Usually a domain is registered and administrated by an Internet service provider. Therefore the Internet service provider is also your contact partner for questions and issues and, if applicable, for additionally required services relating to your domain.

If your domain is administrated at nic.at, you can carry out transactions and adjust settings in the login area yourself. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service, available to you during the following service hours:

Monday to Friday 8 am - 6 pm (CET).

With the WHOIS query, we provide - depending on the legal person - additional information on the domain holder, the technical contact person (tech-c) and technical data (nameserver, DNSSec information) of the delegated domain. Please note that nic.at does not publish the data of natural persons - no matter if they are the domain holder or technical contact person (tech-c) of a domain. Data of legal persons are published in the Whois database, although display of contact data such as telephone number, fax and e-mail address can be disabled.

Please note that nic.at does not publish data of natural persons - no matter if domain holder or technical contact person (tech-c) of a domain. Data of legal persons are published in the Whois database, whereas display of contact data like telephone number, fax and e-mail address can be disabled.

If the domain holder is a natural person whose data are not shown publicly, you may be eligable to apply for a motivated request. Natural persons’ domain data is only accessible to people who provide proof of identity and are able to prove a legitimate interest for finding out who the domain holder is. This includes law enforcement agencies, lawyers or people who contact nic.at following domain disputes and can prove that their rights have been infringed. If you are such a person, please use the following webform for your inquiry.

nic.at does not publish the data of natural persons - no matter if they are the domain holder or technical contact person (tech-c) of a domain. Data of legal persons are published in the Whois database, although display of contact data such as telephone number, fax and e-mail address can be disabled. If a natural person wants their data to be published in the Whois a change of personal data will be necessary. You can carry out this change through your Internet service provider or, as a nic.at customer, directly in the login area. Details can be found in our Whois Policy our Terms and Registration Guidelines as well as our Privacy Policy.

Natural persons’ domain data is only accessible to people who provide proof of identity and are able to prove a legitimate interest for finding out who the domain holder is. This includes law enforcement agencies, lawyers or people who contact nic.at following domain disputes and can prove that their rights have been infringed. If you are such a person, please use the following webform for your inquiry. If the domain holder or contact is a legal person, relevant data can be found in the Whois database.

Please contact your registrar/ISP in order to change the publication status of your data. If your domain is administrated at nic.at, you can carry out data changes directly in the login area. Please change person type from "Organisation" to "Private person" in the menu under Holder data.

Please contact your registrar/ISP in order to change the publication status of your data. If your domain is administrated at nic.at, you can carry out data changes directly in the login area. Please change person type from "Private person" to "Organisation" in the menu under Holder data.

Domain holders can at any time request their current Whois-data online - please use the following webform. Data of domain holders who are legal persons is published in the Whois database and can be checked there. If you wish to receive a current domain certificate for your domain, please use the following form and it will automatically be sent to your e-mail address.

At the domain holder's request, display of the following data can be disabled in the Whois database:

• Telephone number
• Fax number
• E-mail address

If you wish to enable or disable display of this data, a change of the personal data is necessary. You can carry out this change through your Internet service provider or, as nic.at customer, directly in the login area.

If all the data should be concealed from the public, you will need the services of a trustee (e.g. notary, lawyer, Internet service provider) to whom you transfer the domain by vehicle of a change of domain holder. We recommend that you regulate the trustee's activities relative to the domain in a contract (preferably in writing). Because the trustee will show up as the official domain holder on nic.at, authorised to make all decisions in its regard.

nic.at is the only delegating body (registry) for .at domains in the world. We do not offer any technical services, which means that only the domain name can be registered at nic.at. nic.at does not offer any of the other services you may wish to arrange for a domain, such as e-mail, hosting, installation of the website and other services.

Internet service providers are responsible for providing these. An Internet service provider offers technical services, such as setting up e-mail addresses with your domain extension, name servers, web space, etc.  

There is number of Internet service providers with which nic.at has a special cooperation contract for domain administration. These Internet service providers are called registrars or .at partners. They are subject to a certain degree of quality control and can perform transactions automatically. This means that registrars are authorised to make certain changes without being required to submit the domain holder's confirmation, but are also liable for errors. However, being a registrar is not a prerequisite for being able to register .at domains.

Many Internet service providers are so-called resellers. Internet service providers who have a contract with one of our .at partners (registrars) and can therefore work via our partner's system are referred to as resellers. Resellers do not appear in the nic.at system or in the registrar display, instead, only the registrar with whom the reseller has concluded a contract appears. If there is confusion about the presentation of resellers and registrars in your contractual relationship, please contact your Internet service provider with whom you concluded your contract.

A short overview of the "Who is Who" of the domain world is also available on YouTube.

nic.at and the registrar are both considered as data controllers for their data. The registrar is acting as a mere transmitter of domain data und thus can not be seen as a Data Processor as defined in the GDPR.

Send us an e-mail to service@nic.at with the holder data to which your domains are registered. After performance of a domain query, we will send an overview of your domains back to you by e-mail. If your domains are administrated at nic.at (and not via an Internet service provider), you can find your domains in the login area, if they are assigned to the same registrant-handle.

Please note that even a small deviation in the spelling of the domain holder data can change the result and cause the domain query to fail.

Domain change via an Internet service provider:
Usually the domain is administrated by an Internet service provider who carries out the desired changes for your domain. It is crucial for domain modifications to always be confirmed by the domain holder personally. Internet service providers are not considered authorised representatives! (Exception: nic.at registrars)

Domain modification to a domain administrated at nic.at:
If your domain is administrated at nic.at, you can carry out data changes directly in the login area. If the modification concerns more than 25 domains, you can also request bulk modification. However, this is only possible for changes from the same existing data to the same new data. (Exception: standardisation of invoice recipient. In this case, several invoice recipients can be merged into one.)

Duration of data modification:
As soon as all the necessary elements have been submitted successfully, the data modification will usually be completed within one to three workdays. We will inform you by e-mail about the status of the requested modification and about possible erroneous applications or missing documents. Modifications performed by nic.at registrars take effect immediately, because no additional confirmation is required at nic.at.

Yes, you can administrate your domain directly at nic.at. If the domain hasn't already been registered via nic.at directly, but was registered via an Internet service provider/Registrar, the domain must be transferred to nic.at first. Thereafter, you can administrate your domain(s) in the customer login area at any time.

However, nic.at does not offer any technical services, such as name server, e-mail, hosting, etc. If you do not meet the necessary technical requirements yourself, we suggest that you have your domain administrated by one of our .at partners (registrars). Our .at-Partnerfinder offers you a good overview of all .at partners and the option of finding a suitable partner, in line with your domain-specific requirements.

You can learn more about our login area in this video.

The "AuthInfo" code is a unique digit/number combination that serves as a confirmation code in the event of an Internet service provider transfer. The domain holder can request the AuthInfo code from his Internet service provider at any time (often it can also be requested via customer portals).Once you have received the AuthInfo code, you communicate it to your new Internet service provider so that he can transfer your domain. After successful transfer, the Internet service provider should set a new AuthInfo code, because the old one will otherwise remain valid. Note: Your current Internet service provider is required to provide you with the AuthInfo code, even if e.g. old invoices are still outstanding.

In the event that your current Internet service provider refuses to provide you with the AuthInfo code, nic.at offers an alternative procedure in cooperation with your new Internet service provider: The new Internet service provider can send nic.at a request for a confirmation token which will be sent to you by e-mail. This token is valid for 21 days and is bound to this specific Internet service provider. Once you transmit your token to your new Internet service provider, the latter can take over administration of the domain automatically.

If your domain is administrated at nic.at, you can find your AuthInfo code in the login area. 

Prior to changing your Internet service provider you need a new Internet service provider to whom you wish to transfer your domain. If you do not have a suitable Internet service provider yet, you can find a list of our .at partners in the .at-Partnerfinder. Many Internet service providers offer the service to perform a change of Internet service provider on the customer's behalf. The following distinction is important when it comes to a change of Internet service provider.

Your domain is with an Internet service provider:

Contact your current Internet service provider and have him enter the "AuthInfo" code. The "AuthInfo" code is a unique digit/number combination that is valid as a confirmation code in the event of Internet service provider transfer. The domain holder can request the AuthInfo code from his Internet service provider at any time (often it can also be requested via customer portals).Once you have received the AuthInfo code, you communicate it to your new Internet service provider so that he can transfer your domain. After successful transfer, the Internet service provider should set a new AuthInfo code, because the old one will otherwise remain valid.
Note: Your current Internet service provider is required to provide you with the AuthInfo code, even if e.g. old invoices are still outstanding

In the event that your current Internet service provider refuses to provide you with the AuthInfo code, nic.at offers an alternative procedure in cooperation with your new Internet service provider: The new Internet service provider can request a confirmation token from nic.at which is sent to you by e-mail. This token is valid for 21 days and is bound to this specific Internet service provider. As soon as you pass on your token to your new Internet service provider, the latter can take over administration of the domain and perform the desired changes.

Your domain is being administrated at nic.at:

If you want to have your domain administrated by an Internet service provider/registrar and no longer at nic.at, you can find the required Authinfo in your login area. As soon as your new Internet service provider has the AuthInfo code, he can transfer the domain.

Please note that a transfer will automatically revoke a cancellation by expiration.

If you wish to cancel your domain, please contact your Internet service provider, because every supplier has different cancellation terms and there are often service packages connected to the domain. Please verify whether your Internet service provider has also cancelled the domain with nic.at. After cancellation is successful, you will receive a confirmation from nic.at by e-mail. If you do not receive this e-mail, please contact our customer service (service@nic.at) and we will verify whether your domain has been duly cancelled.

You can choose "immediately" or "at the end of the current service period" as cancellation date. From this time on, the domain is locked (cool-down period) and, thus, no longer technically functional. In the Whois database, the domain is marked "pending delete". After this technical lock (approx. eight weeks), the domain will be available for a new registration.

If your domain is administrated at nic.at, you can perform a cancellation directly in the login area or download the form here. Note: The cancellation period always ends one day before the new service period begins. The service period is indicated on the invoice. Already issued invoices shall remain valid if cancellation is not on time and shall be claimed.

The correct procedure for cancellation is also explained in this video.

If you want to withdraw your cancellation, please contact your Internet service provider. If your domain is administrated at nic.at, you can submit the withdrawal directly in the login area.

As soon as a domain has been cancelled, you will receive a confirmation from nic.at by e-mail. If the cancellation is not desired, answer the e-mail, stating that you wish to withdraw the cancellation. We will be happy to unlock your domain again for you.

If the e-mail is no longer available to you, please use our withdrawal of cancellation form. Send the completed and signed form to service@nic.at by e-mail.

If the domain holder is an organisation or an association, please also send us evidence of signing authority (company / association register report, stamp, etc.)

nic.at reserves the right not to restore the domain, in particular in the event of a domain holder's abusive use of nic.at (e.g. repeated non-payment) or if the domain was subject to a wait status (see Point 2 of the Terms and Conditions).

Registration with an Internet service provider

As a rule, .at domains are registered with an Internet service provider, who will usually offer complete packages (services such as e-mail, web space, ...) incl. an annual domain fee at the Internet service provider's rates. In this case, nic.at will not bill you directly, but will instead bill the Internet service provider who is responsible for the domain on the cut-off date. (As the domain holder, you can inquire about your domain's cut-off date by e-mail to service@nic.at.)

Registration with nic.at

If you merely want to register a .at domain and require no additional services or if your .at domain has already been registered directly with nic.at, then the fee for delegation (registration) and for use during the first year is to be paid during the registration process. You will receive subsequent invoices annually 45 days before invoice due date. Please note that in order to be timely, your cancellation for the domain in question must be delivered to our office within one day of the cut-off date at latest, otherwise the already issued invoice will remain valid.

How much does a .at domain at nic.at cost?

New registration incl. 1st annual fee: EUR 68.00
Each succeeding year: EUR 34.00*

*excl. VAT, only exempt from VAT outside of the EU or upon notification of the VATIN.  

FYI: the VAT rates of the respective EU country have been in effect since 2015. As a result, in the EU, nic.at has been billing invoice recipients, who are also consumers, invoices with the tax rate applicable in the respective Member State since 1 January 2015. If the invoice recipient is outside of the EU, the invoice is issued without VAT. You can find an overview of the VAT rates in the EU here.

Electronic invoices

Since electronic nic.at invoices feature an "advanced digital signature", they are recognized in accordance with EU Directive 2001/115/EC and Ordinance of the Federal Minister of Finance of December 2003 (Federal Law Gazette II No. 583/2003) and are therefore also VAT deductible.

The invoice recipient has no rights to the domain. The fee for delegation and for use during the first year are to be paid to nic.at during the registration process. Fees are charged per service period (= 1 year). The final payment reminder will always be sent to the domain holder, thus informing the domain holder of non-payment (by the invoice recipient).

Usually, domains are registered and invoiced via an Internet service provider. If the domain is administrated by an Internet service provider, the Internet service provider will always be the recipient of invoices relating to the domain. But other people can also be specified as invoice recipient. In this case, please contact your Internet service provider directly. If you registered your .at domain at nic.at, you as domain holder can change the invoice recipient in the login area at any time.

If your .at domain is administrated by an Internet service provider, then you will not receive invoices from nic.at, but only from your Internet service provider who will invoice you the domain fee including the service package you ordered.

You have received an invoice from nic.at?

Then your domain is either administrated directly with us and we therefore bill your service once a year or your Internet service provider has withdrawn from the contract as invoice recipient. This means that you will henceforth receive an invoice for the domain fee from nic.at. In this case, we recommend you to contact your Internet service provider and to transfer your domain back to your (or a different) Internet service provider, because nic.at does not offer any services, such as e-mail, web space, etc.

Usually you will receive nic.at invoices by e-mail. But at request, invoices can also be sent by post. If this is what you prefer, you can change the method of dispatch in the login area.

How can I pay nic.at invoices?

You can pay your outstanding invoices online using Paypal, credit card/ debit card or online banking. For the login, please use the data provided on your invoice (customer number, invoice or reminder number, due date of invoice or reminder) or your personal login data.

You are also welcome to pay your invoice by bank transfer. Our bank details are:

Bank details:
Bank Austria, Schubertring 14, A-1010 Vienna
Account no.: 660 497 942, Routing no.: 12000
BIC: BKAUATWW
IBAN: AT52 1200 0006 6049 7942
in the name of: nic.at GmbH

Important: Please indicate the domain name or the invoice number as intended purpose in your transfer so that we can allocate you payment correctly.

In order to verify that the invoice is actually from nic.at, please check the following:

• IBAN: Does the IBAN on the invoice match the IBAN in our company information?
• Sender e-mail address: Electronic invoices will be sent via the e-mail address rechnung@nic.at.

If you still have concerns, please contact us at rechnung@nic.at or 0662 4669 -841.

You will receive a nic.at invoice because you are the owner of a .at domain name and therefore have a contract with nic.at as the registry. We charge for the custody of the domain name. If you have never received an invoice from nic.at before, your provider/registrar has probably recently issued a bill withdrawal for your domain. This means that your domain has been transferred to nic.at. This is usually the case if the provider/registrar's invoice has not been paid or if you have cancelled the services of your provider/registrar but not your domain. The provider/registrar, even when listed as the invoice recipient, is not obliged to pay for the domain on your behalf, and can cancel the billing arrangement at any time and without your consent. In the event of a cancellation, we will inform you immediately at your e-mail address.

Please note that open invoices remain valid even if the domain is no longer required, but is not cancelled in due time (1 day before the due date).

For further information please contact our customer service (service@nic.at).

You can log in at nic.at/payment to pay your invoice

If a domain hasn't been paid for despite several payment reminders from nic.at, the domain shall be locked and the open claim handed over to our debt collection agency. As a result, the invoice must be paid directly to the debt collection agency. Please contact our debt collection agency for more information:

KMS Inkasso GmbH
Wiener Straße 331a, 8051 Graz
Tel.: +43 316 32 37 72
Fax: +43 316 32 37 22-22
E-mail: office@kms-inkasso.at

There are things you can check if you think an invoice for your domain is suspicious, to verify whether it is a genuine or fraudulent invoice. Unfortunately, there will always be fake invoices in circulation. You can check whether fake invoices are currently being circulated here: https://www.nic.at/en/news/all

• Is it a foreign IBAN? If so, is my provider based abroad or do I know that it is based in Austria/Germany?
• Name of the sender: Are you unsure what your registrar is called and cannot confirm the name? Here (https://www.nic.at/en/my-at-domain/domain-search/whois) you can find details of the registrar of your domain. If you obtained your domain directly from nic.at, the data field of the registrar is empty.
• Attention: It is possible that your domain is not administered by a registrar, but by a reseller. A reseller is not displayed in the Whois database as a registrar, since resellers function only through the registrars' own systems. If you have any questions, please contact the registrar directly. The registrar will know whether the domain is directly in their system or in the system of a reseller.
• IBAN of the registrar: Via the Whois query (https://www.nic.at/en/my-at-domain/domain-search/whois) you can find details of the registrar, and also a link to their data including their homepage. You can either check the IBAN on the registrar's homepage or contact them directly and ask for it.

If you still have concerns, please feel free to contact us at any time by e-mail (service@nic.at) or by telephone (0662 4669 841).

After the registration of a .at domain, the domain holder can any time request a domain certificate here. In this way, the domain holder can easily confirm the success of the registration and verify accuracy the of the data. This nic.at service is free of charge. The data on the certificate is the domain holder data that has been deposited to our database. If the data on your certificate is wrong, you can have it changed via your Internet service provider or change it in the nic.at login area (if your domain is administrated with nic.at). The certificates can be requested through the Internet at any time and any number of times: request domain certificate

There can be different technical reasons for the rejection of a domain application such as missing information or invalid characters. The most frequent source of error is an incorrect name server configuration. In order to register a domain, nic.at requires at least two correctly configured name servers at registration. If you have any questions related to your name server configuration, please contact your Internet service provider.

If your domain no longer works and cannot be accessed online, there can be several possible reasons for this:

Did you change your Internet service provider or your name servers?

If you changed your Internet service provider or your name servers, please note that our name server reload is carried out at every full hour. Therefore, what matters is the time of day when you carried out the change. Depending on this, your name servers will be updated at the next name server reload. 

Do you perhaps have an unpaid nic.at invoice?

If you do not pay your invoice in due time, the domain will be locked for non-payment after a while. Perhaps you did not receive your nic.at invoice on time because your address or e-mail address changed. If you suspect non-payment, please contact us by e-mail to rechnung@nic.at.

Did your Internet service provider remove the domain from his name server?

If an Internet service provider removes a domain from his name servers, for example because the domain holder is untraceable or does not attend to his contractual obligations, the domain is technically out of service as a result of the removal. This procedure is referred to as zone deletion. In the event of a zone deletion, nic.at contacts the domain holder in writing and gives him four weeks to send new name server data. If the domain holder does not react within this period or is not reachable, the domain can be cancelled and becomes available again for registration. Payment of unpaid domain invoices will be demanded in any case.

Did you cancel your domain "effective immediately"?

You can choose "immediately" or "at the end of the current service period" as cancellation date. From this time on, the domain is locked (cool-down period) and, thus, no longer technically functional. In the WHOIS database, the domain is marked "pending delete". After this technical lock (approx. eight weeks), the domain will be available for a new registration.

If an Internet service provider removes a domain from his name servers, for example because a domain holder is untraceable or does not attend to his contractual duties, this procedure is referred to as "zone deletion". Removal renders the domain technically disabled.

 In the event of a zone deletion, nic.at contacts the domain holder in writing and gives him four weeks time to send new name server data. If the domain holder does not react within this period or is not reachable, the domain can be cancelled and becomes available again for registration. Payment of unpaid domain invoices will be demanded in any case.

Zone deletion is not a cancellation!

This process (as opposed to a regular cancellation) is time-consuming and expensive. If nic.at establishes that the domain holder originally intended to cancel the domain and that the Internet service provider requested a zone deletion instead of a regular cancellation, the Internet service provider can be charged with a handling fee.

What is required for a successful zone deletion?

In order for a zone deletion to be successful, the name server response for the affected domain must meet the following criteria:

• One of the following statuses is returned (Rcode):
  • NXDOMAIN
  • REFUSED
  • NOERROR with empty answer section
• The AA-flag for Authoritative Answer must not be set
• No SOA/NE records pointing to own servers

Please note that the confirmation of a zone deletion is preceded by a name server check. Depending on the number of configured name servers for the domain at issue, this process could take some time.

A nic.at-Handle is a number code which refers to a specific person and his data. Instead of entering the person and data for each entry, it is sufficient to enter the corresponding number/handle. 
A nic.at-Handle consists of two to four letters, followed by numbers and –NICAT (e.g. SB10312596-NICAT). The initial letters are usually the initials of the person.

The Registrant-Handle is the owner-Handle of the respective domain name and is used as user name for the login area.

If an organization with own legal personality (e.g. OG, GmbH, associations, ...) is mentioned in the field "organization", this organization is the domain holder. Addional mentioned private individuals (in the field "personname") are soley a contact person and NOT the domain holder.

If there is no organisation with own legal personality mentioned (e.g. "personname: Max Mustermann" and "organization: Pension Mustermann") in the field "organization", the person according to "personname" is the domain holder.

The registrant is the owner of a domain name. In addition to the domain holder, there is at least one technical contact (tech-c) registered. The tech-c does not have any rights or obligations, they are the responsibility of the registrant (domain holder).

The admin-c never had any legal function in the administration of .at-domains. Following the GDPR's principle regarding data minimisation the admin-c was abolished as per May 16, 2018.

A change of the domain holder is the transfer of a domain to another natural or legal person. In case of an organisation, modifications of the legal form or company name are also regarded as a change of the holder. 

If the domain is managed by a registrar and the new domain holder wants to stay with this registrar, the registrar will perform the change of the domain holder.

If together with the change of domain holder the domain shall be transferred to a new registrar, the new registrar is the competent authority: With the AuthInfo he can take over the domain  and change the holder's data. The previous domain holder has to hand over the AuthInfo to the new domain holder so that he can forward it to the new registrar.

If you have a nic.at customer login please read here how to perform a change of holder.