Conditions to register a domain in Netherlands

All companies and private clients can register the domain name .co.nl without any restricitons.

.co.nl domain register

What is CO.NL ?

Directly operated from Amsterdam, CO.NL extension is aimed at international users willing their Internet Addresses to end in "nl" but with additional flexibility.

CO.NL is not meant to replace .NL. It can however be a valuable alternative in some cases. The new extension will offer a great international impact and visibility as well as a larger flexibility.

For example, studies show that customers used to a "co.xx" address in their own countries are more likely to look for any particular brand in another "co.xx" suffix. As a result, using http://www.yourbrand.co.nl in conjunction with http://www.yourbrand.nl could increase your chances to attract traffic from the United Kingdom (co.uk), India (co.in) or any other of the 45+ countries that use a "co.xx" extension.

As with other Registries, the co.nl opening is divided in various phases:

• A Grandfather period, from the 18th November 2008 to the 15th January 2009, which allows the holders of a ".nl" domain name to register the same name with a ".CO.NL" ending. The set up fee for a domain name registered during Grandfather is 90 Euros in addition to 14 Euros per year (2 years minimum).
• A Sunrise period is held for trademark holders, from the 10th February until the10th March 2009, to give applicants a 1 full month opportunity to register their brands as CO.NL names before the system is open to the general public. A Trademark can be registered with a set up fee of only 120 Euros, plus 14 Euros per year (2 years minimum), on the basis of first come, first served principle.
• The landrush starts on Tuesday 17th march until Tuesday 31st March 2009, and the Go Live period from Wednesday the 15th of April 2009 onward. These two last stages offer all applicants the opportunity to have their CO.NL domain name. The domain names registered during Landrush cost 16 Euros as a set up fee, with an additional 14 Euros per year (2 years minimum). Each domain name registration during Go Live costs 14 Euros.

During the Grandfather and Sunrise Periods, Deloitte and Laga, frequent validation agents for other TLDs, will use their expertise to assess customers’ requests received by the CO.NL operator.

The CO.NL space is open to anyone, with no requirement of local presence or tie with the Netherlands.

CO.NL should not be confused with .NL Domain names as registered by SIDN, the Registry of the .NL extension. SIDN is not involved in any way with the registration or servicing of co.nl subdomains.

The 3 phases:

Sunrise 1: Grandfather Period

Tuesday 18th November 2008 at 10:00 am GMT - Thursday 15th January 2009 at 10:00 am GMT
During the Grandfather period, owners of a .nl have an exclusive right to register their .co.nl as well. This implies that a registrant owning mydomain.nl, will be the only entity that has the opportunity to register mydomain.co.nl during the Grandfather period. In order to ensure that the applicant is the holder of the corresponding .NL domain name, the application agent will send a validation email to the email address appointed for the .NL domain name. Should the applicant fails to respond to this email in a 10 days delay, his application will automatically lapse. Each application will be carefully checked by an independent Verification Agent and the .co.nl domain name will be assigned based on the outcome of the verification procedure.

Sunrise 2: Registered Trademarks

Tuesday 10th February 2009 at 10:00 am GMT - 10th March 2009 at 10:00 am GMT
The Sunrise phase will start on Tuesday February 10th 2009 at 10:00 am GMT. To allow .CO.NL users to benefit even more from the advantages  of the Sunrise Policy the phase has been recently extended and will last a full month ending on March 10th at 10:00 am GMT. This phase will provide applicants holding a registered trademark in any country with the opportunity to register their brands as CO.NL names before the system is open to the general public

Landrush:

Tuesday 17th March 2009 at 2:00 pm GMT - Tuesday 31st March 2009 at 2:00 pm GMT
In the Landrush phase, application requests can be made by the general public without restriction. They will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. Some names have been reserved by the CO.NL Operator for two different reasons:

• Exclusion of registration for offensive or confusing names
• Reservation of key generic names that will be available through the Premium Program

Go Live:

Wednesday 15th of April 2009 at 2:00 pm GMT

Since .CO.NL enables you to protect your business online, a domain with .CO.NL makes your web address unique and easy to memorize. A .CO.NL extension is doing much more, helping you reach and communicate with the audience in Netherlands.