news
- About .it.com domains | Domains - GoDaddy Help registrar
- it.com Domains Listed by ICANN as an Evaluated Registry Service Provider news
- What is an .it.com extension? | it.com Domains registry
- Second Level Domain Information registry
- The it.com Domain Name Prices and Pricing Policies registry
- .it.com Domain Registration - Get .it.com Domain now! | AEserver registrar
- .it.com Domain Name - IT Sector | Netim registrar
- Buy domain IT.COM - Registration of IT.COM domains | Regery.com registrar