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ICANN Registrar Accreditation Application Information

This page was archived as of 10 October 2023. The current application can be found here.

Instructions

You may send your completed application via one of the following methods:

  1. Complete the application form, attach supporting documents, and send an electronic copy to: accredit@icann.org.

    1. Please note that when applications are received by email, ICANN will send a Certificate of Submission Authority and Agreement to Terms and Conditions to be signed via an electronic signature software.

  2. Complete the application form, attach supporting documents, and mail/courier to:

    Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
    Registrar Accreditation
    12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300
    Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536, USA

Please do not transmit payment for the application fee with this form. ICANN will provide instructions on how to transmit payment after our initial review of the application. Please note the application fee is non-refundable regardless of whether the application is approved, denied, or withdrawn.

  • For questions where an answer is not applicable, fill in "N.A.", do not leave blank.
  • For any answers that are not submitted in English, a translation is not required but will help reduce processing time.
  • For answers available on supporting documents, please specify the document and its respective page number.

Detailed instructions are available at www.icann.org/en/registrars/instructions.htm

  • Applicants will receive a response from ICANN within thirty (30) days of receipt of the completed form. ICANN will contact you if any additional information, supporting documentation, or clarification is needed.  
  • Please whitelist ICANN.org in your email system to ensure receipt of communication.
Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."