How to register a .ca domain: Canadian Presence Requirements, registrars and a step-by-step setup

To register a .ca domain, you need to meet CIRA's Canadian Presence Requirements, pick a name, buy it through a CIRA-certified registrar and enter the registrant details exactly as they appear on your ID or incorporation papers. The whole purchase takes a few minutes. The details you choose during that purchase decide who legally holds the name for years, so they deserve more care than the checkout form suggests.

Disclosure: some links in this guide are partner links. If you buy through them, MMIX may earn a commission; your price stays the same.

Who runs .ca and why the rules are stricter

The .ca top-level domain is managed by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), a not-for-profit organization. CIRA does not sell names to the public directly. You buy a .ca through a registrar that CIRA has certified, and the registrar passes your details to the CIRA registry.

The main difference from .com is eligibility. Anyone in the world can register a .com. A .ca is reserved for people and organizations with a real connection to Canada, defined in CIRA's Canadian Presence Requirements (CPR). Every registrant also accepts CIRA's registrant agreement, and CIRA can review a registration and cancel it if the holder does not qualify.

.ca or .com for a Canadian business

A .ca tells visitors that the business is Canadian. That helps when your customers are mostly in Canada, when you quote prices in CAD and when trust in a local supplier matters. A .com is the default worldwide and suits companies that sell to the US or other markets.

Many Canadian businesses register both and point one to the other, so customers who type the wrong ending still reach the site and nobody else can take the matching name. If the budget allows only one, choose the ending that matches where your customers are, and check that the other ending is not already used by a competitor with a similar name.

How to register a .ca domain in 7 steps

Step 1. Confirm that you meet the Canadian Presence Requirements

Read the CPR categories on the CIRA website before you pay. The most common ones for small businesses are:

• Canadian citizens and permanent residents, plus legal representatives of either;
• corporations incorporated under federal, provincial or territorial law in Canada;
• partnerships, trusts and associations registered or based in Canada, as defined by CIRA;
• owners of a trademark registered in Canada, limited to a domain that contains the exact trademark;
• Indigenous peoples and Indigenous groups in Canada, and several public bodies such as governments, schools and hospitals.

A sole proprietor usually registers as an individual. A numbered company or a named corporation registers under its legal corporate name. A foreign company without a Canadian entity or a registered Canadian trademark does not qualify.

Step 2. Choose the name

A .ca name can contain letters, numbers and hyphens, and it cannot start or end with a hyphen. CIRA also supports French accented characters. Keep the name short, easy to spell when you say it on the phone and close to the business name customers already know. Avoid names that copy another company's trademark: CIRA has its own dispute policy (the CDRP), and the holder of an earlier trademark can use it to take a confusing name away.

Step 3. Check availability and related endings

Search the name with a registrar such as Namecheap's .ca registration page, which shows whether the .ca is free and suggests other endings. At the same stage check the .com, common misspellings and the French version of the name if you serve Quebec. If the .ca is taken, look up the current holder (our WHOIS lookup guide explains how) before you decide to contact them or pick another name.

Step 4. Pick a CIRA-certified registrar

CIRA publishes a list of certified registrars. Compare them on the things that cost you later: the renewal price (it is often higher than the first-year price), free DNS management, the quality of two-factor authentication on the account, whether the registrar includes a domain lock, and how easy it is to get the transfer authorization code if you leave. Namecheap sells .ca names. It is a US company, which matters little for the domain itself and more for hosting and email, covered in our guide to choosing hosting in Canada.

Step 5. Enter the registrant details and the CPR category

This is the step that causes most problems later. The registrant is the legal holder of the domain:

• For a corporation, enter the exact legal name of the company and select the corporation category. A domain registered in the owner's personal name stays personal property when the company is sold or the founders part ways.
• For an individual, enter your full legal name. Nicknames and business names in this field can make it hard to prove ownership later.
• Use an email address that the business controls for years, such as an address on a domain you already own or a shared admin mailbox. A former employee's or a web designer's address is a common reason owners lose access.

Then read and accept the CIRA registrant agreement. The registration term can be one to ten years.

Step 6. Secure the account and turn on auto-renew

Right after the purchase, turn on two-factor authentication for the registrar account, enable auto-renew, check that the payment card on file is valid and switch on the domain lock if the registrar offers it. Add a calendar reminder a month before the expiry date as a second safety net. For individuals, CIRA hides personal contact details in its public WHOIS by default, so you usually do not need a paid privacy add-on for a personal .ca.

Step 7. Connect the domain to your website and email

A new domain does nothing until its DNS points somewhere. Either keep the registrar's nameservers and add records there, or point the domain to your host's or DNS provider's nameservers. You need A or CNAME records for the website and MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records for email. Changes can take hours to show everywhere; our article on DNS propagation explains how to check them.

What to check: common mistakes with .ca domains

• Registered by the web designer. Ask for the domain to be in your name, in your own account. If it is already in someone else's account, request a transfer or a registrant change now, while the relationship is good.
• Wrong CPR category. A corporation registered as an individual (or the reverse) can lead to a request from CIRA to correct the record.
• Personal name on a company domain. When the business is sold, the buyer's lawyer will ask for the domain; changing the holder takes paperwork that could have been avoided.
• Expired card, old email. Renewal reminders go to the contact email. If nobody reads it, the domain can expire with the website and email still running on it. See what to do if a domain expired.
• Only the .ca, no .com. If a competitor or a reseller later takes the .com, some of your customers' emails and visits will go to them.

If you are planning the website itself, our step-by-step guide to going online covers the steps after the domain.

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