About .ca Domains
Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is the registry for .ca domain names.
Restrictions
Domain names can be up to 63 characters, and can contain letters (a to z), numbers (0 to 9), and hyphens (except as the first or last characters of the domain name). You cannot register domain names with special characters such as & and #.
| Features | Availability |
|---|---|
| Registration length | 1 - 10 years |
| Renewal length | 1 - 10 years |
| Transfers to | Supported (details below 1) |
| Transfers away | Supported |
| Private Registration | Supported (details below 2) |
| Protected Registration | Supported |
| Contact updates | Supported (details below 3) |
| Nameserver requirements | Details Below 4 |
| Backorders | Not supported |
| Bulk Registration | Supported |
| Account change | Supported |
| IDNs | é, ë, ê, è, â, à, æ, ô, œ, ù, û, ü, ç, î, ï and ÿ |
Note: CIRA periodically audits domain names to ensure they conform to eligibility requirements. If CIRA cannot confirm the new registrant's eligibility status, CIRA might request information from you to prove your eligibility. You must send them the requested information within the specified time frame to avoid deactivation of your .ca domain names.
Who can register .ca domains?
See Registering a .CA domain for details about who can register .ca domains and how.
1Transfer Exceptions
Note: CIRA restricts domains from transfer for the first 65 days of registration.
- When a domain transfer takes place, it must be initiated for every variant (IDN) of that .ca domain name. If all variants are not transferred, the transfer will fail.
- On the Pending Transfers page in the Domain Manager, your administrative contact's email address displays as nocontactsfound@secureserver.net because we cannot access your Whois contact information.
- Transfers normally take five to seven days from the time you authorize them. However, a .ca transfer goes through immediately after you enter the authorization code and click Finish.
If the domain name expired, you have 30 days from the expiration date to transfer it to us. To transfer a .ca domain name to us within that 30-day expiration grace period, contact our Support department for assistance.
2Private Registration
CIRA automatically applies its own private registration to new .ca domain names. Specifically, CIRA limits the personal information that displays in the Whois database for the following legal types:
- Canadian citizens
- Permanent residents
- Legal representatives
- Aboriginal persons
If you registered a .ca domain name as an individual registrant, you can contact our support department to cancel or re-add private registration.
3Contact Update Exceptions
All contact updates can be submitted through your account, including the Canadian Legal Type.
To update the Canadian Legal Type, you will need to complete the following steps:
- Go to the Domain Settings page
- Under Additional Settings at the bottom of the page, click Edit next to .ca CIRA Agreement.
- Select the new Legal Type from the dropdown.
- Check the box to agree to the terms and click Save.
Note: Review the section above for details on Private Registration2 and how that might be applied based on the Canadian Legal Type selected.
Renewals
CIRA automatically renews .ca domain names on their expiration dates. If you do not pay for the renewal within 30 days of the expiration date, you can attempt to recover your .ca domain name, and there might be a fee to do so. See Recovering expired domain names for instructions.
Refund details
For details on refunds, please visit GoDaddy's Refund Policy page.
Most domains will follow the Standard Terms, but certain domains will have exceptions or may not be refundable at all. Look under BOTH of the following categories:
- Products with Special Refund Terms (look under Domain Name Registrations/Renewals)
- Products Not Eligible for Refunds
Nameserver requirements 4
You can have a maximum of six nameservers per .ca domain name. Each nameserver must have a unique IP address.
Only one IPv4 address and only one IPv6 address allowed per host.
Once your .CA nameservers have been registered, you can add them to your .CA domain name. To add custom nameservers to your domain name, you will need to set the host name and IP addresses for each nameserver. Then you can assign the nameservers to your domain name.
Tax Information
All .ca registrants must pay the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and might need to pay Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), which is GST and the Provincial Sales Tax (PST).
For disputes with .CA domains, please see Dispute resolution process for .CA domains.
