Changes in .gov.uk

The palace of Westminster where the government lives. Picture by Diliff

This year the back-end system for domain names ending in .gov.uk has migrated from JISC (the organisation that provides connectivity services to Higher Education in the UK) to Nominet (the organisation responsible for nearly all other .uk domains).

This brings a few significant changes for registrars who offer .gov.uk domain names:

• There are enhanced security requirements for registrars. Nominet requires Cyber Essentials.
• The wholesale costs have been reduced.
• Registration periods other than 2 years are now possible.
• All the processes and procedures are different: somethings are now easier, others are harder.

Mythic Beasts were already Nominet members and have now added the ability to register .gov.uk domain names through Nominet. All of our existing .gov.uk domain name customers have been migrated across transparently. We have also applied a price decrease, renewals are now £15+VAT rather than £75+VAT, and new domain registrations have also been reduced from £150+VAT for the first two years, to £89.50+VAT.

We’re aware that a number of registrars have opted not to continue offering .gov.uk domains due to the procedure changes and security requirements. We are able to accept transfers of .gov.uk domains in, and there is no charge for transferring a domain name to us. We can also accept payment by bank transfer on account which is extremely helpful for government bodies that register .gov.uk domains.

The transfer process is very simple, set up an account at the Mythic Beasts control panel and go to transfer domain in. It will ask you for the authorisation code and we’ll complete the transfer for you.

As of March 2023 there were 3854 .gov.uk domains in use – if every registrar follows our lead that should reduce the government deficit by around £200,000/year.