Financial and account information

Fees

The fees for the different transactions can be found on our public website.

• Domain name renewal and Domain Guard will not necessarily be mentioned on the same invoice. For a domain name registered in February, and protected by Domain Guard from August, the renewal will be invoiced yearly at the end of February and Domain Guard on the August invoice.

Clarifications about the payment terms

Here are some clarifications about the payment system used by DNS Belgium (see Registrar Contract, art 3.2):

1. At the signing of the registrar agreement DNS Belgium asks the registrar to indicate the amount allowing registrations for about a month. (This was decided upon request of most registrars who find it difficult to make payments without having received an invoice). A minimum of 2500 € (excl. VAT) was defined. This amount can be used to register domain names.

2. Every month, DNS Belgium generates an electronic invoice for the paying transactions during the previous month and for the domain names that passed the one-year right of use period (and were automatically renewed) during that month. The agreement further mentions: “The monthly invoices will be set off against the remaining credit of the registrar’s advance”. This means the renewal fees are deducted from the remaining balance in the registrar’s account at the moment of invoicing (the new registrations were already taken into account at the moment of registration). This does not mean (as is often interpreted) the invoice will be reduced with the remaining balance of the pre-payment amount!

3. Invoices are payable within 30 days.

Paying the invoice will bring your DNS Belgium account back to the level of the chosen pre-payment amount. This again allows you, if you have selected the appropriate pre-payment amount, to register for another month at your normal volume of registrations.

Available money

You can check your available money easily on our Registrar Web Interface. The information is shown in the top right corner. Your Available money can be out of sync for a maximum of 5 minutes.

As explained above, a registrar starts with his prepayment amount on its account. The available money can lower till it reaches zero. Once the available money is zero, your account will be blocked. From then on it will no longer be possible to create or transfer domain names. Automatic renewals will still work, so that existing domain names and their registrants are not affected. Your account will be automatically unblocked once payment(s) are registered in the system that increase the available money above zero.

Note: If you pay your invoices per SEPA Direct Debit, your account will never be blocked.

Automatic payments (SEPA Direct Debit)

It is possible to pay your invoices using SEPA Direct Debit (European accounts). To activate it, you can send a mail to our Support staff. DNS Belgium will request some details in order to send you a mandate that you can sign electronically. When the mandate is signed, SEPA is activated and payment for your future invoices will be transferred from your bank account to DNS Belgium automatically.

You can revoke the SEPA mandate at any time with a mail to our Support staff. The mandate will be withdrawn, and no more automatic payments will be deducted from your bank account. You will have to do manual payments instead.

Watermarks

When the available money of a registrar passes under certain watermark levels, a message (EPP poll or CPS e-mail) is sent to the automated e-mail address of the registrar. A mail is also sent to the billing contact e-mail address, informing the registrar of this situation. Current watermark levels are: 10.000, 7.500, 5000, 2501, 1250, 625 and 250 EUR. At those times, it is probably advisable to check if all your invoices have been paid. If you pay your bills automatically per SEPA Direct Debit, you won’t receive these mails.

From 6 january 2025, there will only be one watermark mail, at the level of 500 EUR.

Note

Via ‘My Registrations’, you can check your current available money at all times.

Quota check

As explained in our ‘Registrar Contract, art 3.1’, the registrar is required to reach its annual turnover threshold (quota) between 1 January and 31 December. Registrars who start up, won’t have their quota checked in the first incomplete period before 1 January. The total units you have on your account is represented by the ‘virtual counter’. The virtual domain counter is increased:

• +1 for every new registration, every reactivation and every incoming transfer carried out;

• + number of renewals, for every monthly invoicing,

• + number of domains in portfolio, for a take-over of a portfolio.

At the end of the one-year-term, the registrar will receive a service invoice if he does not achieve the quota. The service invoice will amount to the remainder of the yearly quota fee owed to DNS Belgium.

E.g. Our yearly required quota is currently 250. If your virtual counter is 150 at the end of the year, you will receive an invoice corresponding to 100 units at the current price of a new domain name. In 2016 that would be 100*4=400 euro (excl. vat).

Warning

If you want to avoid this service invoice, please check your virtual counter and take appropriate action in time!

You can check your quota via the Registrar Web Interface.

E-invoices

When the e-invoice is made available via the website, an e-mail including the invoice in pdf format is also sent to the registrar billing contact.

Example: Invoice mail (en)

From: accounting@dnsbelgium.be
Subject: DNS Belgium Invoice (Ref VDABE/YYYY/XXXXX)

Dear registrar,

Your invoice from last month in available. The pdf is included in this message.

Save time and pay your monthly .be invoices via SEPA Direct Debit.

Questions on this topic? Please contact support@dnsbelgium.be or call us on +32 16 28 49 70.

Kind regards,

DNS Belgium team

DNS Belgium vzw/asbl
Ubicenter • Philipssite 5, bus 13 • 3001 Leuven
support@dnsbelgium.be
+32 16 28 49 70

Example: Invoice mail (nl)

From: accounting@dnsbelgium.be
Subject: DNS Belgium Factuur (Ref VDABE/YYYY/XXXXX)

Beste registrar,

Je factuur van vorige maand is beschikbaar. De pdf is bijgevoegd aan dit bericht.

Bespaar tijd en betaal je maandelijkse .be-facturen via SEPA Direct Debit.

Heb je nog vragen? Neem contact op met support@dnsbelgium.be of bel ons op +32 16 28 49 70.

Met vriendelijke groeten,

DNS Belgium-team

DNS Belgium vzw/asbl
Ubicenter • Philipssite 5, bus 13 • 3001 Leuven
support@dnsbelgium.be
+32 16 28 49 70

Example: Invoice mail (fr)

From: accounting@dnsbelgium.be
Subject: DNS Belgium Facture (Réf VDABE/YYYY/XXXXX)

Cher agent d'enregistrement,

Votre facture du mois dernier est disponible. Le pdf est inclus dans ce message.

Gagnez du temps et payez vos factures .be mensuelles par domiciliation SEPA.

Avez-vous des questions ? Veuillez contacter support@dnsbelgium.be ou appelez-nous au +32 16 28 49 70.

Bien à vous,

Equipe DNS Belgium

DNS Belgium vzw/asbl
Ubicenter • Philipssite 5, bus 13 • 3001 Leuven
support@dnsbelgium.be
+32 16 28 49 70

Invoices

More information about your payments and invoices can be found on the Registrar Web Interface.