Domain Registry Jurisdiction Index (2026)

How do you read the table?

Each row is one extension, linked to its own page. Registry manager is the organisation IANA lists as responsible for the extension: the company, foundation, agency or government that holds the delegation. Country of the registry manager is the country of the address IANA gives for it. Back-end operator is the technical contact in the same IANA record: the company that runs the registry database, the WHOIS host and the RDAP service. Manager and operator are often the same, as for DENIC with .de or Nominet with .uk. They are often different for newer extensions: Radix in the Cayman Islands uses Tucows in Toronto, for example.

Policy framework separates two worlds. Generic extensions (gTLDs) such as .com or .app run under a registry agreement with ICANN, which brings ICANN policies such as the UDRP with it. Country codes (ccTLDs) such as .de or .co follow national rules set by the registry or the government, with no ICANN registry contract. Dispute policy shows what we confirmed for trademark disputes. For country codes, we used WIPO's list of country-code domains that use its dispute service, and the registries' own pages for .de and .uk.

Why does the registry's country matter?

The registry holds the authoritative record of every domain in its extension. A registrar sends registrations to the registry and manages them for the customer; for PanamaRegistrar domains, that is our ICANN-accredited registrar partner, shown in the RDAP record. The registry keeps its own copy and can change it directly. For .com and .net, Verisign runs a thin registry: its copy holds the domain, the registrar, the nameservers and the dates, but no registrant contact data. Whatever happens at the registrar, the registry's record is what the internet's DNS follows.

A registry is an organisation located somewhere, and the courts of that place have authority over it. An order addressed to the registry can therefore change a domain without any step by the registrar: a transfer, a deletion, a hold, or a change of nameservers. That is why the choice of extension is also a choice of jurisdiction. 16 of our 43 extensions have their registry manager in the United States, including .com, .net and .org. A further 3 have a United States company as back-end operator, which adds a United States connection we could not fully qualify. The remaining registries sit in Europe, Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean and Latin America.

The registry's country is not the only factor. ICANN policies bind every generic extension wherever its registry sits, and a court can also act against the person who runs a website, not the domain. The index answers one narrow question: where is the registry, and therefore which courts can act on the record itself.

Can a court where the registry sits act without the registrar?

Yes, and in some countries the law says so in writing. Four examples are confirmed in the sources of this page.

• United States. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act lets a trademark owner file an in rem action against the domain name itself, in the judicial district where the registrar, the registry or another domain authority is located: 15 U.S.C. §1125(d)(2). It applies when the owner cannot sue the registrant in person or cannot find them after notice. The remedies are forfeiture, cancellation or transfer. Once served, the registry must deposit control documents with the court and leave the domain unchanged during the case. For .com and .net, the registry is Verisign in Reston, Virginia.
• Germany. DENIC's domain terms are governed by German law, with exclusive jurisdiction in Frankfurt am Main for legal persons and for holders outside Germany. Under § 7 (2), a final judgment that a registration infringes someone's rights is a ground for DENIC to end the contract. A claimant can also obtain a DISPUTE entry, which blocks transfers for one year, renewable while the case runs.
• United Kingdom. Under its Criminal Practices Policy, Nominet can suspend a .uk domain when the police or another law enforcement agency alert it to criminal use. Nominet checks the domain and works with the registrar.
• Switzerland. Under Article 15 of the Ordinance on Internet Domains, as OFCOM describes it, the .ch registry may block a domain on reasonable suspicion of phishing or malware, and must block it at the request of an anti-cybercrime service recognised by OFCOM.

For the other registries, we could not confirm a published procedure for court orders, and the index says so. That absence is not a guarantee: any registry must follow a valid order of a court that has authority over it.

What can PanamaRegistrar do about it, and what can it not do?

PanamaRegistrar controls what our service does. We act on Panamanian court orders, not on unverified complaints. A copyright, defamation, political or competitor complaint needs a decision from a Panamanian court, and a foreign judgment must first be recognised in Panama by exequatur. Phishing, malware, botnets and fraud that takes money from victims are suspended within 24 hours of a well-documented report. With Domain protection, every complaint is also read by a person before any action on the domain. The full steps are in the takedown procedure and on the court orders page.

PanamaRegistrar does not control the registry, nor our registrar partner, which keeps its own legal duties. We cannot refuse, delay or reverse an order that a court in Virginia, Frankfurt or Oxford addresses to the registry of that country. We cannot move a .com record out of the United States, because there is only one .com registry. Domain protection registers a domain in our company's name, adds a transfer lock and keeps the data we hold to your email, but it does not change the registry's country or its courts.

What we can do is tell you. When we learn of an action taken at the registry level, we tell you, unless the law or the order forbids it. We publish this index so that you can choose an extension with its registry country in view, before you register. And our transparency report will count the orders and requests we receive, every quarter, starting January 2027.

Which countries hold the most registries in this index?

By registry manager: the United States holds 16 (.com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .pro, .app, .dev, .xyz, .blog, .club, .live, .digital, .media, .news, .email). The Cayman Islands hold 3 (.online, .store, .tech), all managed by Radix. Every other country or territory holds one: Italy (.cloud), Malta (.link), the Isle of Man (.art), Japan (.shop), the British Indian Ocean Territory (.io), Anguilla (.ai), Colombia (.co), Montenegro (.me), Tuvalu (.tv), Guernsey (.gg), Palau (.pw), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (.vc), Germany (.de), the United Kingdom (.uk), the Netherlands (.nl), Switzerland (.ch), Poland (.pl), Belgium (.be), Austria (.at), Czechia (.cz), Australia (.cc), Tonga (.to), Finland (.fi) and New Zealand (.nz).

By back-end operator, the picture changes. Tucows in Toronto operates 6 registries (.online, .store, .tech, .cloud, .link, .to), and CIRA, also in Canada, operates .blog. CentralNic in London runs .xyz, .art, .co. Verisign in Reston runs .cc next to .com and .net. GoDaddy Registry in Tempe, Arizona runs .tv for Tuvalu, and Identity Digital in Bellevue, Washington is the technical contact for .vc. Those country codes have a government or company abroad as manager, but their database is operated from the United States.

What does the index not tell you?

The index records where registries are and which framework they follow. It does not predict what any court would decide in a given case. It does not cover the country of your hosting provider, your payment processor or yourself, each of which can matter more than the registry in a dispute. Several registries publish their own rules for court orders and disputes, and where we did not verify them, the table says "not confirmed" rather than guess.

IANA records change. The date of the last update of each record is on its extension page; we checked every record on 19 October 2026 and will update the index when a delegation changes. If you see a change before we do, write to [email protected].

Can I reuse this data?

Yes. The index is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence — reuse with a link to this page. You may copy the table, change it and publish it, including for commercial use, as long as you credit PanamaRegistrar with a link to https://panamaregistrar.com/registry-jurisdiction/. The underlying facts come from IANA's public root zone database, which anyone can check one extension at a time.