2019 A Year Of Significant Achievements For EURid As Brexit Continues To Be A Drag

EURid recently released their 2019 annual report and it was a year of some quite significant milestones that recognised the .eu registry for its achievements, but it was also a year where Brexit was a significant drag on .eu registrations, this being the major reason for a decline of over 78,000 registrations for the year.

In their announcement, EURid noted the following developments:

  • extension of its Service Concession Contract with the European Commission
  • the publication of the new .eu Regulation scheduled to enter into force in October 2022
  • the launch of the updated eligibility criteria allowing EU citizens to register a .eu domain name independently of their residency
  • the introduction of  the .ευ (.eu in Greek) after nearly a decade since its application within ICANN
  • the official start of the APEWS system to prevent possibly abusive registrations.

EURid additionally won the Registry of the Year at the 2019 CENTR Awards for the second time in a row, the German Association of the Internet Industry “eco://award” in the Domains category, and the ACSAC’s “Distinguished Paper Awards” for the APEWS system.

In the 12 month period, .eu, .ею and since November 2019 .ευ registrations declined by 78,439, from 3,684,750 to 3,606,311. But new and total registrations have been declining for a number of ccTLDs and gTLDs in recent years as markets mature and growth harder to come by.

However there are two main reasons for the decline – a decline of 38,481 registrations to registrants in the United Kingdom, from 188,505 to 150,024 as well as a strengthening of actions to fight abuses. For British .eu registrants they who will no longer be eligible to hold a .eu domain name as of the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020.

The countries with the highest growth in terms of registrations were Portugal (72.9%), Norway (48.5%), and Ireland (44%).

To download EURid’s 2019 Annual Report, click here [pdf].

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