Becoming a registrar

from http://ketil.froyn.name/registrar/

• Becoming a registrar
  • Becoming an ICANN accredited registrar
  • Accreditation for .NAME
  • Accreditation for .COM and .NET
  • Accreditation for .BIZ
  • Accreditation for .INFO
  • Accreditation for .ORG
  • Accreditation for .NO
  • Summary of links:

(Note: this is a work in progess, and may not be updated at all times. All prices, contracts and agreements should be verified before planning starts.)

Becoming a registrar consists of a number of steps, and costs a few thousand dollars. In addition it will be required of you to fill out some paperwork, perform technical accreditation tests, and describe your business plan.
The exact work you need to do will depend on which TLD(s) you wish to register domains under. On this page I will outline broadly how you become a registrar, with focus on gTLDs.

Becoming an ICANN accredited registrar

To be a registrar on one or more gTLDs, you must first become an ICANN
accredited registrar. As of 2004-02-01, this will cost a few thousand
dollars. ICANN publishes a list of "Financial considerations" here,
and as of this writing it will amount to a minimum of USD 6500. You will note that USD 2500 are an application handling fee, so if you bungle your application, you will lose USD 2500 and you will not become accredited.
If you want to be a registrar for more than one gTLD, you must add USD 500 per additional gTLD.

As well as paying upwards of USD 6500, you must also demonstrate to ICANN that you have USD 70000 in working capital.

Accreditation for .NAME

To become accredited to do registrations on the .NAME gTLD, you will need to contact the Global Name Registry. They have made an overview of the process available here.
For the technical accreditation, you will most likely want to use epp-rtk, the EPP Registry/Registrar
toolkit. This is basically an SDK that will allow you to develop an application that speaks EPP. You will also need an XML library like xerces for whichever language you choose to
use, and domtools, which is also downloadable from the epp-rtk site. If this all sounds like a too daunting task, watch out for an open source registrar.

.NAME requires ICANN accreditation.

Accreditation for .COM and .NET

The registry operating the .COM and .NET gTLDs is Verisign GRS. They have an informative
website, detailing the steps to become a registrar quite well. Information on these steps can be found here. Rather
than using EPP to receive registrations, .COM and .NET use the older RRP. This is a line based protocol that is simpler to implement. There is also an open source toolkit for .COM and .NET, which can be downloaded here.

.COM and .NET require ICANN accreditation.

Accreditation for .BIZ

Neulevel is the registry responsible
for running the .BIZ gTLD. If you wish to sell .BIZ domains, go here. To
my knowledge, the .BIZ registry uses EPP for registrations, like .NAME.
However, they seem to call it XRP on their website. See the epp-rtk and
libraries under the .NAME section above.

.BIZ requires ICANN accreditation.

Accreditation for .INFO

.INFO is run by Afilias.
Details are listed here. .INFO
uses EPP for registrations, see the .NAME section above for
details.

.INFO requires ICANN accreditation.

Accreditation for .ORG

.ORG is run by the Public Interest Registry
. Details are listed here. .ORG uses EPP
for registrations, see the .NAME section above for
details.

.ORG requires ICANN accreditation.

Accreditation for .NO

.NO is run by NORID. Details of what
needs to be done to accredit with NORID can be found here
It costs NOK5000 to become a registrar for .NO, and they take a NOK5000 deposit as well. They accept registrations over email using a template that must be filled in. It should also be noted that currently, anyone wishing to register a domain on .NO needs to have a norwegian organisation number, and can then register up to a maximum of 15 domain names.

.NO does not require ICANN accreditation.

Summary of links:

• ICANN
• ICANN Accreditation overview
• ICANN Financial considerations
• The Global Name Registry, Ltd. (.name)
• Becoming a .name registrar
• Verisign GRS
• Becoming a .com/.net registrar
• Open Source RRP toolkit
• Neulevel (.biz)
• Become a .biz registrar
• Afilias (.info)
• Become a .info registrar
• Public Interest Registry (.org)
• Become a .org registrar
• NORID (.no)
• Become a .no registrar
• EPP Registry/Registrar toolkit, epp-rtk and domtools
• xml.apache.org, homepage of Xerces

(C) Ketil Froyn, 2004 - http://ketil.froyn.name/registrar/