Successful domain registration via RCP or XML API or REST API requires:

• Registrant contact require:
  • Valid full first-name. Abbreviations like "A." are not allowed.
  • Located within the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland or any of the French overseas territories.
• Two or more nameservers or a nameserver group.
• Technical Contact can be a COMPANY or an INDIVIDUAL Person. If the technical contact is an individual person, his/her information will be published on the whois.

The french registry (Afnic) will perform checks on the requirements above and contact the registrant directly in case the requirements are not met to ask for proof of identification data. (For example, the registrant seems to have an address outside the EU).
Proof of identification data contains:

• Company
  - business registration certificate 
  - the ID of the legal representative of the company
• Private individual
  - copy of the holder's national identity card or passport
  - proof of residence of less than three months (telephone or electricity bill, tax notice, etc.
  - holder's email address and telephone number

In case the registry does not receive any documents in time, they will block the domain untill the documents are received. To unblock, the registrant has to reply to the email of the registry with the required documents.

The Registry maintains a list of domain names to the "reserved" status (towns, community names).
If registration fails with a "2304, Object status prohibits operation" error (example: Object status prohibits operation: city name (AFNIC authinfo mandatory)),the domain can not be registered directly. Only in case the registrant has a legitimate interest (represents city council of that city or region for example) a request can be submitted to the registry to manually asses the request in order to register the domain.

If the registrant believes he has a legitimate interest / claim, please sent us an email and include the handle of the registrant + his connection to the city / region + purpose of the website and we can submit the request.

Domain names under the extensions .com.fr, .asso.fr and .tm.fr are discontinued since 2013. No new domain names can be registered under those extensions. Existing domains under those extensions can be managed like any other domain and can be transferred into Openprovider.

Registrants from the United Kingdom that registered their domain before the 1st of January 2021 are eligible to keep their domain name; they can update, transfer and renew their domain name as any other registrant. However, as the Brexit transition period ended, new registrations for registrants from the United Kingdom are not allowed anymore.

Important: As provided for in the Naming Charter since 1 January 2023, Afnic will implement on September 26, 2023 a mechanism that will identify, as soon as a domain name is created and before it is published in the DNS, data of domain name holders that do not meet eligibility criteria of the .fr Naming Charter.

Initially, we will focus on the main criteria of holder eligibility, which is the principal criteria for .fr accessibility, and specifically, the creation of a .fr domain name by a holder who does not reside in the European Union. The mechanism in place checks all .fr domain name creations and in the initial phase of deployment, automatically identifies those for which holders have entered a "country code" corresponding to a country outside the territories of the EU and EFTA member countries.

As soon as we detect a domain name whose registrant data corresponds to this category, it is registered but not published in the DNS for a maximum of 7 calendar days. A SERVER_HOLD status is applied.

This means that the domain name is indeed registered but its publication in the DNS is suspended.

During this non-publication phase, which lasts 7 days, several actions are possible:

-        update the holder's details so that they meet the criteria set out in article 5.1 of the Naming Charter;
-        change the holder;
-        delete the domain name.

Successful domain transfer via RCP or XML API or REST API requires:

• Registrant contact require:
  • Valid full first-name. Abbreviations like "A." are not allowed.
  • Located within the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland or any of the French overseas territories.
• Two or more nameservers or a nameserver group.
• Technical Contact can be a COMPANY or an INDIVIDUAL Person. If the technical contact is an individual person, his/her information will be published on the whois.

The transfer period is subject to cooperation of the current registrar:

• if the current registrar approves the transfer, it completes immediately
• if the current registrar does not approve/reject the transfer, it completes after 8 days
• if the current registrar rejects the transfer within the first 8 days, it completes after 22 days

If the holder wants to cancel an initiated transfer, only the gaining registrar (Openprovider) can do so; you can cancel the transfer from the transfer queue in RCP.

The registry will not send an e-mail to the domain contacts after the transfer finishes.

• External authorization code request - via RCP (Reseller Control Panel) or XML API or REST API 

Owner change (trade)

• requested as a normal domain update via RCP or XML API or REST API
• processed realtime

If your domain is premium/reserved - contact us to validate this change.

Other update

• requested via RCP or XML API or REST API
• processed realtime

Delete

• requested via RCP or XML API or REST API
• processed realtime
• will result in a quarantine period

Restore / reactivate

• restore / reactivation supported via RCP or XML API or REST API 
• quarantine period can be found under
  Detailed extension information > Technical information > Quarantine period