The aim of NIC is to provide free registration of domains for citizens and lawfully residents of the Republic of Rwanda.

The registration is free of charge for the citizens or lawfully residents of our country. We can require a copy of a valid passport or residence permit from time to time. A company or an NGO duly registered in our country and operated from there also qualify. Legal institutions, governmments, ministeries, churches and other authorities of our country have a right for free domains at the highest priority.

In order to avoid foreign entities to register free domains with us, we generally require that the applicant faxes us the proof of his citizenship/right of residence. A subsidiary of a foreign company, even if registered in our country, is regarded as a foreign entity.

However, the foreign entities should also be able to register domains in .rw top-level domains. The policy of NIC is to charge these entities with sizeable fees. The foreign entities are not obliged to keep a DNS or an administrative contact in the country. Except those qualified by NIC as restricted or undesirable, any domain name related to the business may be assigned to these entities.

REGISTRATION OF ONE DOMAIN IN .rw TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN :

For citizens resident of Republic of Rwanda : ONE FREE DOMAIN PER CITIZEN OR COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION

For foreign entities or local citizens/companies already beneficiaries of a free domain :

Acceptable domain names and policy

NIC is the delegated authority for registering domain names in the .rw top-level domains. The domain name space is served on a first in first out basis. NIC has a rather liberal policy about domain names as soon as the domain name is in relation with the business name or one of its marks. The general principle is that a domain must reflect the truth.

The domains are registered just under the top level domain code. There is no domain like domain.co.rw like in some other countries.

The registration is free of charge for the citizens and lawfully residents of our country. We can require a copy of a valid passport or residence permit from time to time. A company or an NGO duly registered in our country and operated from there also qualify. Legal institutions, governmments, ministeries, churches and other authorities of our country have a right for free domains at the highest priority.

In order to avoid foreign entities to register free domains with us, we generally require that the applicant faxes us the proof of his citizenship/right of residence. A subsidiary of a foreign company, even if registered in our country, is regarded as a foreign entity.


The foreign entities are not obliged to keep a DNS or an administrative contact in the country. Except those qualified by NIC as restricted or undesirable, any domain name related to the business may be assigned to these entities.

A restricted domain is one of these : gov net edu ac com co int mil gouv or any other name related to government or public company use. Contact domain@nic.rw if you want to create such a domain. Note however that it will be assigned only if sponsored by an official authority. We also discourage generic names such as bank nom art ... or a geographic notion as it also misleads people.

An undesirable name is defined as being vulgar, misleading people or being rejected by NIC at its own discretion. It is also applicable for domain registration of wellknown brands/trademarks registered by third parties without the consent of the owner of the brands/trademark. The domain will be deleted immediately at the owner's request.

We strongly discourage the use of suffixes of our country for misleading people. We remind that .rw stands for Republic of Rwanda and for nothing else.

The domain name must have a minimum of three characters. Applications for one or two characters domain may be considered, with a possible surcharge if this domain is considered as Premium, with prior arrangment with domain@nic.rw

There is no notion of property as far as a domain name is concerned. It is rather to be seen as a sub-delegation, and the sub-delegated entity is supposed to manage it in compliance with the RFC's and with the usual rules applicable to such a sub-delegation. For instance, domains should only be used for matters in connection with the sub-delegated entity's business. The name of the domain must correspond to the name of the business, or one of its marks.

NIC will do its best so that second-level domains are run in a fair way. NIC may delete a domain name without compensation, should the domain be run in an inappropriate manner or be restricted or undesirable. No auction or reselling of domain names will be accepted.

The invoicing is per e-mail only. NIC sends yearly invoices to the billing contact e-mail address at the anniversary date of the domain creation. There is no reminder sent afterwards. It is your responsability to maintain the record accurate and your mail server open so that the e-mailed invoice reaches the right person. Note that our e-mails are in HTML formats and can include forms. An unpaid domain is deleted after two weeks and made available for new sub-delegation. Any payment without clear communication will be held in a separate account and domain will not be created/renewed. NIC will not try to trace back the payment origin, and without proper identification from the payer, this amount will stay unassigned to any domain. The deletion of the domain will take place at its expiry date and NIC wont be liable for any refund. It is the registrant's responsibility to notify NIC about the assignment of the payment, and once this payment has been reassigned, domain will be restored until its next renewal date. During the time the domain is deleted, NIC owes no compensation. The domain can be made available to the public. . Being in breach with this policy gives NIC the possibility to jeopardize all other domains that the user registered. NIC has the right to rectify any information in the whois database that he finds incorrect, irrelevant or misleading. NIC can also delete or suspend any domain that the registrant does not keep according to our policy, without compensation. Whois must be kept accurate and your mail server must be configured so that our mails are not classified as spam.

As rendered service for domain creation, NIC installs the requested domain in the database of the DNS server 194.38.74.11 and the NS records will be pointed to the DNS servers you specify on the form. This is the only service rendered. It does not include a sale of the domain name as there is no notion of property on a domain. Future changes of pointers are free of charge (max 3 per year). NIC will do its best effort to keep this pointer, the delegation and the DNS running, but shall by no means bear any responsibility for any disruption of service as it may occur from time to time on the internet or disruption of delegation. For each DNS server you specify as authoritative, you must have a DNS server up and running which is compliant with current RFC's and which is responding to domain name requests for your domain. We can delete a domain that does not resolve properly on your servers.

Resellers are normally not eligible for rebates.

By using a registration form or using a domain, the user agrees to comply with all the present and future policies of NIC. Litigation will only be solved through a legal procedure in a tribunal of our country. No foreign court has jurisdiction. Arbitral solution may however be accepted at NIC sole discretion via an established Intellectual Property Arbitrator, but the preferred default procedure is through a tribunal of our country, and should NIC decide to send the matter through a tribunal of our country, there will be no alternative.