Australia uses .au, .com.au, which requires a local presence to register. Below: who operates each namespace, what its rules actually constrain, the accredited local registrars, and how global registrars compare on price where we hold a sourced figure.
OVHcloud is the one registrar this site tracks that meets all three local conditions in Australia: a storefront in an official language, billing in AUD, and .com.au for sale. Of the 11 local storefronts read on 2026-09-29, none printed a .com.au price together with its currency and tax treatment, so no local registrar is ranked; each is listed below with what its page showed. auDA accredits 32 registrars to sell .com.au; none of them is tested or scored here. Global registrars that sell .com.au in US dollars are the global option for a buyer in Australia, not a recommendation in it.
Registrars accredited by auDA (.au Domain Administration)
These 32 companies are accredited by the Australia registry to sell .au, .com.au, .net.au and 3 more. Every column is a fact the registry publishes, read from its accredited-registrar list on 2026-09-29. Listed in the registry's own order.
Registrars accredited by auDA (.au Domain Administration), with website and whether the registry lists each as supporting DNSSEC. No prices and no scores: none of these registrars has been tested by this site.
-the registry publishes no website for this registrar
Not published
0 of 32 are listed by the registry as supporting DNSSEC. “Not published” means the registry does not list that registrar as supporting it, which is not the same as the registrar not supporting it. We have not tested any of these registrars, so nothing here carries a price, a score or a ranking. Comparing them on price and service is work we have not done, and saying which is better would be invention.
Which registrars have a English site, bill in AUD and sell .au?
Three conditions decide whether a registrar can be recommended in Australia rather than merely to the world from it: an interface in an official language, billing in the local currency, and selling the local namespace. All three must hold. 1 of the 19 registrars below meets all three.
Bills in AUD. Australian storefront in English. The extension table prints ".com.au A$18.50" and the domains page "A$18.50 EX. GST" with "Renew A$18.50 ex. GST": Australian dollars with the country's tax treatment stated.
Bills in USD only. "All prices are in USD" is a positive statement that no other billing currency is offered, so this is a recorded 'no' on every non-USD currency rather than an absence.
Bills in USD only. "All pricing is per year and in USD." is a positive statement that no other billing currency is offered, as Porkbun's is; recorded as a 'no' on every non-USD currency.
Read billing in EUR and PKR and BRL and ARS and COP and TRY and INR and UAH and PLN and CZK and IDR and PHP and SEK and DKK; AUD has not been established either way.
Offers AUD in a currency selector, but whether the card is charged in AUD or in USD after a conversion is not established. Thirteen currencies in the selector (AU$, R$, CA$, ¥, €, £, ₹, MX$, ₱, ﷼, ฿, ₺, USD $). Whether the card is charged in the selected currency is not established by the page, so none passes the currency condition.
A dash is ignorance, not a failing grade: it means we have not established that condition either way. Several registrars render their language and currency switchers in JavaScript, which the read behind this table cannot see, so we record nothing rather than a false “no”. A currency that appears only in a display selector does not count as billing in that currency, because a converted price charged in dollars is exactly the case this condition exists to catch.
Where to buy a .com.au: auDA-accredited registrars, read from their own storefronts
Eleven of auDA's 32 accredited entities, the retail brands on its public provider directory, plus GoDaddy's Australian storefront, were opened in a real browser on 2026-09-29. Australian retail pages print a dollar figure without naming the currency or the GST treatment (VentraIP, Webcentral), or print no price at all before a search (Cheaper Domains, DDNS, Domain Central, GoHosting, Instra), so no accredited storefront yielded a comparable standing price. Crazy Domains is on the provider directory as a reseller, not on the accredited list, and answered a bot wall in any case. OVHcloud's Australian storefront, which is not auDA-accredited but prints ".com.au A$18.50 EX. GST", is recorded in registrar-locales.json and reaches the Australia page through the eligibility gate. Australia's GST is a 10% value-added tax; vat_rate carries it.
Ordered by the standing .com.au price each registrar's own page printed on 2026-09-29: the renewal where the page states one, else the regular price, VAT included (added at 10% where the page states prices excluding it). Price only: this site has not tested their support, uptime or transfers, and none of them carries a score.
Read, not ranked
A local-language storefront, but no .com.au price with its VAT treatment on the page read.
VVentraIPThe page prints .com.au at $9.95 for the first year against $22.95, but names no currency and carries no GST wording, so neither the currency nor the tax treatment of $22.95 is established from it.
WWebcentral (Webcentral Group, trading as Melbourne IT)The page prints .com.au at AUD 29.95 standing and 14.95 for the first year, but no GST wording on the page read, so whether 29.95 includes 10% GST is not established.
CCheaper DomainsNo .com.au price is printed on the page read; a figure appears only after a search.
DDDNSNo .com.au price is printed on the page read; a figure appears only after a search.
DDomain CentralNo .com.au price is printed on the page read.
GGoHostingNo .com.au price is printed on the page read.
IInstraNo .com.au price is printed on the page read.
MMicron21No domain page could be read on the addresses tried.
Not read on 2026-09-29: Only Domains (HTTP 404 on the directory's own link and on /domain-pricing/au on the sweep date.); MyHost (Connection failed (tunnel) on the sweep date; the directory's address my-host.au was not tried.); GoDaddy Australia (HTTP 403 "Access Denied" to a real Chromium browser from a cloud address.). Unread is a fact about our read, not a finding about the registrar.
Operates a English-language storefront, which is an official language of Australia. Bills in AUD. Australian storefront in English. The extension table prints ".com.au A$18.50" and the domains page "A$18.50 EX. GST" with "Renew A$18.50 ex. GST": Australian dollars with the country's tax treatment stated. Sells .au, and we hold a sourced price for it.
Ordered by our overall score where a registrar carries one. A registrar we have not tested can meet all three local conditions and is listed for it, without a score and never above a scored one.
Verified .com renewal of $11.08. Not the cheapest .com we verify: Spaceship renews at $10.18, 9% less. Porkbun is the pick here for catalogue breadth, not for price. WHOIS privacy: free, included by default.
Buying a gTLD through an English-language registrar that bills in dollars is a real and common choice, so it is named with the trade stated rather than dropped. It is not a recommendation in Australia: the conditions it misses are in the column above.
Business use, globally
Namecheap
Support channels: 24/7 live chat, ticket support, knowledge base.
Developers, globally
Cloudflare Registrar
Industry-leading anycast DNS with deep developer tooling. Public API documented.
These two are the site’s global picks and are the same on every country page, which is why they are labelled globally and sit outside the table above. Nothing about a registrar’s API or its support channels changes at a border; what does change is language, billing currency and whether it can sell the local namespace, and that is what the eligibility table measures.
Local presence: Yes: Australian presence required (citizen, permanent resident, business with ABN/ACN/ARBN, or trademark holder with an active Australian trademark application/registration matching the name).
DNSSEC: Signed at the root
IDN: Not supported in .au
Direct .au registrations (e.g., example.au) were opened in 2022. Existing .com.au, .net.au, .org.au, .id.au continue. Registrants must keep eligibility evidence current.
Purpose: Direct second-level Australian registration, opened in March 2022.
Eligibility: Australian presence required: citizen, permanent resident, organisation with an ABN/ACN/ARBN, an Australian-registered trademark, or holder of a matching .com.au/.net.au/.org.au.
Pricing fetched from each registrar's own pricing page on the date shown. Local registrars may bill in AUD and add VAT/GST/sales tax on top.
Trademark eligibility requires the .au string to match the trademark exactly. Existing .com.au/.net.au/.org.au holders had a Priority Allocation window until September 2022; unclaimed strings are now first-come.
Purpose: Commercial Australian domain: the most common form for Australian businesses.
Eligibility: Australian presence required at the same level as .au plus a 'close-and-substantial' connection between the entity and the domain name (entity name, product, service, or registered business name).
Pricing fetched from each registrar's own pricing page on the date shown. Local registrars may bill in AUD and add VAT/GST/sales tax on top.
auDA enforces the close-and-substantial-connection rule and audits domains randomly. Domains lacking eligibility can be cancelled.
Namespace map
What you can register under .au
The Public Suffix List records 17 registrable namespaces under .au.
Registrable namespaces under .au from the Public Suffix List, with which of the registrars this site tracks sell each one and the cheapest renewal price we have verified.
Operator: .au Domain Administration (auDA) · .au signed in the root zone (2026-09-28)
A namespace no tracked registrar sells is not a namespace you cannot register: most country-code registries delegate to their own accredited registrars, listed above where we have the registry's list. It is also not a namespace anyone may register - registries reserve some for schools, government, health services or licensed providers, and this table states eligibility only where we read it from the registry itself.
Verified and sample pricing per registrar for this TLD, with first-year, renewal, ten-year cost and the date each figure was checked
Registrar
First-year
Renewal
10-year cost
WHOIS privacy
Last checked
(verified price)
Spaceship
$9.08
$10.18
$100.70
Free
2026-09-02
(verified price)
Dynadot
$10.88
$10.88
$108.80
Free
2026-09-28
(verified price)
Porkbun
$11.08
$11.08
$110.80
Free
2026-09-28
(verified price)
OVHcloud
$9.20
$14.69
$141.41
Available; contact data red…
2026-09-28
(verified price)
AAmazon Route 53
$16.00
$16.00
$160.00
Free, with exceptions
2026-09-29
(verified price)
NNameSilo
$17.29
$17.29
$172.90
Free
2026-09-28
(verified price)
Namecheap
$11.28
$18.48
$177.60
Free, with exceptions
2026-08-19
(verified price)
Hover
$18.99
$18.99
$189.90
Free, with exceptions
2026-09-28
(verified price)
NName.com
$12.99
$19.99
$192.90
Available (Whois Privacy) o…
2026-09-28
(verified price)
IONOS
$1.00
$20.00
$181.00
Available; contact data red…
2026-09-29
(verified price)
Gandi
$11.00
$38.38
$356.42
Free, with exceptions
2026-09-28
Compared across the 11 registrars whose .com price we have read ourselves.
Most global registrars price domains in USD; local registrars often invoice in AUD.
Can a registrar we track handle Australia?
.au is sold by 2 of the registrars whose prices we verify, renewing from $7.72: less than the cheapest verified .com at $10.18.
At $7.72 a year, .au is 17th of 295 by price among the extensions we verify: $2.46 less than the cheapest verified .com. Registering locally costs less here than registering the default.
Australia ccTLDs and whether a registrar we verify sells each one
Renewals are all-in and per year, at the cheapest registrar we verify for that extension, checked 2026-09-29. The .com reference is the cheapest verified .com renewal ($10.18). "Listed" counts registrars our country notes record as selling the extension without a price we have read ourselves.
What this page does not tell you: how the registrars based in Australia compare. We list 32 of them by name only, no prices, no scores, no hands-on testing, so any claim here that a local registrar is cheaper, better supported or easier to pay would be invention. Where local billing in Australian Dollar (AUD), local-language support, or a registry rule requires a local registrar, that is a reason to use one, and comparing them is work we have not done. Australia also applies a local-presence or nexus requirement to at least one of its ccTLDs: see the registry rules above before assuming eligibility.
FAQ
What is the best domain registrar in Australia?+
OVHcloud is the one registrar this site tracks that meets all three local conditions in Australia: a storefront in an official language, billing in AUD, and .com.au for sale. Of the 11 local storefronts read on 2026-09-29, none printed a .com.au price together with its currency and tax treatment, so no local registrar is ranked; each is listed below with what its page showed. auDA accredits 32 registrars to sell .com.au; none of them is tested or scored here. Global registrars that sell .com.au in US dollars are the global option for a buyer in Australia, not a recommendation in it.
Do I need a local presence to register a .au domain?+
Yes: Australian presence required (citizen, permanent resident, business with ABN/ACN/ARBN, or trademark holder with an active Australian trademark application/registration matching the name).
Which global registrars sell .au?+
Porkbun, Namecheap, GoDaddy, OVHcloud. Trademark eligibility requires the .au string to match the trademark exactly. Existing .com.au/.net.au/.org.au holders had a Priority Allocation window until September 2022; unclaimed strings are now first-come.
Which currency are domains billed in for users in Australia?+
Most global registrars bill in USD regardless of buyer location. Local registrars typically invoice in Australian Dollar (AUD). Local registrars (VentraIP, Crazy Domains, NetRegistry) bill in AUD with 10% GST itemised. Namecheap and GoDaddy bill in USD by default, with GST applied if the registrant is an Australian consumer. PayID and BPay are supported at most local registrars; not at global ones.
What payment methods work in Australia?+
Local registrars (VentraIP, Crazy Domains, NetRegistry) bill in AUD with 10% GST itemised. Namecheap and GoDaddy bill in USD by default, with GST applied if the registrant is an Australian consumer. PayID and BPay are supported at most local registrars; not at global ones.
