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Municipal Domain Name Registration

Effective April 18, 2002, CIRA (the .CA Registry) is allowing Canadian municipal governments to register the names of their municipalities as second level .CA domain names. In the past, a municipality had to register its name as a fourth level domain such as city.ottawa.on.ca, whereas now it may register its name at the national level, e.g. ottawa.ca.

Step 1 - Determine if your municipal name has a conflict

  • In Canada, some municipalities have the same name. In order to register the second level domain, such municipalities must obtain consent from all other municipalities with the same name. If your municipality's name is in the following list, please contact our Customer Support Specialists at 1-866-221-7878 or support@webnames.ca for further assistance.

    Conflicting municipalities:


  • If your municipality has a unique name, i.e. NOT on the above list, proceed to Step 2 below.

Step 2 - Complete the authorization letter and fax to CIRA

The registration of a municipality's name as a second level .CA domain is strictly reserved for the respective municipal governments. CIRA will manually verify each domain application submitted to ensure that it complies with CIRA's rules.

CIRA Rules for Registering Municipal Names as Second Level Domain Names

  • The Registrant Name on the domain application must be the full legal name of the government entity (e.g. The Corporation of the City of ***).
  • A letter must be faxed to CIRA on the municipal government's letterhead, by a signing authority of the municipal government, such as Mayor, Treasurer, Town Manager, Town Administrator, etc. (i.e. the letter cannot be signed by the web designer hired to do the website for the municipality or by the Mayor`s secretary) to authorize the domain name application.
  • The letter to CIRA must also appoint another individual in the municipality's administration to be the administrative contact for the domain registration. The appointed administrative contact cannot be the same person who signs the appointment letter.
  • The domain name, once registered, cannot be transferred to a third party and is deemed to be held by the Municipality, not the individual(s) who registered the domain.

For your convenience, CIRA has devised a fax template (PDF) which includes all the relevant information required. Please download, complete, photocopy onto municipal letterhead and fax to Webnames.ca for review.

If a letter was faxed to CIRA in the past to authorize your fourth level domain application e.g. city.cityname.prov.ca, you do not have to fax a new letter as long as you use your existing registrant record to submit your second level domain application.(Note: if your authorization letter was faxed to CDNnet - the original .CA Registry - and your domain name was transferred from CDNnet to CIRA, you will have to download the authorization letter template above and fax to Webnames.ca)

Once the letter has been faxed to Webnames.ca, we will review the documentation and forward it to CIRA.

Step 3 - Submission of your municipal registration:

Once CIRA has accepted and approved the documentation in step 2, a Webnames.ca representative will contact you to assist you with the next step of your municipal registration.

If you had already provided documentation for your municipal registration in the past and are ready to proceed with submission of your registration, please contact Webnames.ca support at 1-866-221-7878.



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