Beginning March 24, 2022, AuDA, the Registry operator for the Australian ccTLD .AU, is going to allow registrations of domains directly under the .AU extension.
Until now, only 3rd level .AU domains (3ld.au) were allowed for registration (e.g. domain.com.au or domain.net.au), so this is a significant change and a great opportunity for any registrants operating in Australia.
In the first 6 months following the launch, current holders of existing 3rd level .AU domain name(s) will have a Priority right to claim the corresponding name directly under .AU. (e.g. we own websitesplus.com.au therefore we have priority rights to claim websitesplus.au)
In cases where different Registrants hold the license to the same string under different 3rd level .AU domain extensions, auDA has a set of rules in place to resolve these contention sets.
IMPORTANT
- Once the 6 months Priority application period has expired, you will lose your Priority right to any string you have not applied for and these will become available publicly for registration on a first-come-first-served basis. We encourage you to take advantage of your reserved opportunity and move quickly to register your .AU domain name
We expect .AU domain names to become popular quickly and this is a great opportunity to be ahead of others by securing you 2nd level priority right .AU domain names.
