.com.au Eligibility Rules Change: What Is Proposed, Who Is Affected and How Foreign Companies Qualify

As of 15 October 2026, the change to .com.au and .net.au eligibility is a proposal, not a rule in force: the board of auDA, the .au registry, approved it “in principle” in August 2026, and draft Licensing Rules will go to public consultation before they are finalised. If it is adopted, a business could no longer register a domain just because it matches a product, service, event, activity or premises it offers (the old “close and substantial connection” test): a .com.au would have to match or abbreviate the holder’s registered name, or match its Australian trade mark. Foreign companies that qualify through an Australian trade mark are already limited to an exact match of that mark today, so for them the route stays the same. You can check availability and see the requirements on our .AU domain page.

Checked on 3 October 2026 against auDA’s statement of 6 September 2026, the Policy Advisory Panel’s Final Report (August 2026) and the .au Licensing Rules in force. The dated section was updated on 15 October 2026 with the registrars’ letter to auDA, and on 28 October 2026 with auDA’s statement of 19 October 2026 on existing domains. The proposal can still change during consultation, so the dated section below will be updated when auDA publishes the draft rules. Prices change too, so this page does not list them.

What auDA has proposed (status as of 15 October 2026)

This section is the news, frozen at 15 October 2026. The rest of the page explains the rules themselves and how to register, which you need whatever the outcome.

• 10 September 2025. The auDA Board set up an external Policy Advisory Panel to review the .au Licensing Rules (Final Report, p. 1).
• 24 November 2025 to 31 March 2026. First public consultation, on an Issues Paper (Final Report, Appendix A).
• 4 June to 10 July 2026. Public consultation on the Panel’s draft report (Final Report, Appendix A).
• August 2026. The Board “resolved to approve the Panel’s Recommendations in the Final Report in-principle and directed auDA Management to prepare an Implementation Plan that takes into account the impact of the Recommendations” (auDA statement).
• 6 September 2026. auDA published the decision and the Final Report.
• Next. auDA will draft the changes to the Licensing Rules, and “the draft .au Licensing Rules and explanatory guide will be published on the auDA website for public consultation”. No date has been announced for the draft, for the consultation or for the new rules to take effect.

Update, 15 October 2026. Ten registrars have written to the auDA Board asking it to reverse the decision; of the signatories, only Tucows has been named (Domain Name Wire, 15 October 2026). Their letter argues that the change could eliminate 50% to 80% of the roughly 3.5 million .com.au and .net.au domains registered, that it does not reflect how businesses actually use domains (campaigns, short email addresses, misspellings and synonyms of their brands, names they are known by but have not registered), that it would hurt businesses that have invested years of marketing and SEO in their domains, and that added complexity pushes people towards gTLDs. No response from auDA has been reported: the in-principle decision stands, and the next step is still the draft Licensing Rules and their public consultation, with no date announced.

Update, 19 October 2026. auDA published a statement saying it “proposes to allow existing com.au and net.au domain name licences to continue to operate under the current allocation rules” and that “no current registrant of a domain name licence will be affected by the proposed changes to the allocation criteria”. It also states that there are no proposed changes to the eligibility criteria (Australian Presence and Commercial Entity), and that an exact match will still not be required. This is still a proposal: “No final decisions have been made”, and public consultation “is planned to open later this year” (auDA, Update on .au Licensing Rules review).

What exactly would be removed

The change is Recommendation 2 of the Final Report: delete subparagraph (f) of rule 2.4.4(2). That subparagraph lets a .com.au or .net.au be a match or synonym of the name of a service the holder provides, goods it sells, an event it runs or sponsors, an activity it teaches or facilitates, or premises it operates. In the Panel’s words, deleting it “effectively limits a registrant to registering a domain name that matches its name, business name or trade mark”. The test has existed in some form “since the early days of the .com.au domain extension” (Final Report, p. 18).

Why the Panel recommended it

• Pay-per-click pages. Because a “service” includes providing information or referrals, “many domain investors use a pay-per-click website to meet the allocation rules” (p. 18).
• Artificial intelligence. “Advances in artificial intelligence have also made it easier to create pay-per-click websites for this purpose” (p. 19).
• Verification. The other routes rely on documents that can be checked against government registers; this one relies on the registrant’s own warranty, and “feedback suggested those warranties are not always honoured” (p. 19).

The decision was not unanimous. Four Panel members voted to remove the route, two voted to keep it and one abstained and later backed the minority (pp. 5 and 20). Public feedback gave “roughly equal support of and opposition to” the recommendation (p. 12). Domain monetisation itself remains allowed in com.au, net.au and .au direct (Recommendation 1).

.com.au and .net.au eligibility: today vs proposed

Every .com.au and .net.au holder must first be a commercial entity with an Australian presence (rules 2.4.1 and 2.4.4(1)). The domain name then has to fit one of the routes below, quoted from the .au Licensing Rules in force. The last column is the proposal as auDA describes it.

Route: the domain name is…	Rule	Today	As proposed
A match of your company, business, statutory or personal name	2.4.4(2)(a)	Allowed	No change
An acronym of that name	2.4.4(2)(b)	Allowed	No change
A match of your Australian trade mark	2.4.4(2)(c)	Allowed	No change
A match or acronym of a related Australian body corporate	2.4.4(2)(d)	Allowed	No change
A match or acronym of a partnership you belong to or a trust you are trustee of	2.4.4(2)(e)	Allowed	No change
A match or synonym of a service, goods, event, activity or premises you offer (“close and substantial connection”)	2.4.4(2)(f)	Allowed	Removed
Your only Australian presence is an Australian trade mark (common for foreign companies)	2.4.5	Exact match of the words of the mark; route (f) never applied	No change
.au direct (yourname.au)	2.4.3	Any available name, with an Australian presence	Not part of this change, which amends rule 2.4.4 (com.au and net.au only)

A “match” uses the words of the name in the same order, with no extra words. Commercial identifiers such as “Pty Ltd” and the “.com.au” suffix are left out (.au Licensing Rules, definitions).

Who would be affected, and who would not

Your situation	What the domain relies on today	Under the proposal
Australian business whose domain spells its company or business name	Match, route (a)	Not affected
Business using the initials of its registered name	Acronym, route (b)	Not affected
Business whose domain names a product, service or venue, not its registered name	Route (f)	Would lose that basis; would need a matching business name or trade mark
Holder of a generic keyword domain (the Panel minority’s examples: “live, shoes or tyres”)	Route (f)	Would lose that basis; the minority notes that generic words like these often cannot be registered as a business name or trade mark (Final Report, p. 21)
Schools, charities and sporting clubs with a domain for a fete, campaign or venue (examples given by the Panel minority)	Route (f)	Would lose that basis
Domain investor whose eligibility rests on a pay-per-click page	Route (f)	Would lose that basis; this is the use the Panel majority targeted
Foreign company registered with ASIC (ARBN) using a product or service domain	Route (f)	Would lose that basis
Foreign company whose Australian presence is an Australian trade mark	Exact match of the mark, rule 2.4.5	Not affected

How many domains? There is no official figure

auDA has not published how many names rely on route (f), and the Panel minority noted that no quantified assessment of the number of registrants or the cost had been made (Final Report, p. 21). The estimates in circulation come from interested parties:

• The Panel minority: “potentially 1 million registrants” (Final Report, p. 21).
• The Internet Commerce Association: up to one million domain names (ecommercenews, 25 September 2026).
• David Warmuz, CEO of Trillion: 2.5 million of roughly 3.47 million .com.au and .net.au names (ecommercenews, 25 September 2026).
• Enom, a registrar: about 54% of the .com.au domains it checked would fail the new test (Enom blog).

For scale, there were about 3.3 million .com.au and 0.2 million .net.au registrations as of July (Domain Name Wire, 8 September 2026).

What happens to .com.au domains already registered

Update, 19 October 2026: auDA now proposes that existing com.au and net.au licences continue under the current allocation rules, so that no current registrant is affected; it is a proposal, with no final decision and public consultation planned for later this year (auDA statement). Until 19 October this was not defined: auDA’s September statement did not mention a transition, and the Panel’s own minority wrote that the recommendation “does not address the impact on existing registrants who currently rely on subparagraph (f) to maintain their licence, nor whether any transition or grandfathering arrangements would apply” (Final Report, p. 21). On 30 September 2026 SmartCompany reported that auDA had not yet determined how existing domains would be treated.

The answer matters because of how renewals work today: under rule 2.14.2, auDA renews a licence when “the Person continues to meet the eligibility and allocation criteria”. The transition rules, once drafted, will decide how that test applies to names registered under route (f). Grandfathering has been requested by Matthew Addison, chair of COSBOA (SmartCompany), and by Enom, and the Internet Commerce Association asked auDA to require registrars to notify every registrant directly before any change affecting existing licences (ecommercenews).

One check already applies, independent of this proposal: since May 2026, Australian registrars report that renewal of a .au domain is blocked if the ABN or ACN linked to it is not active, and that a similar check for trade-mark-based eligibility will follow separately (TPP Wholesale and Instra support notices). That check is about the holder, not about the name.

How a foreign company can register a .com.au

A company with no Australian entity has two ways to get the Australian presence that .com.au and .net.au require:

1. Register with ASIC as a foreign company and obtain an ARBN (Australian Registered Body Number). The domain then follows the routes in the table above, including the proposed change.
2. Hold or apply for an Australian trade mark. A pending application on IP Australia’s database is enough (.au Licensing Rules, definition of “Australian Trade Mark”). The domain must then be an exact match of the words of the mark (rule 2.4.5).

“Exact match” means all the words of the mark, in the same order. Articles (“a”, “the”, “and”, “of”), punctuation and ampersands are ignored, but the words cannot be shortened or reordered: a mark for “Blue River Coffee” gives you bluerivercoffee.com.au, not bluecoffee.com.au or brc.com.au. auDA’s own example: “The Little Red Wagon Bookshop” supports thelittleredwagonbookshop.com.au, but not lrwb.com.au or littlered.net.au (auDA, 10 February 2021). If the trade mark is your only Australian presence, the same exact-match rule applies to a .au direct name.

Why the trade mark becomes the main route

Under the proposal, a .com.au that does not spell a name you have registered in Australia can only be supported by a matching Australian trade mark or a matching registered business name. For a company outside Australia, the trade mark was already the practical route, and it is the route the proposal leaves as it is. Australia is one of many countries with a local presence rule; our guide to ccTLD local presence requirements compares them.

How we get you the trade mark and the domain

1. The study comes first. Through Protect.tm, a trade mark study delivered within 1 business day tells you whether your name can be registered and in which class it should be filed.
2. We file the trade mark in your name with IP Australia. You do not have to wait for it to be granted: the filed application is enough for the domain.
3. We request your domain with the application already filed. From payment to a live domain the route takes 5 to 10 business days.

Everything stays in your name. Australia does not allow trustee, proxy or privacy services for .au domains, so nobody registers the domain for you: it is yours from the first day, and we act as your address for service in Australia for the trade mark. One rule to know before you buy: your Australian presence has to stay valid for as long as you keep the domain. If the trade mark is refused or lapses, auDA cancels the domain (rule 2.11.6) and there is no refund. That is why we only file a name that the study says can be registered. Start on the .AU domain page.

.au, .com.au or .net.au: which one fits

	.au direct	.com.au	.net.au
Who can hold it	Anyone with an Australian presence	A commercial entity with an Australian presence	A commercial entity with an Australian presence
Name rule today	Any available name (exact match if your only presence is a trade mark)	Match, acronym, trade mark or route (f)	Match, acronym, trade mark or route (f)
Affected by the proposal	No	Yes: route (f) removed	Yes: route (f) removed
Foreign company with an Australian trade mark	Exact match of the mark	Exact match of the mark	Exact match of the mark
Licence period	1 to 5 years	1 to 5 years	1 to 5 years
Trustee or proxy registration	Not allowed	Not allowed	Not allowed

Register.Domains offers all three on the .AU domain page. To see who holds a name you want, use the .AU WHOIS lookup. For a general introduction to the extension, see The Ultimate Guide to .au Domain Names.

What to do now

1. Nothing has to change today. The current rules, route (f) included, stay in force until auDA adopts new ones.
2. Check which route each domain relies on. If it spells your registered name, its acronym or your trade mark, the proposal does not touch it. If it names a product, service, event or venue, it relies on route (f).
3. Keep the basis active. A cancelled ABN or a lapsed trade mark already ends eligibility under the current rules (2.11.5 to 2.11.7).
4. If a domain relies on route (f), know your options before the draft rules arrive: a matching business name, a matching Australian trade mark, or the .au direct version of the name. Which one makes sense depends on the transition rules, which have not been published.
5. Follow the consultation. The draft rules and an explanatory guide will be published on auDA’s website, with an opportunity for stakeholders and the broader community to comment.
6. Foreign company registering now? File the Australian trade mark first and register the exact match. That route works the same under the current and the proposed rules.

Frequently asked questions

Is the new .com.au eligibility rule in force?

No. As of 15 October 2026 auDA’s Board has approved the Panel’s recommendation in principle only. auDA will prepare an Implementation Plan and publish draft Licensing Rules for public consultation, and no effective date has been announced.

Can I register a .com.au without an ABN?

Yes. A foreign company or person that holds or has applied for an Australian trade mark counts as a commercial entity with an Australian presence, as long as the domain is an exact match of the words of the mark. A foreign company registered with ASIC can also use its ARBN.

Will I lose my existing .com.au domain?

If your domain matches your registered name, its acronym or your Australian trade mark, the proposal does not affect it. If it relies on a product, service, event, activity or premises, auDA’s statement of 19 October 2026 proposes that existing com.au and net.au licences continue under the current allocation rules, so no current registrant would be affected. No final decision has been made: the draft rules still go to public consultation, planned for later this year.

Does the change affect .au direct domains?

No. The proposal deletes subparagraph (f) of rule 2.4.4, which applies only to com.au and net.au. A .au direct name can be any available name for anyone with an Australian presence, unless that presence is only a trade mark, in which case it must be an exact match.

Whatever the outcome of the consultation, a .com.au that matches your Australian trade mark is the route that works under both the current and the proposed rules. Check your name and see the requirements on our .AU domain page.