Until now, Australian domain names were only available for registrations in second level extensions, in particular .COM.AU.
If the decision to open the .AU registration goes back to 2015, it took four years to set the rules!
It seems that starting October 1st, 2019, the holder of the existing .com.au domain name, for example forexample.com.au, will be able to apply for priority status to register the exact match of their existing name in .AU, forexample.au.
The detail of the priority allocation system are below:
- 2 priority status (from 2019/10/01 to 2020/04/01)
–Category 1 : Third level domain names (com.au, net.au, org.au, asn.au, id.au, edu.au, qld.edu.au, nsw.edu.au, eq.edu.au, act.edu.au, vic.edu.au, sa.edu.au, wa.edu.au, nt.edu.au, catholic.edu.au, schools.nsw.edu.au, education.tas.edu.au, sa.au, wa.au, nt.au, qld.au, nsw.au, vic.au, tas.au and act.au) registered on February 4th 2018 at the latest will be assigned to priority category 1 for the registration of the same name in .AU.
–Category 2: Third level domain names registered after February 4th 2018 will be assigned to priority category 2 for the registration of the same name in .AU.
- The date of the general availability is not announced yet.
The registry indicates that more information will be published in the next weeks, we will keep you informed.
The new .AU licensing rules might also come into effect at the fourth quarter of 2019 (for all the extensions: .au, .com.au, .net.au, .org.au, .asn.au, .id.au).
Lastly, we can note that the general availability will allow the registration to individuals/companies which respect the Australian registry’s conditions (local presence in Australia).
For any questions, Nameshield’s teams are at your disposal.
