Registry, registrar and registrant
Three parties stand behind every domain. Knowing which one can act on a given problem saves weeks of misdirected correspondence.
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The registry
Every extension is administered by a single organisation, the registry, which keeps the authoritative list of names in that extension and sets the rules for it. The registry decides how long a registration may run, what happens after an expiry, whether anybody has to meet eligibility conditions, and what dispute procedure applies. It does not sell names to the public and does not run support desks for individual holders. A village foundation writing to a registry about a renewal invoice will receive, at best, a polite redirection.
Registries differ more than people expect. A country code registry may impose local presence rules, may run its own arbitration scheme, and may hold names in a post expiry state for a length of time entirely different from the one used elsewhere. This is why advice that is accurate for one extension can be misleading for another, a theme picked up in extensions and what they signal.
The registrar
The registrar is the company accredited by the registry to create and maintain entries on behalf of others. It is the party an organisation actually deals with: it takes the payment, sends the renewal notices, provides the control panel, holds the account credentials and executes instructions to change nameservers, contact details or providers. Almost every practical question about a domain is a question for the registrar.
A complication is the reseller. Many hosting companies, web agencies and local IT firms sell domains without being accredited themselves, placing the orders through an accredited registrar behind the scenes. The arrangement is entirely legitimate and usually invisible. It becomes visible when the reseller stops responding, goes out of business or refuses a request, at which point it matters that the accreditation, and with it a duty to follow the registry's rules, sits with a company the client may never have heard of. A public lookup on the name will show which registrar that is.
The registrant
The registrant is the party recorded as holding the name: the tenant on the lease. The registrant is entitled to give instructions about the name, to approve or refuse a transfer, and to be recognised in a dispute. Everything else, including who paid, who designed the site and who has the password, is secondary. Getting an organisation rather than an individual into this field is the single most useful thing a committee can do about its domain, and the reasoning is set out in who owns a domain.
Who can do what
| Question | Party that can answer |
|---|---|
| Renew a name, or reverse a lapse in the early stages | Registrar |
| Change the nameservers or DNS records | Registrar, or whoever runs the DNS service in use |
| Change the registrant of record | Registrar, on the current registrant's instruction |
| Release a name to a different provider | Registrar, with the registrant's approval |
| Set the rules for expiry, redemption and eligibility | Registry |
| Decide a bad faith dispute over a name | An approved dispute provider under the registry's scheme |
Why complaints land in the wrong place
The confusion has a simple cause: the public sees the extension, and the extension is the registry's, so the registry feels like the authority. A cricket club that cannot get into its account writes to the organisation behind the extension, waits, and receives a note saying to contact the registrar. Meanwhile the clock on a redemption period runs down.
The reverse error is just as common. A group with a genuine dispute about bad faith registration argues with a registrar, which has no power to decide who deserves a name and will not adjudicate between two parties. That question belongs to a dispute procedure, described in UDRP explained.
Escalating in the right order
The workable order is: whoever sold the name, then the accredited registrar if that is a different company, then the registry or the accrediting body only when the registrar has failed to follow its own obligations. Before writing anything, look the name up and note the registrar shown, the current status codes and the expiry date. A message that names the domain, states the registrar of record and quotes the dates gets a substantive reply. A message that describes a broken website does not.