How do I declare the domain name of a website?
Verified 30 September 2021 - Legal and Administrative Information Directorate (Prime Minister)
You want to create a website to sell products or services online or to advertise your activity? You must reserve a domain name so that Internet users can access the website's web pages.
The domain name is the name that identifies a website and is the means of locating and accessing the pages of this website.
The rules for booking a domain name vary according to the nature of the site:
- Geographical domains with a national vocation, depending on the geographical location of the company:
- .fr (France)
- .de (Germany)
- .it (Italy)
- .eu (European Union)
- Generic, international fields:
- .com (for commercial activities)
- .net (for companies)
- .org (for non-governmental organisations, etc.)
The domain name is assigned to the person who requests the reservation first. So that's the rule of first come, first served prevailing.
In order to reserve a domain name, you must contact the managing body responsible for it.
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.fr or .tm.fr
Who shall I contact
The domain name can be assigned to:
- any entity or person having a legal existence in France,
- any natural person residing in the European Union (EU),
- any legal person having its head office or principal place of business in the EU.
Please note
upon registration, you must write a declaration of honour stating that you meet the criteria for the assignment and that you are not causing problems to other domain name holders.
.re (Reunion), .yt (Mayotte), .pm (Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon), .wf (Wallis and Futuna), .tf (French Southern and Antarctic Lands)
Who shall I contact
.eu
The domain name can be requested by:
- a citizen of the European Union (EU), irrespective of his place of residence,
- a natural person who is not an EU citizen and who resides in a Member State,
- an EU company,
- an organisation established in the EU, taking into account applicable national law.
.com and .net
Who shall I contact
.org
Who shall I contact
Reserving the domain name is not intellectual property protection.
Indeed, the domain name does not correspond to a trademark, which is an intellectual property title protected after its deposit.
To protect your domain name from cyber squatters or competitors, you should also register the domain name as a trademark in addition to the domain name reservation.
Before making a domain name reservation and a trademark deposit, it is possible to check its availability, to avoid conflicts between domain names, brands or company names.
Online search of INPI databases
Warning
in the event of a dispute, the trademark previously registered in the domain name is the priority.
When a individual business or a business is declared, a declaration concerning the domain name of a website can be attached to its declaration of activity. It involves its inclusion in the constituent elements of the company (with an inscription on the RCS: titleContent for a commercial company).
Therefore, the domain name is mentioned on the company's Kbis extract.
Legal persons have the possibility to declare several domain names.
Declaration on the domain name(s) of the Internet site(s)
FYI
domain name declaration does not affect trade name company.
You can also contact a domain name registrar called registrar. He is in charge of the administrative and technical procedures for registering a domain name with the registers concerned.
Who shall I contact
To small and medium-sized and micro-entreprises, do you have a business project, a difficulty or a question ?
Quick and simple public service: you will be contacted over the phone by one of our experts.
Speak with an advisor on Place des Entreprises- Afnic Domain Name ManagementFrench Association for Internet Naming in Cooperation (Afnic)
- Get a .eu domain nameEurid (European Registry For Internet Domains)
- Icann siteIcann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)