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Field Definitions
The field names shown here are used by all of our domain management tools and relate to fields stored in our registry. While only certain fields may be mandatory for an operation, we encourage registrars to provide values for as many of the fields as possible.
Please note that the terms "registrant contact" and "account" are used interchangeably in this documentation.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| a1-email | The registrant's email address. |
| a1-name | The contact name for the registrant. |
| a1-phone | The phone number for the registrant |
| account-id | The ID that specifies the registrant contact object |
| account-name | The company or individual whom the domain name is registered on behalf of. This must contain at least 4 or more characters and of these 3 or more must be letters. This field can only be changed after the initial registration by completing the registrant transfer process. |
| addr | The street address for the registrant. This is the address that is displayed on the Whois and is also occasionally used for adminstrative purposes such as the Dispute Resolution Service. Multiple lines can be specified either with multiple uses of this field. |
| auto-bill | Used to indicate how many days before expiry you wish to automatically renew a domain name. We strongly recommend reading about our renewal processes before setting this field. The auto-bill field is set with a value of between 1 and 182, indicating how many days before expiry you wish to renew the domain name. This field can be cleared by setting the default value of 0. Auto-bill cannot be set if next-bill, recur-bill or renew-not-required are set. |
| auto-period | Used in combination with the auto-bill field to define the number of years to renew a domain name for. The auto-period field is set with a value in years from 1y to 9y, or multiples of 12 for months from 12m to 108m. The default renewal period is 2 years when undefined. |
| changed | The date and the user who last changed the domain object, formatted as: user YYYYMMDD The user could be a name and email address or the value submitted from the <clTRID> element if changed from EPP. If it is an name and email address then it may contain spaces. |
| city | The city of the address displayed on the Whois for the domain. |
| co-no | The registered company number or the DfES UK school number of the registrant. |
| county | The county of the address displayed on the Whois for the domain. |
| country | The two letter ISO 3166 Country Code of the address displayed on the Whois. |
| crDate | The date the domain name was created, formatted as: YYYYMMDD |
| created | The date and the user who created the domain name, formatted as: user YYYYMMDD The user could be a name and email address or the value submitted from the <clTRID> element if created by EPP. If it is a name and email address then it may contain spaces. |
| crID | The user that created the domain name. Contains either the email address from which the original creation message was sent or the TAG if they used EPP. If it is an email address then it may contain spaces. |
| dns | The hostname of the specified nameserver object. This field can also specify the IP address of the nameserver. A space is used to separate the domain name from the IP address. For example: ns0.nserver.co.uk 121.121.121.121 |
| dns0 ... dns9 | The hostname of the first to tenth nameserver, respectively. This field can also specify the IP address of the nameserver. A space is used to separate the domain name from the IP address. For example: ns0.nserver.co.uk 121.121.121.121 |
| exDate | The date the domain name is due to expire on, formatted as: YYYYMMDD For some registrations this field may not be present or may be blank, which indicates that the registration has no set expiry date. |
| expiry | The date the domain name is due to expire on, formatted as: YYYYMMDD For some registrations this field may not be present or may be blank, which indicates that the registration has no set expiry date. |
| first-bill | Used to mark domain names to be billed directly by Nominet for registration fees. If first-bill is not set or set to th, the registration invoice will be sent to the registrar, setting this to bc will instead invoice the customer at the non-member registration rate. |
| key | The domain name. The maximum length of a domain name that you can register (including the .co.uk, .ltd.uk, etc) is 63 characters. The only characters allowed in a domain name are the 26 letters of the alphabet, numbers 0-9 and dashes/hyphens (-). A domain name cannot begin or end with a dash. Detailed rules of registration and use of domain names are available. |
| next-bill | Used to indicate how many days before expiry you wish to automatically renew a domain name. The next-bill field will reset to 0 after a single registration period. We strongly recommend reading about our renewal processes before setting this field. The next-bill field is set with a value of between 1 and 182, indicating how many days before expiry you wish to renew the domain name. This field can be cleared by setting the default value of 0. Next-bill cannot be set if auto-bill, recur-bill or renew-not-required are set. |
| next-period | Used in combination with the next-bill field to define the number of years to renew a domain name. The auto-period field is set with a value in years from 1y to 9y, or multiples of 12 for months from 12m to 108m. The default renewal period is 2 years when undefined. |
| notes | A free form field for miscellaneous information relating to the domain name. |
| operation | The operation you are requesting the Automaton to perform. |
| opt-out | Used to prevent the registrant's address details from being published in our WHOIS system. The opt-out field is set with a value of y. This field can only be set if the registrant is an individual who is using the domain name for a purpose unconnected with any business, trade or profession. As such, use of the opt-out field is restricted to certain types of registrants. This field can be cleared by setting the default value of n. |
| period | Used for registration and renewal requests to set the number of years to register or renew a domain name for. The renew field is set with a value in years from 1y to 10y, or multiples of 12 for months from 12m to 120m. The default registration and renewal period is 2 years when undefined. |
| postcode | The postcode field of the main administrative address. The postcode must be in uppercase with a space between the two parts of the postcode. Postcodes are validated to verify that they are formatted correctly. If you follow the postcode guidelines from GovTalk, the postcode should be accepted. |
| recur-bill | Used to mark domain names to be billed directly by Nominet for renewal. We strongly recommend reading about our renewal processes before setting this field. If recur-bill is not set or set to th invoices for renewals will be sent to the registrar, setting this to bc will instead invoice the customer at the non-member renewal rate (the auto-bill and next-bill fields will also be cleared). |
| reg-status | The registration status of a domain name. Field values will be from our list of registration statuses. |
| registrar-tag | This is the tag the domain name is currently on. When used with a release or transfer operation, this is the tag of the registrar receiving the domain name. |
| renew-not-required | Used to mark domain names that the registrant does not intend to renew. Setting this field will prevent Nominet from sending renewal reminders to the registrant. When set, a single email notification will be sent to the registrant to advise that the domain name will not be renewed. The renew-not-required field is set with a value of y and can be cleared with a value of n. This field can also be cleared by renewing the domain name or by the registrant using our Online Service to change registrar. This field cannot be set if either auto-bill or next-bill fields are set. |
| reseller | An optional field which can be used to associate a reseller with a domain. You must use Online Services to set values for this field. |
| trad-name | The trading name of the organisation if different to the account-name. |
| type | This describes what type of organisation the domain name has been registered for. The field value must be from our list of registrant types. |
| upDate | The date the domain name was last changed, formatted as: YYYYMMDD |
| upID | The user that last changed the domain name. The user could be a name and email address or the value submitted from the <clTRID> element if created by EPP. If it is a name and email address then it may contain spaces. |
Deprecated fields
The following table shows fields which still work, but are being phased out. Use of these fields will generate a non-fatal error but will not prevent your operation from completing. If a deprecated field is no longer held in the registry, we will not store the submitted value. If a deprecated field has been replaced by a newer field, we will store the submitted valued against the new field.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| a-addr | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| a-city | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| a-county | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| a-country | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| a-email, a2-email, a3-email | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| a-fax, a1-fax, a2-fax, a3-fax, fax | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| a1-id, a2-id, a3-id, reg-contact-id | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| a-locality, locality | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| a-mobile, a1-mobile, a2-mobile, a3-mobile | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| a2-name, a3-name | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| a-phone, a2-phone, a3-phone | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| a-postcode | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| admin-c | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| b-addr | This field is no longer be held in the registry. |
| b-city | This field is no longer be held in the registry. |
| b-country | This field is no longer be held in the registry. |
| b-county | This field is no longer be held in the registry. |
| b-email, b1-email, b3-email, b3-email | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| b-fax, b1-fax, b2-fax, b3-fax | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| b-id, b1-id, b2-id, b3-id | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| b-locality | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| b-mobile, b1-mobile, b2-mobile, b3-mobile | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| b-name, b1-name, b2-name, b3-name | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| b-phone, b1-phone, b2-phone, b3-phone | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| b-postcode | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| dns-id, dns0-id, dns1-id, ..., dns9-id | These fields are no longer held in the registry. |
| for | This field has been replaced by the account-name field. |
| ips-key | This field has been replaced by the registrar-tag field. |
| reg-addr | This field has been replaced by the addr field. |
| reg-city | This field has been replaced by the city field. |
| reg-co-no | This field has been replaced by the co-no field. |
| reg-contact | This field has been replaced by the a1-name field. |
| reg-country | This field has been replaced by the country field. |
| reg-county | This field has been replaced by the county field. |
| reg-email | This field has been replaced by the a1-email field. |
| reg-locality | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| reg-mobile | This field is no longer held in the registry. |
| reg-opt-out | This field has been replaced by the opt-out field. |
| reg-phone | This field has been replaced by the a1-phone field. |
| reg-postcode | This field has been replaced by the postcode field. |
| reg-trad-name | This field has been replaced by the trad-name field. |
| reg-type | This field has been replaced by the type field. |
| request | This field has been replaced by the key field. |
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Related contacts
For questions from our members and registrars Telephone: 01865 332233 Email: support@nominet.org.uk To make a payment Telephone: 01865 332348 Email: payments@nominet.org.uk Emergency out of hours support for registrars Telephone: 01606 866663
If you need any more advice, request a call back and discuss your query with one of our advisors.
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