.CA domain registration requirements
The official country-code TLD for Canada is represented by .CA. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) regulates .CA domains. To be sure that .CA sites are 100% Canadian, anyone registering for a .CA domain must meet certain Canadian Presence Requirements (CPR).
Canadian citizens living outside of Canada can register a .CA domain providing their current address, wherever that may be. Registrants with addresses outside of Canada must provide an up-to-date email address in case the .CA registry needs to get in touch with you.
CIRA enforces a Canadian Presence Requirement or CPR. CPR requires that every registrant must select one of eighteen categories to show their connection to Canada. For more information, please refer to What is Registrant Information Validation (RIV)?
To register a .CA domain, you need to fill out the following extended attributes:
- Registrant’s Legal Type (select one from the drop-down menu)
- Preferred Language (English or French)
- Hide registrant data in CIRA WHOIS (yes/no) that is only available for the Individual Legal Types
If you are registering a .CA domain as an
Individual, please make sure you choose one of the following
Legal Types:
- Canadian citizen
- Permanent resident
- Legal representative of a Canadian
- Aboriginal Peoples (individuals and groups) indigenous to Canada
Any other Legal Types isn’t considered to be an individual. If you register a domain for an
organization, you need to specify its type and enter it in a proper format. You can review the complete list of valid formats and data values in the document attached below this article.
Here are some tips to help you to register your .CA domain successfully:
- First and Last Names [of Individual types of Registrants] should be actual names, not generic ones.
- If the Registrant type is Individual, Organization and Job Title fields should be left empty for all contact sets.
- Administrative contact must be a natural person (Individual). As such, the First and Last Names cannot contain digits or generic words like "Domain Administrator".
- Use an abbreviation for the Province name (e.g. ON, BC, etc.).
- Use the Canadian Postal Code format XNX NXN where X is a letter and N is a number. The space separating the blocks of characters is optional.
- The registrant type Organization has unique rules. The Company Name and Job Title fields should be left empty at least for the Registrant contact section.
Organizations are divided into two parts and entered as First and Last Name of the Registrant contact. The First Name is your company name. The Second name field must include a type of business entity including but not limited to Corp. Corporation, Ltd., etc.
For example "Organization Name" as the First Name and "Inc." as the Last Name. Otherwise, the following error will appear in the Shopping Cart:
Certain country codes require extra information when registering domains, and .CA is one of them. For more information about the unique Domain Contacts Presets for .CA, head to the Domain Contacts section.
That's it!
If you have any questions, feel free to contact our Support Team.