Maxer Blog

Impact of Brexit: UK registrants of .EU domain names

Published by Peter Armstrong on December 14th, 2020

The United Kingdom left the European Union on 1 February 2020. The Brexit transition period ends on 31 December 2020. Before 1 January 2021, all UK holders of .eu domain names should ensure they meet the eligibility requirements. There are three categories of registrant:

– A business or organisation established in the EU
– A citizen of an EU or EEA country
– A resident of an EU or EEA country

UK registrants will lose their eligibility if they do not provide/update their domain name(s) to meet the criteria. This impacts all new and existing .eu domain names. The registry EURid will be emailing existing .eu registrants on 21 December 2020 requesting that they update their registrations details. If this impacts you, please take action now.

If you receive an email notification from EURid, you must take action to update your details and prevent your domain name(s) being suspended. Details should be updated by 31 December 2020.

If your domain name is suspended, associated website/email services will stop working on 1 January 2021. Registrants who are no longer eligible will ultimately lose their domain names. The affected domain names will be suspended on 1 January 2021, withdrawn on 1 April 2021, and fully revoked on 1 January 2022. Domain name(s) that are revoked will be available to re-register on a first-come, first-served basis by registrants who are eligible. More information is available in the EURid Brexit notice.

To continue using an .eu domain name, UK based registrants must provide details of EU business address, residential address or country of citizenship.
A UK address can still be used if an individual registrant is also an EU citizen, but we must record your country of citizenship into the registry system. We have a large number of registrants in Northern Ireland who can put “Ireland” as their country of citizenship, and there are plenty of French, German, Spanish, Polish and other every other nationality still living in the UK. Please inform our support team of your EU citizenship and we will update the country of citizenship associated with your .eu domain names.

Please note:
– UK citizens are still eligible for .eu domain names providing they are resident in the EU. You should update the contact information for your domain name(s) to your EU address.
– EU citizens are always eligible for .eu domain names, but if your address is in the UK or anywhere else outside the EU, you should advise our support team of your country of citizenship so we can record it on the registry system.
– If you lose your domain name but you think you are eligible, please contact our support team immediately and we will do our best to assist. The final decision rests with the registry EURid and they can be contacted at in**@eu***.eu