Domain names

Valid domain names

Before registering domain names, you should take these points into account:

• Domain names you register for your clients should be registered in your client’s name and not in your name!

• Please make sure your clients accept our ‘Terms & Conditions’ before they can proceed with the registration of a domain name. This is also the case for a transfer.

• All new domain names are subjected to Registrant verification.

Domain names must meet with a number of technical requirements:

• Valid non-IDN names are:

  • minimum 2 characters among the letters ‘a to z’, the numbers ‘0 to 9’ and the hyphen ‘-‘;

  • maximum 63 characters;

  • must not begin or end with a hyphen;

  • must not contain a hyphen ‘-’ on the 3rd AND 4th position.

• Valid IDN names are:

  • The U-label is minimum 2 characters and the A-label and/or U-label is maximum 63 characters.

  • The U-label can’t begin or end with a hyphen.

  • The U-label must not contain a hyphen on the 3rd AND 4th position.

  • The U-label may only contain characters for the list of allowed characters

Examples

valid:

• mydomain.be

• my-domain.be

• myd-omain.be

• belgië.be

• xn–belgi-rsa.be

invalid:

• my–domain.be

• -mydomain.be

Allowed characters

The implementation of IDN at DNS Belgium is based on the IDNA 2008 standard.

There are different character sets that can be used for an IDN implementation. DNS Belgium decided to use a set that includes, at the very least, all accented letters used in Dutch, French and German. This particular set also includes accented letters used in other European languages, such as Swedish, Danish and Finnish.

We also accept IDN for name servers. In the name server name, the same characters are allowed as in domain names.

For reference, this is the list of allowed characters