For domain resellers, .CA gives your customers a lot to work with: national trust, strong local recognition, and a clear signal that they serve the Canadian market.
.CA’s Canadian Presence Requirements mean only Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and businesses can register one. Furthermore, 85% of Canadians say they prefer buying from a .CA site over a .com when supporting local businesses.
Behind every great ccTLD is a great registry – Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is the one behind .CA.
This article covers who CIRA is, how the registry, registrar, and reseller layers fit together, and the rules domain resellers work under every time they register or renew a .CA domain.
Who is CIRA?
CIRA is the not-for-profit, member-driven organization that manages Canada’s .CA domain. Based in Ottawa, CIRA took over .CA from the University of British Columbia on December 1, 2000, and its board is elected annually by its members. CIRA reports managing 3.6 million .CA domains as of 2026, according to CIRA’s own registration figures, making it one of the larger ccTLD registries in the world.
CIRA is not a government agency. It operates independently, governed by its own members.
Registry, registrar, reseller: who does what
The domain industry works through three layers: registry, registrar, and reseller. CIRA is the registry: it sets the rules for .CA, and holds the one official database of every .CA registration. It does not sell .CA domains directly to the public. Every .CA registration must go through a CIRA-certified registrar, a company CIRA has approved to register, renew, and transfer .CA domains on its systems.
Below the registrar sits the reseller: a hosting company, agency, or MSP that sells domains to its own clients through a registrar’s platform, without needing its own CIRA certification.
| Layer | Role | Example |
| Registry | Sets the rules, holds the official .CA database, approves registrars | CIRA (.CA) |
| Registrar | Approved directly by the registry, connects to its systems, sells to the public and to resellers | Openprovider |
| Reseller | Sells domains under its own brand through a registrar’s platform | Web hosts, agencies, MSPs |
For resellers, knowing your place in this structure makes the rest of how .CA works much clearer. That starts with the rules CIRA sets for every domain on its registry.
The CIRA rules every .CA reseller works within
While resellers do not deal with CIRA directly, its policies still apply to every .CA domain they sell. Registrations that don’t meet these requirements can be rejected or suspended, so knowing them upfront helps you collect the right details from customers and avoid issues later.
All .CA domains fall under CIRA’s registry policy compliance requirements, including the following:
Certification and the registrant agreement
Selling .CA requires CIRA certification, a direct approval process separate from ICANN’s general accreditation for TLDs like .com. Once someone registers a .CA domain, they have seven days to accept CIRA’s registrant agreement, the contract that sets out their rights and duties as a .CA holder.
Canadian Presence Requirements
To register a .CA, you must meet CIRA’s Canadian Presence Requirements (CPR): eligibility rules based on citizenship, permanent residency, or a Canadian business presence. Anyone who meets CPR can register a .CA domain.
In a past interview with Openprovider, CIRA CEO Byron Holland explained why this matters:
“To keep .CA Canadian, we have Canadian Presence Requirements to ensure only Canadian citizens and/or permanent residents with a physical presence in Canada can register .CA domains. This way, consumers can trust that they are interacting with a real Canadian business.”
Life cycle and To Be Released (TBR) domains
A .CA domain that lapses follows a fixed process. After expiry, it enters a 45-day auto-renew grace period, then a 30-day redemption grace period during which the original registrant can reclaim it. Unclaimed domains then move to CIRA’s To Be Released (TBR) list and become available during a weekly Wednesday drop session, sometimes called drop catching, where each registrar gets one connection and one request every five seconds. There is no auction – the first successful request wins.
CDRP: CIRA’s dispute resolution process
Disputes over a .CA domain go through CIRA’s own Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP), separate from ICANN’s Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), which covers generic TLDs. Anyone involved in a .CA dispute works under CIRA’s rules, not ICANN’s.
What the registry model means for your clients
CIRA’s rules are not just background details. They give resellers real trust arguments to use when a client is weighing .CA against a generic alternative.
A portion of every .CA registration goes toward Net Good, CIRA’s program that funds Canadian internet infrastructure, digital literacy, and online safety projects. Individual .CA registrants also get WHOIS privacy protection by default, a standard shaped by Canadian privacy law that many generic TLDs only offer as a paid extra. CIRA requires DNSSEC support across the whole registry, adding a layer of protection against DNS spoofing that not every ccTLD requires. And .CA ranks low on Spamhaus’s domain abuse tables, a sign that CIRA’s policies help keep the TLD cleaner than most.
If you already manage domains for several Canadian clients, read how to bring a Canadian client portfolio onto one platform. Our full case for offering .CA to your clients covers the business side in more detail.
That said, CIRA’s work extends beyond .CA, and that wider scope is exactly what makes its partnership with SIDN worth knowing about.
CIRA and SIDN: the Hello Registry partnership
Hello Registry, at a glance
- Announced at ICANN 78 in Hamburg, 2023
- Given the name “Hello Registry” at ICANN 81 in Istanbul, November 2024, replacing the earlier name “CIRA Registry Platform”
- Shared infrastructure between CIRA, which runs .CA, and SIDN, which runs .NL
- CIRA also provides back-end registry services for .NZ, .IE, .KIWI, .SX, and .MLS, and applied as a Registry Service Provider (RSP) during ICANN’s 2026 new gTLD application round
While CIRA runs .CA, SIDN, the Dutch registry, runs .NL. Since November 2024, both operate on Hello Registry, a shared platform first announced at ICANN 78 in 2023. For resellers, that’s dual accreditation in practice: Openprovider holds direct accreditation with both CIRA and SIDN, so .CA and .NL portfolios sit with one partner across two established ccTLD operators, instead of setting up two separate relationships. Read more about Openprovider’s 25 years managing .NL.
Register .CA with a CIRA-certified registrar
Openprovider is proud to be a CIRA-certified registrar. This means .CA runs through the same approval, the same platform, and the same Openprovider Membership pricing as every other TLD in your portfolio. Members register, renew, and transfer .CA domains at cost price, with no separate agreement needed to sell into the Canadian market.
If .CA is already part of your catalog, or you are thinking about adding it, explore .CA domains and manage it alongside everything else your clients ask for.
And in the meantime, you can create your free Openprovider account here, and see how easy and cost effective it is to manage 2,000 TLDs on one platform.
Frequently asked questions
Who operates .CA?
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) operates .CA. CIRA is a not-for-profit organization based in Ottawa. It took over .CA from the University of British Columbia on December 1, 2000.
Can I register a .CA domain directly with CIRA?
No. CIRA does not sell .CA domains directly to the public. Every .CA registration goes through a CIRA-certified registrar, such as Openprovider, or a reseller working on a certified registrar’s platform.
What happens when a .CA domain expires?
An expired .CA enters a 45-day auto-renew grace period, then a 30-day redemption grace period, during which the original registrant can still get it back. After that, it moves to CIRA’s To Be Released list.
How do I get an expiring .CA domain?
Unclaimed .CA domains on the To Be Released list become available during CIRA’s Wednesday drop session. Each registrar gets one connection and can send one request every five seconds. The first successful request wins the domain.
How are .CA disputes resolved?
.CA disputes go through CIRA’s own Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP). This is separate from ICANN’s UDRP, which covers disputes for generic TLDs like .com.
What is Hello Registry?
Hello Registry is the shared registry platform built by CIRA and SIDN, the registry for the Netherlands’ .NL domain. It was announced at ICANN 78 in 2023 and given the name Hello Registry at ICANN 81 in November 2024.
