- Joined
- May 18, 2010
- Posts
- 2,137
- Reaction score
- 931
Nominet has announced that registrars using its legacy EPP fee extensions must migrate to fee-1.0 before 12 January 2027, with testing and production support for the replacement scheduled to begin on 14 September.
The announcement, sent to registrars on 8 September, covers all gTLDs operated on Nominet’s platform, together with the .gov.uk and .pn registries.
Nominet will introduce support for RFC 8748, the standardised Registry Fee Extension for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol, and withdraw the older fee-0.23 and fee-0.5 implementations.
For Acorn Domains readers, there is also a connection to the wider modernisation of .uk: Nominet’s separate transition guidance includes the same RFC 8748 extension among the capabilities of its future .uk platform.
What does the fee extension do?
EPP is the protocol used by registrar software to communicate with a domain registry. The fee extension allows those systems to exchange pricing information alongside domain-management commands.
Nominet’s documentation explains that registrars can check the cost of registering, renewing, transferring or restoring a domain. They can also submit an expected transaction price for validation and receive account balance and credit-limit information where billing applies.
This is particularly useful for domains with non-standard registry pricing. Nominet’s default configuration requires registrars to confirm the non-standard price when creating such a domain.
Here, “premium” refers to the registry’s pricing classification. It should not be confused with the asking price set by an investor selling a domain on the aftermarket.
Further details: https://registrars.nominet.uk/dragon/epp/fee-extension/ - Nominet’s Registry Fee Extension for EPP documentation.
Three dates registrars need to know
The registrar notice sets out a staged migration:
The October milestone matters because it gives registrars an opportunity to validate their systems in an environment where the older extensions are no longer available, ahead of the final production deadline.
Nominet’s public technical documentation already lists fee-1.0 as recommended and both legacy versions as deprecated, with the January retirement date.
Which registries are covered?
The notice explicitly names Nominet-operated gTLDs, .gov.uk and .pn.
Nominet’s public registry directory includes .wales and .cymru, alongside client extensions such as .career, .jobs, .realestate, .bot and .now. It also lists restricted brand registries.
The scope therefore extends beyond Nominet’s own Welsh extensions. Registrars should check the registry services they actually connect to, including integrations maintained by external software suppliers.
The directory distinguishes registry-platform customers from extensions for which Nominet provides DNS services only. A DNS-services relationship alone should not be treated as evidence that this EPP change applies.
Reference: https://registrars.nominet.uk/registry/ - Nominet’s registry directory.
What does this mean for .uk and .co.uk?
The 8 September notice does not include the general .uk registry in its stated scope. It specifically includes .gov.uk, which has its own registry arrangements.
However, Nominet’s separate .uk standardisation programme is scheduled to transition on 9 February 2027. Its preparation guidance lists RFC 8748 support and explains that the fee extension will give registrars direct visibility of available account balance or credit.
The same guidance says it can be used to confirm zone pricing and account balance when a transaction occurs.
For businesses handling both .uk and affected gTLDs, the practical implication is that their development plans should account for both milestones: January’s withdrawal of legacy fee extensions and February’s wider .uk transition.
These are separate deadlines. The January notice should not be read as bringing forward the .uk migration.
Reference: https://registrars.nominet.uk/registry/dot-uk/preparing-for-standardisation/ - Nominet’s .UK transition preparation guidance.
What happens if a registrar does nothing?
Nominet says systems that have not migrated will lose access to EPP fee-extension functionality when the legacy versions are retired.
In practical terms, workflows that depend on the old extensions for price checks or fee confirmation could fail. The consequences will depend on the registrar’s software and the transactions being attempted.
The notice does not announce domain cancellations or a DNS shutdown. Its warning concerns the continued operation of registrar integrations.
What should registrars check?
Nominet instructs affected registrars to review their implementation, update it for fee-1.0, test in Testbed and complete migration before retirement.
A practical implementation review should also establish:
RFC 8748 defines the extension’s XML structures and transaction behaviour. Developers should validate their implementation against the specification rather than assume that changing a version string completes the migration.
Technical reference: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8748.html - RFC 8748: Registry Fee Extension for EPP.
Does this announce higher domain prices?
The announcement contains no new registration or renewal prices. It concerns the mechanism used to communicate and confirm fees.
Domain owners who use a registrar’s website are not being asked to modify software themselves. For resellers and hosting providers, the useful next step is to establish whether their upstream registrar or software supplier has the migration covered.
For registrars maintaining their own EPP integrations, the first testing milestone is close: 14 September 2026.
Reporting based on Nominet’s “EPP Fee Extension Update” registrar notice dated 8 September 2026, cross-checked against its public registrar documentation and the IETF specification. Dates and guidance checked on 10 September 2026.
The announcement, sent to registrars on 8 September, covers all gTLDs operated on Nominet’s platform, together with the .gov.uk and .pn registries.
Nominet will introduce support for RFC 8748, the standardised Registry Fee Extension for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol, and withdraw the older fee-0.23 and fee-0.5 implementations.
For Acorn Domains readers, there is also a connection to the wider modernisation of .uk: Nominet’s separate transition guidance includes the same RFC 8748 extension among the capabilities of its future .uk platform.
What does the fee extension do?
EPP is the protocol used by registrar software to communicate with a domain registry. The fee extension allows those systems to exchange pricing information alongside domain-management commands.
Nominet’s documentation explains that registrars can check the cost of registering, renewing, transferring or restoring a domain. They can also submit an expected transaction price for validation and receive account balance and credit-limit information where billing applies.
This is particularly useful for domains with non-standard registry pricing. Nominet’s default configuration requires registrars to confirm the non-standard price when creating such a domain.
Here, “premium” refers to the registry’s pricing classification. It should not be confused with the asking price set by an investor selling a domain on the aftermarket.
Further details: https://registrars.nominet.uk/dragon/epp/fee-extension/ - Nominet’s Registry Fee Extension for EPP documentation.
Three dates registrars need to know
The registrar notice sets out a staged migration:
- 14 September 2026, 09:00 BST (08:00 UTC): fee-1.0 is scheduled to be enabled in Testbed, OT&E and Production. Registrars should begin testing and migrating their integrations.
- 12 October 2026, 09:00 BST (08:00 UTC): fee-0.23 and fee-0.5 will be disabled in Testbed. Registrars should complete validation of their updated implementation.
- 12 January 2027, 09:00 GMT (09:00 UTC): both legacy versions will be permanently removed from Production and OT&E.
The October milestone matters because it gives registrars an opportunity to validate their systems in an environment where the older extensions are no longer available, ahead of the final production deadline.
Nominet’s public technical documentation already lists fee-1.0 as recommended and both legacy versions as deprecated, with the January retirement date.
Which registries are covered?
The notice explicitly names Nominet-operated gTLDs, .gov.uk and .pn.
Nominet’s public registry directory includes .wales and .cymru, alongside client extensions such as .career, .jobs, .realestate, .bot and .now. It also lists restricted brand registries.
The scope therefore extends beyond Nominet’s own Welsh extensions. Registrars should check the registry services they actually connect to, including integrations maintained by external software suppliers.
The directory distinguishes registry-platform customers from extensions for which Nominet provides DNS services only. A DNS-services relationship alone should not be treated as evidence that this EPP change applies.
Reference: https://registrars.nominet.uk/registry/ - Nominet’s registry directory.
What does this mean for .uk and .co.uk?
The 8 September notice does not include the general .uk registry in its stated scope. It specifically includes .gov.uk, which has its own registry arrangements.
However, Nominet’s separate .uk standardisation programme is scheduled to transition on 9 February 2027. Its preparation guidance lists RFC 8748 support and explains that the fee extension will give registrars direct visibility of available account balance or credit.
The same guidance says it can be used to confirm zone pricing and account balance when a transaction occurs.
For businesses handling both .uk and affected gTLDs, the practical implication is that their development plans should account for both milestones: January’s withdrawal of legacy fee extensions and February’s wider .uk transition.
These are separate deadlines. The January notice should not be read as bringing forward the .uk migration.
Reference: https://registrars.nominet.uk/registry/dot-uk/preparing-for-standardisation/ - Nominet’s .UK transition preparation guidance.
What happens if a registrar does nothing?
Nominet says systems that have not migrated will lose access to EPP fee-extension functionality when the legacy versions are retired.
In practical terms, workflows that depend on the old extensions for price checks or fee confirmation could fail. The consequences will depend on the registrar’s software and the transactions being attempted.
The notice does not announce domain cancellations or a DNS shutdown. Its warning concerns the continued operation of registrar integrations.
What should registrars check?
Nominet instructs affected registrars to review their implementation, update it for fee-1.0, test in Testbed and complete migration before retirement.
A practical implementation review should also establish:
- Whether the integration currently uses fee-0.23 or fee-0.5.
- Whether the registrar’s EPP software or supplier supports RFC 8748.
- Whether price queries, transaction confirmations and response processing work with fee-1.0.
- Whether standard and non-standard pricing scenarios have been tested where applicable.
- Whether deployment can be completed with time to resolve problems before January.
RFC 8748 defines the extension’s XML structures and transaction behaviour. Developers should validate their implementation against the specification rather than assume that changing a version string completes the migration.
Technical reference: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8748.html - RFC 8748: Registry Fee Extension for EPP.
Does this announce higher domain prices?
The announcement contains no new registration or renewal prices. It concerns the mechanism used to communicate and confirm fees.
Domain owners who use a registrar’s website are not being asked to modify software themselves. For resellers and hosting providers, the useful next step is to establish whether their upstream registrar or software supplier has the migration covered.
For registrars maintaining their own EPP integrations, the first testing milestone is close: 14 September 2026.
Reporting based on Nominet’s “EPP Fee Extension Update” registrar notice dated 8 September 2026, cross-checked against its public registrar documentation and the IETF specification. Dates and guidance checked on 10 September 2026.
