.work domains: who runs the registry and who can register

Anyone can register a .work domain. There's no eligibility check, no need to prove you run a business or list a job, nothing of the sort. It's first-come, first-served, full stop, according to GoDaddy's help documentation.

The registry does impose some ground rules: a minimum one-year term, a maximum of ten, and names running between 1 and 63 characters using standard domain syntax. These are set at the registry level, so they apply no matter which registrar you buy from.

Pricing is where registrars start to differ, and premium names are the wrinkle to watch for. The registry flags certain strings within .work as premium, which means higher registration and renewal fees than you'd pay for a standard name, as TLD-List notes. Whether the name you actually want falls into that bracket, and what it costs, is something to check with a registrar directly rather than assume beforehand.

A .work domain moves between registrars the same way most generic top-level domains do. The losing registrar issues an authorisation code, the registrant unlocks the domain, and the gaining registrar submits the transfer through the standard EPP process. ICANN's transfer policy applies here, including the lock periods it sets after registration, a transfer, or a change of registrant contact details.

Terms run from 1 to 10 years, set at registration or renewal, as confirmed by GoDaddy's .work registration guide. Because .work operates under a standard, non-sponsored ICANN registry agreement, it falls under the Expired Registration Recovery Policy, which requires a redemption grace period of 30 days after deletion. During that window the previous registrant can restore the name, but DNS resolution stays switched off the whole time.

What isn't published anywhere: the actual restore fee for .work names, and any registry-specific grace period beyond the ICANN minimum. Those figures sit with individual registrars rather than the registry itself, so check your registrar's own fee schedule before you let a renewal lapse.

No named, verifiable .work sites turn up in the sources we checked, so none are cited here, guessing would be worse than saying nothing. From what's out there,.work tends to pull in personal portfolios, small business landing pages, and internal tools, the kind of site where the word itself does the explaining. Big consumer brands mostly stay away.

A few practical things before you go live. The registry agreement puts no HTTPS or HSTS mandate on .work registrants, unlike some other new gTLDs, so certificate setup is on you and your host, not a registry requirement. And because .work is still a newer, less common extension, some spam filters and corporate email gateways treat unfamiliar TLDs with extra suspicion. If you plan to send mail from a @yourname.work address rather than just using it as a web front end, test deliverability early, don't assume it'll behave like a .com.

It suits a narrow, single-purpose site well, a portfolio or an internal tool, where the word "work" sets the right expectations from the start. For a public-facing commercial brand, though, it's usually safer to run .work as a redirect or secondary domain alongside something more conventional. One naming tip: keep the part before .work short, and don't repeat the word itself. "myworkwork.work" reads badly and is a mouthful to say out loud.