General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20268 min read

.au

.au is the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Australia in the Domain Name System, used for Australian websites and email addresses since its delegation on 5 March 1986.¹^•² It is administered by .au Domain Administration (auDA), an Australian not-for-profit company endorsed by the Australian Government, with registration services delivered through accredited registrars and a contracted registry operator.³^•⁴ In 2026 the namespace passed 4.3 million domain names under management, roughly one for every six Australians.¹

Key fact	Detail
Delegated	5 March 1986, as the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for Australia; IANA registration date 1986-03-05¹^•²
First manager	Robert Elz, a network programmer at the University of Melbourne, who served in a volunteer capacity from 1986⁵
Administrator	auDA, a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee with more than 6,000 members, government-endorsed since 2000 and formally delegated by ICANN in 2001³^•¹
Registry operator	Identity Digital Australia, appointed after a global tender in 2017 and reappointed after a further tender in 2023⁶
Size	4.3 million domain names under management in 2026; 3.3 million passed in 2021 for the first time¹
Eligibility	Registrants must have an Australian presence and meet namespace-specific criteria, such as a valid ABN or ACN for com.au⁷
Regulatory status	The .au DNS is defined as Australian critical infrastructure under the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018³

Early history

The .au ccTLD was established in March 1986, shortly after the domain-name system itself was deployed in 1985. The University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute, which then performed the IANA functions, approved the request, and management was delegated to Robert Elz of the University of Melbourne.⁵ The domain predated Australia's permanent internet connection: although .au launched on 5 March 1986, Australia was not permanently connected to the internet until June 1989, via a link between the University of Melbourne and the University of Hawaii. Australia's first connection ran at about 56 kilobits per second.¹

Elz ran the domain as a volunteer for 13 years. In 1999 the Australian Government, through the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), facilitated development of a self-regulatory regime to assume responsibility from him; a working group chaired by Greg Crew recommended creating a new not-for-profit body, and auDA was formed. On 15 November 1999 Elz sub-delegated to auDA the authority to manage the .com.au namespace, which then comprised approximately 85 percent of all names in .au.⁵ auDA's own history places its establishment by the Australian internet community in 1997.¹

Government endorsement and ICANN redelegation

The Australian Government officially endorsed auDA as administrator of .au in 2000, memorialized in a 31 December 2000 agreement designating auDA to hold administrative authority for the ccTLD.¹^•⁸ In May 2001 IANA received a redelegation request; its report of 31 August 2001 concluded that redelegation to auDA was appropriate, finding widespread, nearly universal support for moving management to an organization formally accountable to the Australian internet community.⁵ Melbourne IT, then the sole registrar for .com.au, had suggested delegation to the government instead, but the government responded that delegation should rest with auDA under its supervision. The arrangement took the form of a triangular agreement in which auDA was supervised by the Australian government on local matters and by ICANN on global matters.⁹ Formal delegation from ICANN followed in 2001.¹

Governance and the 2018 review

auDA develops and implements .au domain policies and licenses domain names to users who meet its eligibility criteria. While it is solely responsible for policy on .au matters, it must adhere to multi-stakeholder governance principles and consult widely with government and the community before making decisions.⁴ Its Terms of Endorsement from the government set out its core functions and were last reviewed in early 2025.⁴

The 2018 review. On 19 October 2017 the government announced a review of .au management to ensure it remained fit-for-purpose. Completed in April 2018, the review's key finding was that the existing management framework was no longer fit-for-purpose and needed reform. The government accepted all 29 recommendations and issued new Terms of Endorsement; auDA implemented all recommendations by May 2020.¹⁰ The review report had criticized auDA's board arrangements, noting the absence of a skills matrix, no probity checks for director nominees, and a risk of board capture arising from low membership barriers, and recommended a Nomination Committee including members independent of auDA.¹¹

Registry, namespaces and growth

The .au registry is the database of .au registrations, together with a public WHOIS tool and the top-level and second-level nameservers for namespaces such as com.au, net.au, org.au, edu.au, gov.au, id.au, and asn.au. It is operated by Identity Digital Australia under contract to auDA.⁶ In 2002 auDA appointed registry operator AusRegistry and accredited a set of registrars, beginning the modern competition model; competition and policy changes from 2002 drove 252 percent growth over four years, reaching 710,000 names by 2006.¹ In 2018, 3.1 million names were transferred to new registry operator Afilias (now Identity Digital), the largest single transfer of a top-level domain at the time, and in 2024 the registry moved to a new cloud-based platform.¹

The namespace has changed shape over time. Legacy second-level namespaces such as oz.au, info.au, archie.au, gw.au, otc.au, and telememo.au have been retired, and on 24 March 2022 the shorter .au direct namespace launched, allowing registrations directly at the second level. Registrations grew 18 percent year-on-year in 2023, driven by .au direct.¹ auDA's draft strategy describes .au as the preferred choice of Australian consumers and small businesses, and notes competitive pressure from social media accounts, online marketplaces, and emerging technologies.¹² On global standing, auDA's 40th-anniversary page ranks .au as the eighth most popular ccTLD in the world,¹ while its draft strategy describes it as the seventh largest ccTLD.¹²

Licensing rules and registration

Registration proceeds through auDA-accredited registrars and their resellers. A registrant must meet the Australian presence requirement and any eligibility and allocation criteria for the chosen namespace, providing evidence such as a valid Australian Business Number (ABN) or Australian Company Number (ACN) for a com.au name, or Australian government-issued identification. Licences run for one to five years, and eligibility must be maintained for the entire license period.⁷ The .au Domain Administration Rules: Licensing, made by auDA as the Australian self-regulatory policy body for the ccTLD, form part of the terms and conditions of the license agreement with registrars and prevail over the license agreement in case of inconsistency.¹³

Rules review, 2025 to 2026. In September 2025 the auDA Board appointed an external Policy Advisory Panel to review the .au Licensing Rules through multi-stakeholder consultation. Phase 1 (September 2025 to March 2026) examined key issues and Phase 2 (June to July 2026) sought feedback on a draft report. At its August 2026 meeting the Board approved the Panel's recommendations in principle. They include continuing to allow domain name monetization in com.au, net.au, and .au direct; tightening com.au and net.au allocation so a name must match or be an acronym of the registrant's registered name or match an Australian trademark, rather than merely the name of a service, goods, event, activity, or premises; retaining existing processes for contested .au direct names; and consumer-protection measures against scams, with more frequent registrar contact when domains are suspended, canceled, or expired.¹⁴

Security

As operator of Australian critical infrastructure, auDA complies with the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018, maintaining a Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Program, reporting annually to the government and reporting security incidents. All auDA-accredited registrars must achieve and comply with ISO 27001 certification for their information security management systems, and the .au DNS uses DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) to help ensure the authenticity of DNS information.¹⁵ auDA deployed DNSSEC and introduced an Information Security Standard for registrars in 2013.¹ The measures have not been flawless: on 18 September 2023 a DNSSEC key re-signing process generated an incorrect record, and resolvers performing DNSSEC validation were unable to resolve .au names for under an hour before the issue was fixed.¹⁶

Use and trust

Consumer research commissioned by auDA indicates that half of Australians only buy from online businesses with a .au domain, and three in four are more likely to trust a business whose website ends in .au.¹⁷ In the quarter to early 2026, total .au names were up 1.8 percent year-on-year and new registrations up 10 percent, which auDA read as evidence of the namespace's ongoing importance to Australia's digital economy.¹⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Technology and the built world › Computing and digital systems › Networks and security › Security governance and internet policy › Internet governance › IP address and critical internet resource governance

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 15, 2026

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