.re

Overview

.re is the Internet country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Réunion, an overseas department and region of France located in the Indian Ocean. It is intended for entities connected with Réunion and is administered alongside other French and overseas TLDs by AFNIC (Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération).

History

• Introduced: 7 April 1997 (delegation dates recorded in public sources; an implementation date of 7 May 1997 is also noted in some records).
• Registry / Sponsor: AFNIC manages and sponsors the .re zone and its policies.
• DNSSEC: The .re zone supports DNSSEC.
• Policy change (6 December 2011): Rules were updated so that domain owners no longer must be based in France or Overseas France; individuals, companies and organizations residing in the European Union became eligible to register domains for France and its possessions.

Usage and Audience

• Primary audience: organizations, businesses and individuals connected with Réunion.
• Other common uses:
  • Real estate: used for property listings, developers, neighborhood or city landing pages and realtor sites.
  • Insurance / reinsurance: used by reinsurance companies (example: swiss.re).
  • Reverse engineering communities and technical projects.
  • Domain hacks: used for domain names that form words or morphemes ending with ".re" (e.g., adventu.re, nearfutu.re).
• Availability: .re domains are offered by many registrars, including major registrars and many European providers.

Registration Rules

• Structure:

  • Registrations are available at the second level (example: example.re).
  • Third-level registrations have been used beneath official second-level labels such as:
    • .asso.re (associations)
    • .nom.re (personal/surnames)
    • .com.re (commercial; unrestricted)
    • .can.re (listed as in use by a specific registrar)
  • Since 6 December 2011, registration at some of the official subdomains is no longer open for new registrations; existing owners may renew their domains.

• Eligibility and geographic restriction:

  • Following the 2011 policy change, individuals, companies and organizations residing in the European Union are eligible to register .re domains.

• Character and length rules:

  • Two-character domains: one source states two-character .re domains are allowed provided at least one character is a number (examples: m7.re, 42.re), while purely alphabetic two-letter names (e.g., fi.re) are not allowed.
  • An additional policy note found in registry documentation indicates that 1- and 2-character domain names (numeric and/or alphabetic) are generally not authorized; registrants should consult AFNIC naming policy for precise, current rules.

• Dispute resolution: AFNIC publishes an alternative dispute resolution policy for domain disputes involving .re names.

SEO and Brand Impact

• Branding: .re is often leveraged to create industry-specific or memorable domain names, particularly for real estate, reinsurance and creative domain-hack branding.
• Positioning: Organizations use .re to signal a connection to Réunion or to emphasize a sector (for example, real estate) via a concise, relevant TLD.

Notable Cases or Examples

• swiss.re — an example of a reinsurance company using a .re domain.
• Domain-hack examples noted in practice include constructs such as adventu.re and nearfutu.re.
• Registrars: .re domains are available through many registrars, including Name.com and numerous European registrars.

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

domain:       RE

organisation: Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération (A.F.N.I.C.)
address:      7, avenue du 8 mai 1945
address:      Guyancourt 78280
address:      France

contact:      administrative
name:         TLD Admin Contact
organisation: Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération (A.F.N.I.C.)
address:      7, avenue du 8 mai 1945
address:      Guyancourt 78280
address:      France
phone:        +33 1 39 30 83 05
fax-no:       +33 1 39 30 83 01
e-mail:       tld-admin@nic.fr

contact:      technical
name:         TLD Technical Contact
organisation: Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération (A.F.N.I.C.)
address:      7, avenue du 8 mai 1945
address:      Guyancourt 78280
address:      France
phone:        +33 1 39 30 83 00
fax-no:       +33 1 39 30 83 01
e-mail:       tld-tech@nic.fr

nserver:      D.NIC.FR 194.0.9.1 2001:678:c:0:0:0:0:1
nserver:      F.EXT.NIC.FR 194.146.106.46 2001:67c:1010:11:0:0:0:53
nserver:      G.EXT.NIC.FR 194.0.36.1 2001:678:4c:0:0:0:0:1
ds-rdata:     61047 13 2 6a6546f44c8680c705612f9722a591dbbb88bf0d40e89e1cb45fad18eee3d4ea

whois:        whois.nic.re

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: http://www.nic.re

created:      1997-04-07
changed:      2024-09-09
source:       IANA