Australian domain eligibility and the auDA licensing rules

“au domain eligibility” measures ten searches a month in Australia and four AI-assistant prompts a month. “com au domain rules” measures ten a month. The rules themselves are published, and they are not long. They are worth twenty minutes. A domain is the one asset in a website project that cannot be rebuilt.

This page describes the shape of the rules in general terms so that you know what to ask about. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for the source. The .au Domain Administration Authority, auDA, publishes the licensing rules that actually apply, and for anything specific to your situation you should read them there or take advice.

auDA is the administrator of domain administration, and its rules govern the namespace

auDA is the administering body for the .au country code top-level domain, and it publishes the licensing rules under which every .au name is held. Registrars sell and manage the names; resellers sit beneath registrars; but the rules that decide who may hold a name and on what terms come from auDA, as the body responsible for the namespace.

That matters because it means your supplier’s internal policy is not the governing document, and neither is your registrar’s marketing page.

The Australian presence requirement: registered domain names by state and territory

Every .au registrant must have an Australian presence. In broad terms that means being an Australian entity — an Australian company, a registered business, a sole trader with a business registration, an incorporated association, a trade mark holder, and so on — with the qualifying categories set out in auDA’s rules. The presence test does not vary by which state or territory the entity is registered in; the same national rules apply to a registrant based in any state or territory.

There is a further layer for the second-level namespaces: the domain name itself has to relate to the registrant, and since 12 April 2021 that relationship is tested as a Match or a Synonym.

A Match means the domain is identical, in the same order, to the words or numbers in the registrant’s legal name, a business name registered to them, or an Australian trade mark they hold or have applied for — subject to defined rules about which words and characters may be omitted, such as entity descriptors and punctuation.

A Synonym means the domain is a synonym of a good, service, activity, premises, event or profession the registrant actually deals in or operates.

Those two tests replaced an earlier and vaguer formulation about a “close and substantial connection”. The change was deliberate: the older wording required a judgement call in every marginal case, and the current criteria were written to remove it. Anyone still describing the rule in the older terms — including a web page, a registrar’s marketing copy, or an agency — is describing a test that has not applied for several years.

Where a registrant’s Australian presence rests only on an Australian trade mark rather than on an entity registration, a stricter exact-match requirement applies to what they may register.

The precise wording of all of this is in auDA’s published licensing rules, and that wording is what will be applied to you, so read it there rather than in a summary — including this one.

One live caveat. auDA has a .au Licensing Rules Review underway. A draft report was published in June 2026; public consultation on it closed on 10 July 2026, and the Policy Advisory Panel is now preparing its final recommendations for the auDA Board. None of the current rules — including the Match-or-Synonym test — has changed as a result. Nothing above is settled for the long term, and anyone making a decision that depends on the fine detail of the eligibility or allocation rules should check the current position and the review’s status rather than assume the rules will read the same next year.

The namespaces, in general terms

com.au and net.au are the commercial namespaces, held by commercial entities. In practice they are treated as equivalent to one another under the current rules.

org.au is for non-commercial organisations, such as incorporated associations and charities.

Direct .au opened in March 2022, allowing names to be registered at the second level with no com or net in front. It is open to registrants with an Australian presence.

There are further namespaces, including ones reserved for particular sectors, each with their own eligibility criteria.

Eligibility is checked, and it can be challenged

Eligibility is not a one-off declaration at purchase. It is a condition of holding the licence, and it can be reviewed. auDA operates complaints and dispute processes, and a name held by a registrant who does not meet the criteria can be subject to action, up to and including the licence being cancelled.

There is also a separate dispute process concerning names registered in bad faith relative to someone else’s name or trade mark. The point for a business owner is simply this. A name you hold on incorrect eligibility grounds is not secure. And the risk sits with you, not with the person who sold it to you.

Registration is a licence to register a domain name entity, not ownership

Under the auDA rules you hold a licence to use a domain name for a period. You do not own the name in the way you own a copyright or a piece of equipment.

Two practical consequences follow. First, the licence carries conditions, and continued eligibility is one of them. Second, the licence has a term, and it ends. A domain is not an asset you buy once; it is an obligation you have to keep meeting.

Registrant, registrar, contact, and reseller are three different things

This is where most businesses lose control of a name without noticing.

The registrant is the licence holder. This is the field that matters. It should be your legal entity, matching the ACN or business registration you gave at registration.

The contacts — technical, administrative, billing — are people or organisations authorised to act in various ways. Your web designer sitting in a contact field is normal and often sensible. Your web designer sitting in the registrant field is not.

The registrar is the auDA-accredited business through which the name is registered. A reseller sells through a registrar. If your name was bought through a reseller, find out which registrar actually holds it — that is where a transfer or a recovery has to happen.

Check your own position through auDA’s public .au WHOIS lookup, or through your registrar’s control panel. The lookup’s own stated purposes include identifying the holder of a domain name licence — the field that matters here. How much contact detail it returns is a matter of auDA’s current policy, not something this page will assert. Read what the lookup actually shows you.

Transfers, and what you need to control one

Two different things are called a transfer, and confusing them wastes weeks.

Moving a name between registrars, while the registrant stays the same, normally needs the domain password or authorisation code, obtained from the losing registrar, plus access to the registrant contact address that receives the confirmation.

Changing the registrant — the licence holder — is a change of the licence itself, and the incoming registrant must independently meet the eligibility criteria. This is the one that matters when you part ways with a supplier who registered the name in their own name. It depends entirely on their cooperation, or on a formal process.

To be able to act on either, you need: the registrar’s name, working login credentials, control of the registrant contact email address, and the domain password. Confirm you have all four while the relationship is good.

Renewals, and what happens when one lapses

A .au licence runs for a fixed period and must be renewed. When it is not, the name does not vanish instantly. There is a period during which it can generally still be recovered, and a later stage after which it is purged and becomes available to anyone eligible to register it. The exact windows are set out in auDA’s rules, and each registrar handles them slightly differently — confirm yours rather than assuming.

Two habits prevent nearly all lapse incidents. Set the renewal to a payment method that will not expire. And make sure the registrant contact email is one your business monitors, not a former staff member’s address or a supplier’s inbox.

What to do next

Look your domain up today and read three fields: the registrant, the registrar, and the expiry date. If any of the three surprises you, deal with it this week rather than at renewal.

For anything specific — whether your entity satisfies the presence test, whether a name matches your business closely enough, how a particular dispute is handled — go to auDA’s published rules. That is the document that governs the outcome. The wider ownership picture is on who owns your website.

Eligibility is one of the items a supplier should be settling during scoping rather than leaving for you to discover at renewal. Where it sits among the other decisions made before a build starts is covered on small business website design.