100% Australian owned and operated
.io domains
Register a .io domain — $152/year, same at renewal
A .io costs $152 a year including GST at Chill Domains, and renewal is the same list price. It’s the country-code domain of the British Indian Ocean Territory, open to registrants anywhere, and popular with tech projects because “IO” reads as input/output.
Type just the name — we’ll assume .io on this page.
.io at a glance
| Price | $152 a year inc GST |
|---|---|
| Renewal | $152 a year — the same list price as the first year |
| Transfer in | No transfer fee. A transfer includes one year’s renewal at the normal price ($152) |
| Registry | Internet Computer Bureau Ltd (per IANA’s root zone database) |
| Who can register | Anyone, anywhere, for names like yourname.io |
| Term | 1 year when you register; renew for longer from your dashboard (the registry maximum is 10 years) |
| WHOIS privacy | Included at no extra cost where the registry supports it. Switch it on in your dashboard (it’s off until you do) |
| Transfer lock | Usually locked for a period after registration (commonly 60 days; the .io registry sets the rule, as .io isn’t covered by ICANN’s Transfer Policy) |
| Transfer time | Usually 5–7 days once the auth code (EPP code) is accepted |
Premium names: some registries charge more for certain names. If you pick one, checkout shows the first-year and renewal price before you pay.
Is .io going away? What we know in September 2026
The IO code belongs to the British Indian Ocean Territory, which is the Chagos Archipelago. On 22 May 2025 the UK and Mauritius signed a treaty to hand sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius. If it took effect and the IO code were later removed from the ISO 3166-1 list, ICANN’s retirement process for .io would start. Under the ccNSO’s policy, that means a default five years’ notice before removal, extendable to a maximum of ten years.
It hasn’t started. As of April 2026 the UK had not passed the legislation needed to ratify the treaty. As at 16 September 2026, IANA’s root zone record for .io is unchanged, and .io names register, renew and transfer normally. We’ll update this page if that changes.
Our view: a .io is fine for a product or project today. If your business will rely on one address for decades, also hold the name in another extension.
What the price includes
- DNS hosting with A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SRV and CAA records, plus email and URL forwarding
- Plain-text renewal reminders 30 days, 7 days and 1 day before expiry — they stop if you renew or tell us not to
- Passkey and two-factor sign-in, and a transfer code you can reveal yourself any time
- Registered through an accredited wholesale registrar partner, named as the registrar in public WHOIS