Credit account
Credit limit
Credit notes - registrations
Credit notes - renewals
Payment terms
VAT
Cancelling domain name registrations
Detagging

Credit account

We will charge you the appropriate fees for all the domain names that you register or renew on your tag each month, unless you specify that we should invoice your customer directly. We issue our invoices on the 8th of each month and give you the option to receive them by email or post. We will charge the amount given in each of your monthly invoices to your credit account.

We issue separate invoices for domain name registrations and renewals at midnight at the end of the 7th day in the month following registration or renewal. These invoices will include all the domain names that you have registered or renewed from 00:00:01 on the first day of the previous month to midnight on the last day of the previous month. Our invoices cover domain name registration and renewal for periods of two years.

If you delete a domain name registration or cancel a renewal request before we invoice the fee to you, we will not charge you. However, once we have produced our invoice, we will not issue any credit notes and you will have to pay our invoice in full even if you subsequently cancel or detag a domain name.


Credit limit

Provided we receive satisfactory references, we initially set your credit limit at £500, although you may ask us for a higher limit. If your references are unsatisfactory or unavailable, we will ask you to deposit a sum of money against your credit account before you can make any transactions using our registrar systems. We reserve the right to suspend the use of your tag when you reach your credit limit, to reduce your credit limit and to refuse a request for a higher limit, in which case you can either make early payment of outstanding invoices or deposit a sum of money against your account.

Credit notes - registrations

We do not issue credit notes for new registrations. If you register a domain name and successfully send a delete instruction to our registrar systems before midnight on the 7th day of the month following registration, we will not charge you. However please note that there is a limit to your use of the delete operation.

If you send a delete instruction to our registrar systems after midnight on the 8th day of the month following registration, we will have already generated our invoice for the fee. We will accept your cancellation request if you have not yet paid for our invoice, but you will still be liable to pay for the registration fee and we will not issue a credit note.

We always issue the invoice for a new registration to the registering registrar.  If you register a domain name, we will invoice you for the registration fee even if you transfer the domain name to another registrar before our invoice has been produced. You should pay this invoice because we will not issue a credit note.


Credit notes - renewals

We do not issue credit notes for renewals. If you renew a domain name by mistake, you can cancel your renewal instruction by using the ‘unrenew’ operation at any time before we issue our invoice for the renewal fees and we will not charge you.

However, after we have generated our invoice at midnight at the end of the 7th day of the month following renewal, you will not be able to cancel a renewal request. We will not issue a credit note and you will have to pay our invoice in full even if you then detag a domain name.

If you submit a renewal instruction we will invoice you for the renewal fee, even if you subsequently change the tag on the domain name.


Payment terms

Payment is due on monthly invoices within 30 days of the date of the invoice. If you do not pay an invoice, we reserve the right to suspend the use of your tag. We may also charge interest on balances unpaid for more than 60 days. You can find details on a range of payment methods.

If an invoice for a renewal fee remains unpaid beyond credit terms, the expiry date for the domain name will be wound back two years and no credit note will be issued. If, as a consequence, the domain name has expired, we will warn the registrant by email that you have not completed the renewal process for them and will tell them to contact you.

If we do not receive payment of the registrar invoice within 30 days of our email to the registrant, we will suspend the domain name. 'Suspended' means that the DNS servers will not be entered into the .uk zone file, however they will be maintained in the Nominet register. We will only allow the registrant to renew directly with us through their online account 7 days before suspension and during the suspension period.

If the registrar or the domain name registrant pays the outstanding fee, the DNS servers will be reinstated at the next zone rebuild. The status of the domain name will be clear from a WHOIS query


VAT

VAT is excluded on invoices to our non-UK registrars based outside the EU.

VAT can be excluded from our invoices to our non-UK registrars who are business customers based in the EU. So that we can remove VAT from your invoices, you must give us your VAT registration number appropriate for the country in which you are based. You can enter this into your account details in our Online Service. Additionally please contact Customer Services on +44 (0) 1865 332233 or email support@nominet.org.uk to request that you are invoiced excluding VAT.

Please see the HMRC web site for details.

Cancelling domain name registrations

If you have made a registration in error or it is not required, you can cancel it using the delete operation. Provided we have not issued our invoice for the registration fee, we will not charge you.

You can send a delete instruction to our registrar systems after we have issued our invoice for the registration fee as long as you have not yet paid for it. We will accept your instruction, but you will still be liable to pay for the registration fee and we will not issue a credit note.

Any deletion of domain names prior to invoicing, which we believe is not for the purpose of correcting mistakes, will be dealt with under our contract with registrars. The sanctions may include reduced credit limits, suspension of tags or the cancellation of tags. To help us identify potential abuse we have introduced a limit on the number of domain names that can be deleted. The limit will be 5 domain names or 5% of domain names that have yet to be invoiced (whichever is higher). Once this limit is reached all delete requests will be rejected and the domain names will be invoiced.

Our analysis of the statistics for registration and deletions have shown that this limit should not affect any registrars who delete domain names registered in error. To be clear, the limit on deletions for practices such as domain tasting is zero. If we detect any uses of the delete operation other than the correction of registration errors, we will take action against the registrar.


Detagging

You cannot detag a domain name before we issue the first registration invoice. Instead, if you have registered a domain name in error, you can cancel it up until midnight on the 7th day of the month following registration and we will not charge you for the registration fee.

You can also cancel a domain name after we have invoiced you for the registration fee provided that you have not paid for it. In this instance you will still be liable to pay for the registration fee and we will not issue a credit note even if you later detag the domain name.

Under our renewals system it is not necessary to detag domain names that you do not wish to renew. However, if you do want to detag a domain name to indicate a permanent termination of your relationship with the registrant, please be aware that we do not accept 'detagged in error' requests from registrars to retag domain names. Once a domain name is detagged only the registrant can submit a retagging request via the online (chargeable) registrar transfer (tag change) system.