Domain zone

Register a .de domain

For a business that sells to or works with customers in Germany, .de is the address people there expect — and the first one they type.

About .de

.de is the country code top-level domain of Germany, in use since 1986. It is one of the largest country-code zones in the world, with well over fifteen million names, and in Germany it is far more common than .com for companies, shops, public bodies and private sites.

German users often check for a .de first, and search engines treat it as a signal that the site is aimed at Germany. That makes it the standard choice for local businesses, but also for foreign companies opening a German-language version of their site or entering the German market.

Names in .de can be short: single characters and names made only of digits are allowed, and German letters such as ä, ö, ü and ß can be used. A German word or a brand name plus a German term often reads better to local customers than an English phrase.

Good for

Businesses in Germany

Shops, practices, craft businesses and agencies get the ending their local customers trust and remember.

Entering the German market

A foreign brand can run its German-language site on .de, which helps search engines show it to users in Germany.

Names with umlauts

A brand or word containing ä, ö, ü or ß can be registered in its correct spelling, alongside a version written without them.

Registering a .de domain

Anyone can register a .de, but the owner must give a real postal address; a P.O. box alone is not enough.
For owners without an address in Germany, the registry may require a contact in Germany who can receive official correspondence.
Names can be 1 to 63 characters long and may include digits, hyphens and German letters (ä, ö, ü, ß); digit-only names are allowed.
The registry checks that the domain's name servers are set up correctly before the domain goes live.

With every domain at Rivervo

DNS management in the Rivervo panel
WHOIS privacy free where the zone allows it
Point it at Rivervo hosting or any other server
Renewal reminders before it expires

Questions about .de

Yes. Owners from any country are accepted, but you must provide a full postal address. If that address is outside Germany, the registry may ask for a contact in Germany for official documents.

No. Since 2018 the German registry has not published the personal data of domain owners in its public lookup. Only technical data such as the name servers and status is visible.

If your name contains ä, ö, ü or ß, it is worth it: some visitors type the letters, others write “ae”, “oe”, “ue” or “ss”. Point both versions at the same site.