.gov Domain Information

Who Is Eligible for .gov Domain Names?

The .gov gTLD, launched in the year 1985, is the generic top level domain extension once solely intended for use by the United States government. Now, valid U.S. government organizations, departments, US territories, state governmental entities/programs, cities, counties, etc and federally recognized Indian tribes are eligible to register.gov domain names. The official domain registry for the registration of .gov domain names is the General Services Administration (GSA).

The United States is the only country with a government-specific top level Internet domain. As this code is restricted to US governmental entities, no one else is permitted to hold .gov as their top level domain. Often countries use it as their second-level domain; for example: .gov.au, .gc.ca, or guv.ro, where au is the assigned country code for Australia, .ca is the country code for Canada, and so on.

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What Are the Rules and Policies for .gov Registration?

There are some binding rules and policies regarding the .gov registration. In order to get registered, you have to produce a letter of authorization before the GSA (General Service Administration). In the case of federal agencies, the same must be presented before the CIO (cabinet-level chief information officer). For getting county authorization and city authorization, you may be asked to produce an authorization letter from the county commissioners and mayor respectively. The letter must include details such as the requested domain, contact details and all other relevant information.

To learn more about the registration process, policies, and eligibility requirements, go to the website of General Services Administration http://www.dotgov.gov.