Romania Introduces Maintenance Fee for .ro Domains

Romania’s National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics has recently introduced new regulations for .ro domains taking effect on March 1, 2018.

Former regulations did not require the payment of yearly maintenance fees for Romania’s country code top-level domain name (ccTLD). The .ro domain names were registered for an unlimited period of time and it was common for owners to forget to deactivate the domain names that were not in use, a significant number of which has accumulated over the years.

As of March 1, 2018, when registering .ro domain names, apart from the registration fee of EUR 43 (USD 51) plus VAT, domain owners will also have to pay a maintenance fee for a desired period between one and ten years. The yearly maintenance fee for domains acquired directly via the RoTLD website will be EUR 12 (USD 14) plus VAT.

The existing registration fee will cover at least five years of maintenance from the date of registration or last ownership transfer. The expiration date for domains registered or transferred after March 1, 2013 will be five years later (e.g. if a domain was registered or transferred on April 1, 2013, it will expire on April 1, 2018). The owners of domains registered or transferred before March 1, 2013 will receive a grace period before having to pay the maintenance fee, taking into account the domain registration or last transfer date as in the table below:

The new regulations will help unlock .ro domain names that are not used anymore and provide the funds needed to improve the RoTLD domain registration services.

Prepared by: Cristina Vălcăuan

For more information, please contact romania@petosevic.com.

Source: RoTLD — .ro domain registry