General Rules for .uk Top Level and Second Level Domains

1. The purpose of this document is to describe the rules for the allocation of names within the .uk domain and its sub-domains.
   
2. This procedure applies to all names requested for allocation within the .uk domain and its sub-domains.
   

3. 3.1 The rules given here apply to all requests for names in the .uk domain and all sub-domains of .uk except where differing rules exist for a sub-domain. The rules for a sub-domain shall incorporate all the rules in this document along with such additional rules that are required. Agreement of the Council of Management shall be required if the rules of a sub-domain are to exclude any of the rules of this document. Their agreement shall not unreasonably be withheld.

   3.2 Where a dispute over the interpretation of the rules exists, the Council of Management of NOMINET UK shall rule on the interpretation. Appeals against a ruling of the Council of Management may be made to the Steering Committee.

   3.3 All NEW domain requests will conform to RFCs 1034, 1035, 1122, 1123 and any subsequent replacements. In addition, NOMINET UK will apply a further set of restrictions on names, as described below. For designated zones the requests will be handled by an automaton/robot. This robot will apply the appropriate RFC's, the rules and a check against the list of existing domain names. It will also check that operating name servers exist for the request.

   3.4 Some existing names would be rejected under the current rules. Similarly, if the rules are changed in the future, some names approved under one set of rules might be rejected under the changed rules. No rule change will ever affect the status of a name which has been approved before the change unless sound technical reasons require this.

   3.5 SYNTAX rules for domain name requests. [These rules apply at the top level delegation only: e.g. the (xxx) in xxx.net.uk, xxx.tv.co.uk, and so on, but not within a delegated domain.]

   Mandatory Rules

   • Two letter names are not allowed, reserved for ISO country codes.
     
   • Two character names are allowed. i.e. 3x.co.uk where the format is not aa.foo.uk.
     
   • All second level names of .uk are banned from being used as third level names. e.g. nhs.co.uk would be banned as it is a second level name.
     
   • All top level domains are banned from being used as third level names. e.g. net.org.uk and org.co.uk are not allowed.
     
   • All one character domain names (ie [a-z0-9].xxx.uk) are reserved for possible future sub-domain usage. The only one currently delegated is X.CO.UK. The owner shall still maintain it unless they volunteer to relinquish it.
     
   • There shall be at least two nameservers for the domain (with addresses specified in the request) operating at the time the request is submitted. There is no restriction on the physical location or IP address of these nameservers.
     
4. A record will be created in NOMINET UK's database where management of the zone is delegated to NOMINET UK from which NS records will be generated and loaded into the primary nameservers for the zone.