100% Australian owned and operated
The short answer
No. auDA (.au Domain Administration, the body that runs .au) says you don’t need to register the matching .au as well as your .com.au. If customers already know your .com.au and nobody is likely to use yourname.au against you, one name does the job. The matching .au is worth holding when people say or type your address and shorter helps, or when a competitor or impersonator might register it.
- A second name is a renewal every year, not a one-off purchase. Compare renewal prices, not first-year prices.
- Priority allocation, the 2022 window when existing .au holders could claim the matching name first, is closed. Unclaimed .au names are now first come, first served. About 3,000 names that more than one holder applied for are still on hold (auDA review panel, August 2026).
- If you hold both, choose one main address and set a permanent (301) redirect from the other at your web host or site builder.
- The .au closes the nearest gap, not every gap. A spare domain also needs “no mail” records: settings that tell mail servers to reject email forged in its name.
When is the matching .au worth holding?
When the shorter name would actually get used, by your customers or by someone pretending to be you. If neither is likely, one name is enough. auDA’s questions-and-answers page is plain about it: “No, you do not need to register both.” Many businesses hold the match anyway as brand protection, it adds: a reasonable choice, not a requirement.
| Your situation | What we’d suggest | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Customers know your .com.au, the name is distinctive, and nobody has tried to imitate you | Stay with one name. Do the free checks below once a year. | Nothing |
| People hear your address more than they see it: phone, radio, signage, word of mouth | Hold the .au and redirect it to your main site | One more renewal a year |
| Your name is common or descriptive, or a competitor or impersonator could plausibly use it | Hold the .au, redirect it, and give it “no mail” records | One more renewal a year |
| You’re starting fresh, with no established address | Choose your main name first: .com.au, .au or .com? | Depends on what you choose |
| You don’t have an ABN (Australian Business Number) | A .au is still open to you: getting a domain without an ABN | — |
| Your matching .au is contested | Renew your priority application by 20 September each year (UTC, Coordinated Universal Time), and keep the licence it’s based on renewed (see below) | Your provider’s renewal fee |
| Someone else already holds it | See your options | — |
The short version of this list, and who can register a .au, is on our .au domains page.
What can you check today, for free?
Three things: whether yourname.au is taken, whether it’s on priority hold, and whose name your domains are in. Each takes a minute.
Look up yourname.au
Type it into the WHOIS tab of our free toolbox, which needs no account. (WHOIS is the public lookup that shows whether a domain is registered and, for .au names, who holds it.) If it shows as available, nobody is using it against you today, but do step 2 before you buy. If it’s registered somewhere else, the toolbox links you to auDA’s WHOIS, which shows the holder’s name.
See whether it’s on hold
auDA’s priority status tool shows whether a name is still held back from the 2022 priority round (explained below) because more than one holder applied for it.
Check whose name your domains are in
Look up your .com.au, and the .au if you hold it, on auDA’s WHOIS. Every .au record shows the holder’s name, so you can see whether it’s your business or, say, your web developer. Why that matters.
What does a second name really cost?
One renewal every year, for as long as you keep it: $20 a year inc GST (Goods and Services Tax) at Chill Domains at today’s list price, or whatever your provider charges. It’s a small standing cost, not a one-off purchase, so it should earn its place.
Wherever you buy, compare the renewal price, not just the first-year price; the two aren’t always the same. At Chill Domains a .au costs the same as a .com.au and renews at the same list price. At today’s list price that’s $100 over five years for the second name, or $40 a year for the pair.
For news of .au prices rising, see what changed on 1 October 2026; to compare every ending, see .com.au, .au or .com.
About “register every ending”. You’ll sometimes be urged to buy your name in every ending it comes in. Holding the one matching .au is a sensible option, and auDA mentions it. Buying every variation is rarely necessary, and each one is another renewal.
What happened to priority allocation?
It’s over. Direct .au names (such as yourname.au, registered straight under .au rather than under .com.au) became available on 24 March 2022. From then until 20 September 2022, holders of existing .au names could apply for the matching direct name ahead of the public. Unclaimed names opened to anyone eligible on 3 October 2022. auDA gives both dates in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Since then, .au names have been first come, first served.
Some pages written in 2022 still urge you to register before 20 September. That was the priority deadline, and it passed four years ago.
Contested names, and what their applicants must do
A contested name is one that more than one eligible holder applied for, for example when yourname.com.au and yourname.net.au were held by different people. auDA’s rules rank the applications. A licence created on or before 4 February 2018 (Category 1) beats one created later (Category 2). If every applicant is Category 2, the earliest licence wins. If more than one is Category 1, the name stays on hold until they agree, or until only one application is left.
In April 2023 auDA counted around 6,000 contested names. Its review panel’s final report (dated August 2026) says about 3,000 remain. The panel recommends keeping the current process (its Recommendation 3) and expects the number to keep falling. Like all the panel’s recommendations, that isn’t final yet.
If you hold a priority application, renew it by 20 September (UTC) each year with the provider that holds it. auDA says registrars contact applicants about this in the 90 days before that date. (A registrar is an auDA-accredited company that registers .au names, sometimes through a reseller you deal with.) Each renewal rechecks your eligibility. If you don’t renew, or you no longer meet the eligibility rules, the application lapses and you drop out of the contest. Keep the licence your application is based on renewed too; it’s what your claim rests on. If it’s a .com.au, see the ABN check at renewal. There’s a yearly renewal fee: auDA’s rules say auDA publishes it, but we couldn’t find it on its priority pages, so ask your provider what it charges.
How many .com.au names have the matching .au registered?
We couldn’t find a published figure, but the registry numbers put a ceiling on it: at most about one in four .com.au names can have its matching .au registered at all, by anyone. auDA’s figures for August 2026 show 3,310,653 .com.au names and 819,002 direct .au names, which is about four .com.au names for every direct .au.
| Names registered | August 2026 |
|---|---|
| .com.au | 3,310,653 |
| Direct .au | 819,002 |
| All .au names | 4,416,817 |
How we worked it out. Each direct .au matches only one .com.au, so the direct .au count caps how many .com.au names could have their match registered at all, by anyone: 819,002 ÷ 3,310,653 is about 24.7%. Direct .au names make up 18.5% of all .au names, and their count is up 3.7% on August 2025 (789,788). If you see “762,000” (about 18%) quoted, that’s auDA’s February 2024 count.
Does a .au rank better on Google than a .com.au?
Not on any evidence we could find. Google’s guidance for sites aimed at more than one country treats a country-code top-level domain (ccTLD), the two-letter ending such as .au, as a strong signal of which country a site is for. Its list of ccTLDs it treats as generic, such as .io, .co and .tv, doesn’t include .au. Both yourname.au and yourname.com.au sit under .au, and we found no Google guidance that favours one over the other.
So choose the address your customers will remember and type correctly. That matters more than the ending. For .com as well, see what Google says about each ending.
If you hold both, how do you send everyone to one address?
Pick one as your main address, and set a permanent (301) redirect from the other at your web host or site builder. A permanent redirect tells browsers and search engines that the move is for good, and Google recommends doing it on the server wherever possible.
Many site builders handle this for you. Squarespace’s help page (updated 9 July 2026), for example, says secondary domains connected to a site redirect to the primary domain with a 301. Other builders and hosts work differently, so check yours.
Avoid “masked” or “framed” forwarding, which shows your main site inside a frame under the second address. Framed pages tend to display badly on phones, confuse search engines and break links to individual pages (our lesson on www, redirects and forwarding has more). A redirect covers the website only; email is set up separately (see below).
Should you move your main website to the shorter .au?
Only for a good reason, because moving has costs. Google’s guidance on site moves says to:
- redirect each old address to its new one with server-side permanent redirects
- keep those redirects in place for at least a year
- tell Google about the move with the Change of Address tool in Search Console, its free tool for site owners
- expect your search rankings to wobble for a while during the move.
Away from Google, there are email addresses to change and printed things to redo: cards, signs, vehicles, invoices. If you do switch, keep renewing the .com.au so the redirects, and any email still sent to the old addresses, have somewhere to land.
Does holding the .au stop impersonators?
Partly. It closes the nearest gap: nobody else can register yourname.au while you hold it. It doesn’t stop other lookalikes, such as the same name with the dot dropped (yourbusinesscom.au), a hyphenated version or a different ending. Registering lookalikes like these to catch someone’s visitors or imitate them is called typosquatting. Lookalike domains covers what helps, and it isn’t buying every variation.
A spare domain that sends no email is also easy to forge as a sender, because nobody is watching it. Two DNS (Domain Name System) records do most of the work: an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record saying no server may send as the domain, and a DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) record telling receiving servers to reject anything that tries. Domains that don’t send email has the exact records.
Spare domains only. These records stop all email from the domain. Put them on the spare name, never on the domain you send email from. Take them off first if you ever start using the spare for email or set up email forwarding on it: a domain should have only one SPF record, and some forwarding services, ours included, add their own.
For letters and emails dressed up as renewal notices, see domain renewal scams in Australia.
Someone else holds the .au that matches your .com.au. What can you do?
Offer to buy it, or wait to see whether it lapses. If the holder doesn’t seem eligible, complain to their registrar; if they registered or used it in bad faith against your name, use the auDRP (.au Dispute Resolution Policy). Otherwise it’s theirs to hold: a .au and a .com.au are separate licences, so holding the .com.au gives you no automatic claim.
| Situation | Route | Who decides | Cost and time |
|---|---|---|---|
| They’re eligible and using it in good faith | Offer to buy it (a change of registrant), or wait to see whether it lapses | Them | Whatever you agree, plus the provider’s change-of-registrant fee. An expired .au can be renewed for 30 days; after that, anyone eligible can register it. |
| They don’t seem to meet the eligibility rules | An eligibility complaint to their registrar | Their registrar first; auDA if you’re not satisfied | The registrar has 30 days to resolve it, or longer if it tells you it needs more time. auDA’s complaints page explains how to take it further. |
| They registered or used it in bad faith against your name | A complaint under the auDRP, lodged with Resolution Institute or WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization) | An independent panel | Resolution Institute charges $2,200 inc GST for one panellist and up to five names; WIPO lists $2,000 (Australian dollars) and doesn’t mention GST. Resolution Institute’s panel has 14 calendar days from its appointment to decide. |
| The name is contested and you hold a priority application | Negotiate with the other applicants, and renew by 20 September (UTC) each year | The applicants | Your provider’s renewal fee |
The auDRP test has three parts. The complainant must show that the domain is identical or confusingly similar to a name or mark they have rights in, such as a company, business or personal name or a trade mark; that the holder has no rights or legitimate interests in it; and that it was “registered or subsequently used in bad faith” (auDA’s wording; either one is enough). A successful complaint ends with the name cancelled or transferred, and a transfer needs the complainant to be eligible for it. The holder can stop a cancellation or transfer by starting court proceedings against the complainant within 10 business days of the registrar being told of the decision; if they don’t, the decision is carried out. (auDA’s summary page says 10 days; the policy itself says 10 business days.)
Trade mark and other intellectual property disputes are outside auDA’s complaints process; they go to the auDRP or the courts. If you agree a price with the holder, the handover is a change of registrant.
This is general information, not legal advice. For a dispute, talk to a lawyer who handles trade marks or domain names, or read the dispute providers’ own guides.
Whose name should the .au be in?
The same business that holds your .com.au, so the two stay together if you sell, restructure or change web developers. auDA says someone else, such as a developer, can register a .au for you “with your explicit written permission”. auDA’s rules go further: the agent must make sure your business, not the agent, is recorded as the registrant (the licence holder).
Every .au shows its holder’s name in auDA’s public WHOIS, with no privacy option, so it takes a minute to check (our WHOIS lesson explains the record). If the name is wrong, a change of registrant fixes it.
If you’re selling or restructuring a business, treat this as general information, not legal advice.
At Chill Domains. A .au is $20 a year inc GST, the same as a .com.au, and it renews at the same list price. New registrations are for one year; renew for longer from your dashboard, up to auDA’s five-year maximum. A new name starts on our DNS hosting with a simple holding page. To redirect it, add the records your web host or site builder gives you in our DNS editor, and add the SPF and DMARC “no mail” records in the same place. Already hold the .au somewhere else? You can transfer it to us.
If the table at the top says yes, check whether yourname.au is available. If it says no, keep the $20.
Questions people ask
Is .com.au being phased out in favour of .au?
Do I need an ABN to hold a .au?
Do I have to put a website on the .au?
Does holding the .com.au give me any right to the .au?
My matching .au is contested. What do I have to do each year?
Can my web developer register the .au for me?
What happens if I stop renewing a spare .au?
How long can I register a .au for?
Are the .com.au rules changing, and does that matter here?
Terms in this guide
- auDA
- .au Domain Administration, the not-for-profit body that sets the rules for .au names.
- ccTLD
- A country-code top-level domain: a two-letter ending such as .au.
- Licence
- What you hold when you register a .au: the right to use the name for a set term, not ownership.
- Eligibility
- The rules on who may register a particular ending, and which names they may register.
- Registrant
- The person or organisation a domain is registered to. That should be you or your business.
- Registrar
- A company accredited to add and change names in a registry. For a .au, auDA accredits it.
- Change of registrant
- Putting a domain into a different person’s or business’s name.
- WHOIS
- The public lookup that shows whether a domain is registered, and for .au names, the holder’s name.
- 301 redirect
- A permanent redirect: the web server’s way of saying “this has moved for good”.
- Typosquatting
- Registering a lookalike of someone else’s name to catch their visitors or imitate them.
- SPF
- Sender Policy Framework: a DNS record listing the servers allowed to send email for a domain.
- DMARC
- A DNS record that tells receiving mail servers what to do with email that fails the checks.
Every term, in full, is in the glossary.
Sources
All read on 6 October 2026.
- .au direct domain names (auDA): you don’t need both; brand protection; no plan to phase out com.au; no website needed; someone else can register for you with your written permission; no ABN needed; com.au needs a commercial entity with a connection to Australia.
- .au direct Priority Allocation Process (auDA): the 2022 dates, the yearly renewal by 20 September, and registrars contacting applicants in the 90 days before it.
- .au Domain Administration Rules: .au Direct Priority Implementation (auDA): the 4 February 2018 cut-off, Category 1 and 2, how contested names are resolved, when an application lapses (clause 1.9.11), and the yearly application renewal fee auDA says it publishes (clause 1.9.13).
- .au direct Priority Status Tool (auDA): checking whether a name is still on hold.
- .au direct: One year on (auDA, 11 April 2023): around 6,000 names contested.
- .au direct: two years and counting (auDA, 26 March 2024): the earlier “762,000” figure.
- Registry Monthly Statistics, August 2026 (auDA): the .com.au, direct .au and total counts, and the August 2025 direct .au count.
- .au Domain Administration Rules: Licensing (auDA, June 2026 version): the 18 Australian presence categories, the trade mark exact-match rule, no privacy or proxy services (clause 2.2.3), an agent must record the person they act for as the registrant (clause 2.2.6), the com.au name rules (clause 2.4.4), one-to-five-year terms and the 30 days after expiry.
- WHOIS Policy (2025-11) (auDA, approved 4 February 2026): what the public WHOIS record shows for a .au, including the holder’s legal name.
- Licensing Rules Review 2025: Policy Advisory Panel Final Report (auDA, dated August 2026): about 3,000 names still contested, renewal rechecking eligibility, Recommendation 3, and the proposed com.au change.
- .au Licensing Rules Review recommendations: status and next steps (auDA, 25 September 2026): approval in principle, nothing finalised, consultation by the end of October 2026.
- The auDRP process (auDA): the three-part test, the outcomes, and its summary of the court window (10 days).
- .au Dispute Resolution Policy (auDRP) (2016-01) (auDA, approved 14 April 2016): the binding text, including the 10 business days after the registrar is told of the decision, and the holder’s court proceedings as the only thing that stops it (paragraph 4(k)).
- How auDA’s complaints process works (auDA): eligibility complaints go to the registrar first, which has 30 days to resolve them, then to auDA; intellectual property disputes are outside the process.
- Domain name disputes in Australia (Resolution Institute): its $2,200 inc GST fee and the 14 calendar days to decide.
- Schedule of Fees for .AU (WIPO): its fee of 2,000 Australian dollars for one panellist and one to five names; the page doesn’t mention GST.
- Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites (Google Search Central): country-code endings as a country signal, and the country codes Google treats as generic.
- Redirects and Google Search (Google Search Central): permanent server-side redirects.
- Site moves with URL changes (Google Search Central; a URL is a web address): redirects for at least a year, the Change of Address tool and the temporary ranking changes.
- Setting a primary domain (Squarespace): secondary domains redirect to the primary domain with a 301.
Keep reading
- .com.au, .au or .com: which should a new business choose?
- Can you get an Australian domain name without an ABN?
- How a change of registrant works, for buying a .au from its holder or fixing whose name it’s in
- The ABN check at renewal, for keeping a .com.au eligible
- Domain renewal scams in Australia
- What changed in .au prices on 1 October 2026
- Getting your .au domain password, if you’re moving a .au you already hold
- www, redirects and forwarding
- Keeping your domain safe
- Email and your domain