Latest Brexit Update and How It Impacts British .EU Registrants

27.01.2021

- David Goldstein -

The United Kingdom left the European Union on January 31, 2020 and then an 11-month transition phase ran until December 31, 2021. One of the consequences of Brexit is British entities and individuals are no longer eligible to hold or register .eu domain names. So on January 1, 2021 all remaining .eu domain names registered to British registrants were “suspended”.

Over 80,000 domains affected

As of December 31, there were over 81,000 .eu registrations to British registrants. How many of these were used as websites and email for businesses isn’t known, but on January 1 they all stopped working and were put in a “suspended” status.

For any British .eu registrants, to keep their domain name they need to update their registration data by indicating one of the following:

• they are a legally established entity in one of the eligible 27 European Union countries or the wider European Economic Area
• by updating their residence to a EU27 or EEA Member State
• proving their citizenship of a EU27 Member State irrespective of their residence.

Within the first week of 2021, EURid, the .eu registry, had been contacted by the registrants of thousands of .eu domains and over 2,500 domain names were made operational again.

Next steps

If registration details are not updated for the “suspended” domain names are:

• on April 1, 2021, EURid will notify again by email all UK registrants and their registrars that their domain name is no longer compliant with the .eu regulatory framework and the relevant domain names will be moved to the “withdrawn” status
• on January 1, 2022, all the domain names in the “WITHDRAWN” status, formerly assigned to UK registrants, will be REVOKED and become AVAILABLE for general registration.

Brexit has been particularly harsh on .eu registrations which, going by EURid’s end of quarter reports, peaked at around 323,000 at the end of the first quarter of 2018, meaning there have been over 240,000 registrations lost in almost 3 years.

Any .eu registrant that has had their domain name “suspended” should contact us immediately so we can discuss what options are available to you.