Reserve the domain name of a website

Verified 11 October 2023 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

The domain name allows users to identify your website and access its web pages. It may thus be advisable to reserve a domain name to communicate about your business, reach customers and expand your business reputation.

Step-by-step approach

Before reserving your domain name, you must check availability and this, on 2 levels.

A unique domain name

A domain name is unique and cannot be shared between different sites. Before considering his reservation, you must therefore verify that the domain name you have chosen is not already in use through another website.

To check the availability of a domain name, you can consult a domain name registry, commonly referred to as Whois ”.

For example, the registry ofAfnic: titleContent allows you to check the availability of domain names in .fr or .re .tf, .yt, .pm and .wf.

Check availability of a domain name in .fr (Whois)

Warning  

If you are reserving a domain name that is already registered and this results in a likelihood of confusion with a competing company, the latter may bring an action in unfair competition against you.

A domain name that is not protected by a trademark

If the domain name you have chosen is not yet used by a website, you must also make sure that it does not include the name of a registered trademark (in a similar field of activity).

If the chosen domain name infringes intellectual property rights, the company owning the trademark may engage a infringement action against you. The registration of a trademark takes precedence over the reservation of a domain name.

You can contact theInpi: titleContent to carry out a similarity search (paid service).

Check availability of a brand, logo, domain name, design (fee)

Please note

The Inpi provides a open access database containing all the trade marks in force in France. This allows you to for free a first check of the antecedents of the name you have chosen.

The domain name is assigned to the first party who requests it. So that's the rule of “first come, first served” which applies.

To reserve a domain name, you must contact one of the domain name registrars, also called " registrars ”. The competent office varies according to the extension the domain name (e.g. .fr, .com, .eu).

Please note

It is common to reserve the same domain name in .fr, .com or even .org so that they are not used by another company.

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.fr

You must speak to one of the accredited registrars by theAfnic: titleContent. It is advisable to select several and compare their services and prices.

To be eligible to register a .fr domain name, you (or your business' registered office) must be located in one of the EU Member StatesEuropean Union (including Norway, Switzerland, Iceland or Liechtenstein, ). You must also be reachable by email and phone.

You must comply with these conditions throughout the life of your domain name.

Please note

Afnic offers a free Wi-Fi zone. practical guide to manage your domain name on a daily basis (renewal, transmission, deletion, etc.)

.com / .net / .org

You must speak to one of the accredited registrars by theIcann: titleContent. It is advisable to select several and compare their services and prices.

.eu

You must speak to one of the accredited registrars by Eurid. It is advisable to select several and compare their services and prices.

Registration of a .eu domain name may be requested by the following persons:

  • Citizen of one of the EU Member StatesEuropean Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, irrespective of their place of residence
  • Natural person who is not a citizen of one of the Member States of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, but who resides in one of those States
  • Business established in an EU Member State, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway.

.re (Reunion), .yt (Mayotte), .pm (Saint Pierre and Miquelon), .wf (Wallis and Futuna), .tf (French Southern and Antarctic Lands)

You must speak to one of the accredited registrars by theAfnic: titleContent. It is advisable to select several and compare their services and prices.

To be eligible to register a .fr domain name, you (or your business' registered office) must be located in one of the EU Member StatesEuropean Union (including Norway, Switzerland, Iceland or Liechtenstein, ). You must also be reachable by email and phone.

You must comply with these conditions throughout the life of your domain name.

Please note

Afnic explains how to manage your domain name (renewal, transmission, deletion, etc.).

A domain name is always registered for a limited period (usually 1 to 10 years). It is therefore important to think about renew it before it expires and eventually becomes public knowledge.

When reserving a domain name, the registrar can offer you a automatic renewal procedure. The direct debit will then be automatic, and you will not have to worry about the domain name expiration date.

The only reservation of the domain name does not grant you no intellectual property protection.

To protect your domain name from competitors and cybersquatters, it is recommended that you also register the domain name in brand form to theInpi: titleContent, in addition to reserving the domain name.

When applying for the trade mark name, each activity corresponds to a class. You must choose from the 45 classes available, those corresponding to the activity carried out by your company. It is therefore not possible to protect your brand in a global way, the protection will only be effective on the classes chosen.

The protection offered by the Inpi offers a monopoly of exploitation on the trademark thus registered for a period of 10 years. This protection is renewable indefinitely.

Register a trademark online

By contrast, the filing of the trade mark concerns only the protection at national level, i.e. throughout France. If you want to protect a brand beyond these borders, you should contact theEUIPO: titleContent (for European protection) orWIPO: titleContent (for global protection).

Please note

Before filing a trademark, consider check availability to avoid conflicts between domain names, trademarks or company names.