GDPR regulations have made providing additional information for registration of the .UK domains optional. Accordingly, Namecheap also does not require that you specify your identity type (
i.e., non-UK individual or organization) or provide any additional information such as company number unless you choose to.
However, you do need to make sure that the Registrant Name and contact information that you supply for your UK domains are valid, up-to-date, and meet Registry standards. Please check
What does good registrant data look like? for more information.
The Registrant name (company or individual) of a .UK domain must contain at least 4 characters, and of these 3 or more must be letters. I.e., if a domain name is
registered for organization the 'Company name' field must contain at
least 4 characters, and of these 3 or more must be letters. Otherwise
registration will fail with error: Parameter value syntax error, with
processor code '2005' and reason 'V328 Registrant name does not meet
minimum requirements as this field must contain at least 4 characters
and of these 3 or more must be letters'.
Due to the
GDPR changes, it is
possible to use PO Boxes for new registrations.
To comply with GDPR standards, the .UK Registry does not show domain contact information in Whois. However, if the domain owner themselves are required to show their contact data in the public Whois (as with government or nonprofit organizations, for example), they can choose to opt-in, thereby publicly displaying their contact information.
In June 2014 a .UK TLD was launched by the Nominet Registry. It became part of the .UK domain family, joining .CO.UK, .ORG.UK, and .ME.UK.
At the time of the launch, the registrants (owners) of existing .CO.UK, .ORG.UK, and .ME.UK domains (
registered before 23:59hrs on October 28 2013) were given a five-year period to register the corresponding .UK domain name. This was referred to as the registrant having the "
right of registration" to the matching .UK domain name.
The deadline to claim reserved .UK domain names ended at 6am BST (UTC+1) on the 25th of June 2019. From 1st July 2019, any previously reserved .UK domains that had not been registered were made available on a first-come, first served basis.
You may find further details on the .UK registration rights termination on the
.UK Registry site.
