Register a .it Domain: Requirements for Non-EU Applicants

You can register a .it domain only with citizenship, residence or a registered office in the EU, the wider European Economic Area, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City or the United Kingdom, and individuals must be adults. The UK has been explicitly eligible since version 8.0 of the Registry's Regulation (2022). A company based only in the US, or anywhere else outside that list, cannot hold a .it in its own name.

lubemy technical team · Published on 14 October 2026

The .it country-code domain is run by Registro .it, part of the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of Italy's National Research Council (CNR) in Pisa. Its rules live in two documents: the assignment Regulation (version 8.0, 30 May 2022) and the Technical Guidelines, which are formally part of it (version 3.3, 15 July 2026). The Registry does not sell to the public: every .it goes through an accredited registrar, which collects the registrant's data and declarations.

This guide sums up what those documents actually require, with the cases international teams ask about most. Rules can change; this text reflects the versions in force on 14 October 2026.

Who can register a .it domain

Under Article 1.2.3(6) of the Regulation, a .it can only be registered by people or organisations with citizenship, residence or a registered office in:

an EU member state;
Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, which together with the EU form the European Economic Area (EEA);
Switzerland, San Marino or Vatican City State;
the United Kingdom.

For individuals, either test is enough. The Technical Guidelines turn this into a concrete check: the registrant record has a country field (where you live) and a nationality field (your citizenship), and for an individual at least one of them must be an eligible country. For companies and other organisations only the registered office counts, and the two fields must match.

Individuals must be adults: the Registry's system rejects a registrant who is a minor. There is no cap on how many .it names a single registrant can hold.

UK after Brexit: yes, UK registrants are eligible

Registrar FAQs still disagree, so here is the paper trail. On 22 December 2020 the Registry announced that, while it reviewed the EU–UK agreement, UK registrants could keep registering .it names as before. Version 8.0 of the Regulation (30 May 2022) then added the United Kingdom to the list of eligible countries, and Technical Guidelines 3.3 repeat it in both the registrant declarations and the automated validation rules. Pages that say otherwise usually rely on version 7.1 from 2014, written when the UK was still in the EU and therefore not named on its own.

Individuals, sole traders and companies

Your registrar records an entity type for the registrant. It decides which identifier you must supply, who can be the admin contact and what the public WHOIS shows.

Entity type	Who it covers	Identifier required (RegCode)
1 – Individuals	Private persons of any nationality who pass the citizenship or residence test	Italian tax code (codice fiscale) for Italian citizens and residents of Italy; otherwise the tax ID or equivalent of the country of residence
2 to 6 – Italian organisations	Companies (2), sole traders and freelancers (3), non-profits (4), public bodies (5), others (6)	Italian VAT number (11 digits) or numeric tax code
7 – Foreign organisations	Companies and other non-individual entities based in an eligible country other than Italy	Tax identifier in the format the Registry lists for that country (Appendix N of the Guidelines): for most countries the VAT number with its prefix, such as DE, FR, IE or GB

Two rules trip people up. For an individual, the registrant and the admin contact must be the same record. And with Guidelines 3.3 the Registry restates that the admin contact must belong to the registrant's own legal entity. If you are an agency or freelance developer registering for a client, the client is the registrant and supplies the admin contact; you can be the technical contact.

Do not register client domains in your own name

It is quicker on day one and painful later. The Registry treats whoever is listed as registrant as the party responsible for the name, whoever pays the invoice. When the relationship ends or a dispute starts, a domain in the wrong name turns into a negotiation. Put it in the client's name from the start.

Required data and declarations

The registrar creates a registrant contact in the Registry database with the following (Technical Guidelines, section 3.1.1):

full name, plus the exact legal name of the organisation for non-individuals;
full address of residence or registered office: street, city, province or region, postcode and ISO country code;
nationality as an ISO 3166-1 code (IT, DE, GB…); for organisations it equals the country of the registered office;
phone number in international format, for example +44.2071234567; fax is optional;
email address;
entity type and tax identifier, as in the table above;
consent, or refusal, to publish personal data, where a choice is allowed.

Before registration the registrant accepts a set of declarations, which the registrar keeps and must be able to hand over in writing if the Registry asks. In short, the registrant declares:

citizenship, residence or registered office in an eligible country;
acceptance of the Regulation and of the .it dispute resolution rules;
the right to use the requested name, without infringing anyone else's rights;
that the data are true and unambiguously identify the actual registrant;
awareness that a false declaration leads to immediate revocation, with no claim against the Registry;
acceptance of Italian law and jurisdiction.

These are enforced. The Registry can ask for documentary proof of eligibility at any time, including at a third party's request (Regulation, art. 6.1). The domain is locked during the check; if the proof does not hold up, the name is revoked, kept for 30 days in the revoked state and then deleted. The Registry also scans registrant data for anomalies and passes them to registrars, who have 75 days to fix them, uploading ID or company documents where needed.

Outside the eligible countries: US companies and others

A company based only in the United States, Canada, Australia, India or any other country not on the list cannot be a .it registrant: the Registry system rejects the contact if the country is not enabled. The realistic options are:

An entity in an eligible country. If your group has a subsidiary in Ireland, Germany, the UK or Italy, register the domain to that entity. It is the cleanest route and it survives a document check.
An eligible individual. An Italian citizen living in New York can register with their codice fiscale; an American living in Milan qualifies through residence. Either way the domain belongs to that person, not to your company.
Trustee or local presence services offered by some registrars, where an eligible third party is listed as registrant on your behalf. It works technically, but for the Registry the trustee is the registrant and your claim to the name rests on a private contract. Weigh that carefully for a brand that matters, also because the registrant declares that the data identify the real holder.

If none of these fits, pick another extension rather than inventing a European address. False data can lead to revocation, and since 2022 the Regulation lets the registrar, once the Registry has flagged the data, delete a name whose registrant details are clearly wrong when the registrant cannot be reached.

WHOIS privacy: what is public

The Registry's public WHOIS (whois.nic.it on port 43 and the web lookup on nic.it) shows different data depending on consent to publication (Technical Guidelines, Appendix M):

Individuals, sole traders and freelancers can choose. If they refuse consent, their personal data are not shown; the domain's status, dates, registrar and nameservers stay visible.
Companies, organisations and foreign non-individual registrants must consent. Their name and address are public, and the web lookup also shows nationality, phone and email.

So use a role address such as domains@yourcompany.com rather than an employee's personal mailbox. The data are processed under the GDPR: the CNR is the data controller and the registrar acts as processor. Anyone with a legitimate interest, for example to file an opposition against a registration, can ask the Registry for data that are not published.

Timing: registration, activation and renewal

Registration happens in real time over EPP and is strictly first come, first served: what counts is the moment a valid request lands in the Registry database. Names cannot be reserved in advance.

Right after registration the domain sits in inactive/dnsHold until the Registry validates its nameservers: at least two, authoritative and matching what was submitted. The check runs immediately, then every 30 minutes for the first 30 days, then once a day. With DNS ready, the domain can go live at the first check; if the nameservers fail, it stays inactive.
The Registry emails the registrant a summary of the registered data. Read it and get mistakes fixed straight away.
A .it is registered for one year and renews automatically on expiry unless it is deleted or transferred; a 15-day auto-renew period follows the expiry date.
Your registrar must give you the AuthInfo code, which you need to change registrar or registrant.

Checklist before you register a .it

Confirm eligibility: citizenship or residence (adult individuals) or a registered office (organisations) in the EU, the EEA, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City or the UK.
Pick the right registrant: the end client or business, not the agency or the employee placing the order.
Have the right identifier ready: codice fiscale for Italian individuals, the local equivalent for other individuals, the VAT number in the Registry's format for foreign companies.
Use a real, complete address and a phone number in +CC.number format.
Set an admin contact that belongs to the registrant and a role email that will outlive staff changes.
If you are an individual, sole trader or freelancer, decide whether to publish your data in WHOIS.
Check the name: 3 to 63 characters, letters, digits and hyphens, never a hyphen at the start or end; names of Italian regions, provinces and municipalities are reserved or cannot be assigned.
Set up two working nameservers before ordering if you want the domain live straight away.
Store the AuthInfo code and the Registry's confirmation email.

If you manage many .it names for clients and would rather hand over registration, DNS and renewals, we can take care of that at lubemy, always with each domain in the client's name.