.in

Overview

• .in is the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) for India.
• Introduced on 8 May 1989 and administered by the INRegistry under the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).
• DNSSEC is enabled. The registry supports internationalized domain names (IDNs) in multiple Indian scripts, including .भारत (xn--h2brj9c).
• As of May 2022 the registry reported over 3 million registered domains.

History

• Initially managed by the National Centre for Software Technology (NCST) and later by C-DAC.
• In 2004 the Government of India issued an order transferring management to INRegistry under NIXI.
• In August 2018 NIXI appointed Neustar Data Infotech (India) as the registry services provider; migration to Neustar’s infrastructure completed in March 2019.
• Registration policies were liberalised in 2005 to permit unlimited second-level registrations, triggering large growth in registrations.

Usage and Audience

• Widely used by companies, individuals and organisations in India; described as very popular within the country.
• Typical uses include general commercial and personal sites at the second level (.in) and specialised third-level usages under SLDs such as .gov.in, .ac.in, .edu.in, .org.in and others.
• Certain labels are reserved for government bodies (for example .nic.in is reserved for the National Informatics Centre in practice).

Registration Rules

• Registrations directly under .in are available without restrictions (open worldwide).

• Many second-level domains exist; some are unrestricted, others are restricted to qualified Indian institutions.

  Unrestricted / general-purpose SLDs (examples):

  • .in, .co.in, .com.in, .net.in, .org.in, .firm.in, .gen.in, .ind.in
  • Additional SLDs launched in 2021 include: .5g.in, .6g.in, .ai.in, .am.in, .bihar.in, .biz.in, .business.in, .delhi.in, .gujarat.in, .info.in, .io.in, .me.in, .post.in, .pro.in, .tv.in, .travel.in, .uk.in, .us.in, and others.

  Restricted SLDs (examples):

  • .ac.in (academic institutions)
  • .edu.in (colleges and universities)
  • .res.in (research institutes)
  • .gov.in (Indian government and state governments)
  • .mil.in (Indian military)

• Certain names are reserved for the government, constitutional bodies and the registry; an official reserved-names list is published by the registry (available online as of 2024).

• Domain privacy (WHOIS privacy) is not allowed under registry terms and conditions.

• eKYC guidelines are required for registrars to authenticate new registrants; bulk-booking restrictions were withdrawn consistent with liberalised registration policy.

• Internationalized domain names (IDNs): the registry supports multiple scripts and applied for/received approval for several IDN ccTLDs (for example .भारत in Devanagari and many others in regional scripts).

Dispute Resolution and Enforcement

• The .IN Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (INDRP) governs disputes between registrants and complainants concerning .in domains.
• Grounds and procedures follow typical UDRP-like criteria: confusing similarity to a complainant's mark, lack of registrant rights or legitimate interests, and registration/use in bad faith.
• Applicable fees for filing an INDRP complaint include INR 30,000 (application fee) plus applicable taxes; hearing fees of INR 2,000 per hearing (max two hearings) may apply. Arbitration seat is at NIXI (Delhi) or as notified by the registry.

Registry Policies, Abuse and Pricing

• The registry maintains an anti-abuse policy listing prohibited uses/behaviours (malware, phishing, botnets, CSAM, trafficking, violent extremism, controlled substances, hate speech, IP infringement, etc.) and will act on authorized notifications.
• Registrar-level pricing published by the registry (indicative): INR 400 per second-level domain, INR 300 per third-level domain; one-time accreditation fee for registrars INR 50,000. Registrars are free to set retail pricing for end users.

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)

• India pursued IDNs in many of its 22 recognized languages. .भारत (Devanagari) was accepted and introduced; other IDN ccTLDs were accepted for Bengali, Gurmukhī, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and additional regional scripts.
• Some IDN labels (including specialized zones such as sarkar.भारत, vidya.भारत) have script-specific or phonological restrictions.

SEO and Brand Impact

• The registry and government have promoted .in to position it alongside popular global TLDs such as .com; liberalised registrations and availability of IDNs support local branding and language-specific domain names.
• The TLD is widely used within India, which supports national and local brand recognition for businesses and organisations choosing .in domains.

% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

domain:       IN

organisation: National Internet Exchange of India
address:      6C, 6D, 6E Hansalaya Building 15, Barakhamba Road
address:      New Delhi 110 001
address:      India

contact:      administrative
name:         Rajiv Kumar
organisation: National Internet Exchange of India
address:      6C, 6D, 6E Hansalaya Building 15, Barakhamba Road
address:      New Delhi 110 001
address:      India
phone:        +91 11 48202011
fax-no:       +91 11 48202013
e-mail:       registry@nixi.in

contact:      technical
name:         Rajiv Kumar
organisation: National Internet Exchange of India
address:      6C, 6D, 6E Hansalaya Building 15, Barakhamba Road
address:      New Delhi 110 001
address:      India
phone:        +91 11 48202011
fax-no:       +91 11 48202013
e-mail:       rajiv@nixi.in

nserver:      NS01.TRS-DNS.COM 2620:57:4001:0:0:0:0:1 64.96.1.1
nserver:      NS01.TRS-DNS.NET 2620:57:4002:0:0:0:0:1 64.96.2.1
nserver:      NS10.TRS-DNS.INFO 2620:171:812:1534:8:0:0:1 64.78.204.1
nserver:      NS10.TRS-DNS.ORG 2620:171:813:1534:8:0:0:1 64.78.205.1
ds-rdata:     10094 13 2 5824ee9a55ed72f0d46d2c3a511f393f05efc27e73cbd1005bebbc73402b6186

whois:        whois.nixiregistry.in

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: https://registry.in

created:      1989-05-08
changed:      2025-07-22
source:       IANA