Guides
How to Register a .ai Domain (Anguilla's ccTLD for AI)
2026-06-25 · OSIR Team
A .ai domain costs $80.00 a year, and Anguilla requires a two-year minimum on a first registration, so the real number to budget is $160.60 all in. There is no ICANN fee on .ai, because it is a country-code domain rather than a gTLD, so the only addition to the base price is $0.30 payment processing.
Anyone can register one. No residency, no company in Anguilla, no local contact. If the name is free, it is yours in minutes.
How to register a .ai domain
- Search the name on the .ai extension page, which shows live availability and the current price.
- Pick a term. Two years is the minimum. Ten is the maximum, and longer terms protect you from the increases described below.
- Enter registrant details. Nothing Anguilla-specific is required.
- Pay and configure. DNS, DNSSEC and registrar lock are set up for you. Point it at a site or add email whenever you like.
There is no manual review for standard names, so a .ai provisions as quickly as anything else.
If you would rather not use a search box, an AI assistant connected to our MCP server can check and register it in the conversation. Checking and pricing need no account at all.
Who actually runs .ai now
This has changed, and most guides have not caught up.
.ai is Anguilla's country-code domain, a British Overseas Territory of about 16,000 people in the Caribbean. The government still sponsors the namespace and sets policy, but it no longer runs the technical side. In October 2024 Anguilla signed a five-year agreement with Identity Digital, one of the largest registry operators in the world, and the migration of registry services completed on 15 January 2025.
The commercial arrangement is unusually favourable to the island: Anguilla keeps roughly 90% of .ai revenue, with Identity Digital retaining around 10%. For a territory of that size, domain income has become a serious line in the national budget.
What it means practically is a more reliable registry with modern infrastructure behind it, and pricing decisions that now sit with a professional operator rather than a small government department.
What it costs, and why it went up
| Registration | $80.00/yr |
| Renewal | $80.00/yr |
| Transfer in | $80.00 |
| Minimum term | 2 years |
| Maximum term | 10 years |
| First registration, all in | $160.60 |
Two years at $80.00 is $160.00, plus $0.30 payment processing, which is 3% or $0.30 whichever is greater. No ICANN fee applies.
The price moved recently. In March 2026 the registry raised the wholesale price by $20 a year, an increase of roughly 29%, which worked through to retail across every registrar. If you hold .ai names, that is the rise you saw on renewal, and it is the argument for registering longer terms now rather than annually.
Two things keep .ai expensive. The registry prices it well above commodity gTLDs because it can, and demand has not stopped: there were 1,277,727 registered .ai domains in June 2026, after the namespace passed one million in January of the same year. Short, ordinary words went years ago.
Is it worth it for you
Honestly depends on what the two letters are doing for you.
If your product is an AI product, .ai says so before anyone reads your homepage, and that is worth $80 a year on its own. If you are building anything in the agent, model or tooling space, it is close to the default and your competitors already have one.
If the AI angle is incidental, or this is a personal site, you are paying roughly eight times a .com for a signal you do not need. A .com at $10.89 all in, or something specific like .dev or .app, will serve better.
| Worth it | Probably not |
|---|---|
| AI products, models, agents | Personal sites and blogs |
| Research labs and ML platforms | Tight budgets |
| Anything where "AI" is the category | Brands with no AI angle |
Registering .ai programmatically
Everything above works through the API and the CLI as well as the website. Availability and pricing are anonymous, so you can check .ai names with no key and no account:
GET https://be.osir.com/v1/public/catalog/domains/example.ai/availability
Registration needs an authenticated session, and like every paid action it stops for a confirmation showing the full amount before anything is charged. An assistant connected to our connector can do the whole sequence in a conversation, which is covered in How to Buy a Domain Through ChatGPT.
Watch the two-year minimum if you are scripting bulk registrations. A batch of .ai names costs twice what a naive per-year calculation suggests.
.ai domain FAQ
How much does a .ai domain cost?
$80.00 per year at OSIR, with a two-year minimum on a first registration, so $160.60 all in including $0.30 payment processing. There is no ICANN fee on .ai because it is a ccTLD. Renewals and transfers are $80.00.
Why is a .ai domain so expensive?
The registry sets a wholesale price far above commodity extensions, and demand from AI companies has been relentless. The wholesale price rose by $20 a year in March 2026, around 29%, which reached retail prices everywhere.
Who runs the .ai registry?
The Government of Anguilla sponsors it and sets policy; Identity Digital has operated the registry technically since 15 January 2025, under a five-year agreement signed in October 2024. Anguilla keeps about 90% of the revenue.
Do I need to live in Anguilla to register a .ai domain?
No. There is no residency, citizenship or local-contact requirement. Anyone in the world can register one.
Why is there a two-year minimum?
It is a registry policy rather than a registrar one, and it applies wherever you buy. It discourages speculative churn, and it means the smallest possible .ai purchase is $160.60 rather than $80.30.
How many .ai domains exist?
1,277,727 as of June 2026. The namespace passed one million in January 2026, which is why short common words are long gone.
Can an AI agent register a .ai domain for me?
Yes. Searching and pricing need no account; registration needs a sign-in and stops for your confirmation before any charge. See How to Buy a Domain Through ChatGPT.
What happens if I let a .ai domain expire?
It follows the usual lifecycle: a renewal grace period, then redemption with a restore fee, then deletion back to the pool. Our guide to the domain lifecycle covers the timings.
Register your .ai domain
Check what is still free on the .ai extension page. If the one you want has gone, the search suggests close alternatives, and given 1.28 million registrations it is worth having a second choice ready.
Image generated with AI (Higgsfield).