Switzerland’s ccTLD .ch will continue to be managed by Switch for five more years from January 2027, the country’s Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) announced last week, with the option of extending for another five years.
Switch have operated the registry for Switzerland’s country code top-level domain (ccTLD) since 2003, and if the additional five-year extension is taken up, this will take their managing .CH to 34 years.
Previously a public tender was held in 2016 and as a result Switch was awarded a five-year mandate (2017–2021). As with the current contract there was the option of a five-year extension that was taken up taking management until 2026. During this period, Switch strengthened its security and anti-cybercrime measures, helping position the .ch domain among the most secure in Europe.
For the upcoming mandate, OFCOM recognised the fundamental importance of continuous, secure and robust management of .ch, as this directly affects the availability, security and reliability of all digital services based on .ch addresses and therefore public, business and government confidence in digital Switzerland. Secondly, a survey OFCOM conducted in March 2025 among stakeholders in the Swiss domain name sector showed high satisfaction with the services Switch provides under its service mandate and revealed no opposition to continuing the collaboration.
As has been the case since 2015 when an Ordinance on Internet Domains (OID) that required Switch to stop selling domain names, the registry will continue to be unable to operate as a registrar.