.ca Domain Names
.ca domain names, held the Canadian way
Administration sits with CIRA, and a real Canadian connection is the price of holding one. Because that gate exists, Canadian customers hand the ending a trust that an open namespace has to go out and earn. Register from $13.99/yr, and the renewal figure appears on screen before payment.
.ca
Extension
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Free
DNS management
The Extension
Why .ca?
Canada's country code is .ca, operated by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), and what defines it is the Canadian Presence Requirement. Qualifying means holding a real link to Canada: citizenship or permanent residency, a corporation or partnership formed there, a trademark registered in Canada, and a handful of other categories the registry recognises. Keeping the namespace meaningfully Canadian is what the gate is for. Buyers in Canada know it too, which is how the ending earns a trust at home that .com never quite reaches.
On privacy CIRA runs one of the better registries anywhere: an individual's personal details stay off the public record because the registry defaults that way, not because anyone sold you an add-on. Where we happen to sit makes no difference to the advice, so set geography aside. Put your own name and address on the registration, not a proxy of ours. Somebody should be watching the contact mailbox, and what the second year costs is on the screen before a penny is paid.
Good Fit
.ca works best for
- Canadian businesses and professional practices
- Canadian arms of international brands
- Organisations and causes rooted in Canada
- Trademark holders protecting a registered mark within Canada's namespace
With Every Name
Included with every domain
Presence rules explained first
Before you register, we run through CIRA's qualification categories in ordinary language, the trademark route among them, since that is the door open to brand owners outside Canada.
Registry-level privacy for individuals
By default, an individual's personal details never reach CIRA's public record. Privacy comes from registry policy here, and no invoice line is attached to it.
The national trust signal
Canadian buyers read .ca as local, and as answerable to somebody. Sell into Canada from within Canada and that reading turns into orders.
Common Questions
Questions about .ca
Who qualifies to register a .ca?
Categories under the Canadian Presence Requirement are defined and finite: citizens and permanent residents, corporations and partnerships formed in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada, owners of trademarks registered there, and a few besides. At registration you assert one, and CIRA may come back asking for evidence. Register outside those categories and the name can be challenged. Names have been lost that way.
Our company is British and we sell into Canada. Is a .ca available to us?
Most foreign businesses arrive by the trademark route: register a mark in Canada and, as its owner, you qualify to register the matching name. Setting up a Canadian subsidiary is the other well-worn path. What the rules will not allow is a speculative registration with no qualifying connection at all, and that refusal is the whole reason the ending carries the trust it does.
Do .ca transfers work like .com transfers?
Familiar shape: an authorisation code out of the current registrar, a confirmation step, then completion. CIRA's policies govern it, not the gTLD rulebook. Because the presence requirement travels with the name, whoever receives it has to qualify in their own right. Begin well ahead of expiry, as you would on any ending, and keep the registrant mailbox alive while the confirmation emails are moving.
Keep Browsing
Other endings worth a look
Registration and renewal figures for every ending we carry are on the price list.
Read the whole domain price list or transfer a name you already hold.
Put the .ca on the register before someone else does.
Search runs live against the registry, WHOIS privacy costs nothing where the registry allows it, and the renewal figure is shown before you pay.
Search .ca Names