How Is My .EU Domain Affected by Brexit?
The United Kingdom left the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA) on February 1, 2020. To allow UK organisations time to align with new regulations, a transition period was decided, which is due to end on December 31, 2020.
In line with the .EU registry regulations, beginning January 1, 2021, you will no longer be able to register or renew your domain if one or both applies:
- Your organization or business is established in the UK but not in the EU/EEA
- You live outside of the EU/EEA, and you are not an EU/EEA citizen
If it’s not possible for you to establish the appropriate entity or residence within the EU/EEA, your .EU domain names will be withdrawn and will no longer work. This means you may not be able to access your .EU websites or email from January 1, 2021.
How Do I Update My Contact Information?
If you are a .EU domain holder in the UK and want to continue using your domain, you will need to swap your domain contact information to an eligible contact who must:
- Be an EU/EEA citizen (regardless of where they live)
- Be a resident of the EU/EEA
- Run an organization or business established in the EU/EA
You have until Dec 31, 2020 to update your contact information.
If you aren’t able to change your details for any reason, please contact our Customer Support Team who are ready to help and review your options.
What Happens If I Don’t Update It?
On January 1, 2021, any .EU domain that still has a UK registrant contact will be disabled. This means that any website, email, or associated service will stop working, and no changes can be made to the domain.
Will I Need A New Top-Level Domain?
If you are a UK resident or organization with no residence or legal entity in the EEA, then yes… you will need to register a new top-level domain (TLD). Fortunately, there is a wide variety of globally recognized domains available to choose from, including .COM, .CO.UK, and .LONDON.If you have further questions, our Support Team is also here with any advice you need.
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This info is out of date. According to Article 4(2)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 733/2002, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2019/517, as of 19 October 2019 European Union citizens, independently of their place of residence, can also hold a .eu domain, and should be able to provide a citizenship code for their EU country. So what Namecheap needs to do (and all the other registrars), is to update their systems to allow their customers to provide their citizenship code, so that EU citizens residing in the UK can still retain their .eu domains as per the EU regulations.
Namecheap is aware of the regulation and our Customer Support team will be glad to update the country of citizenship for existing .eu domains, or when registering new ones, for EU citizens regardless of residence. Currently we don’t have the functionality for customers to be able to do this themselves.