The .no domain is the country code top level domain for Norway. This page summarises what it is, who may register one, what it costs and how a company outside Norway obtains one, with links to the detailed guide on each point.
What is a .no domain?
Like .de for Germany or .fr for France, .no is a country code top level domain. Norid, a non profit owned by the Norwegian government, runs the registry and sets the rules for who can hold one.
What makes .no unusual compared to most country domains is how strictly it is controlled. There is no open registration. Every single .no domain has to be held by an entity that qualifies under Norid’s local presence rule, which is the one fact everything else on this page comes back to.
Who can register one?
Norid will only register a .no domain to one of two things: a legal entity registered in Norway with a Norwegian organisation number, or a private individual over 18 with a Norwegian national ID number and a Norwegian address. Nothing else qualifies, not a company with Norwegian customers, not a Norwegian sounding name, not a Norwegian mailing address rented for the purpose.
If you are a Norwegian citizen or a Norwegian registered company, this whole question is simple and you can stop reading here. If you are not, the full detail on what the rule actually says and the routes around it is in can a foreign company register a .no domain.
Registering from outside Norway
There are three honest routes if you are not Norwegian. Register a Norwegian branch yourself, which gives you a real organisation number but comes with ongoing accounting and paperwork. Have a Norwegian contact hold it informally, which is legal but leaves you with no paper trail if the relationship sours. Or use a trustee (sometimes called a proxy holder), a Norwegian entity that holds the registration on your behalf under a written agreement while you keep every operational and economic right.
Most people outside Norway who just want a working domain, not a Norwegian subsidiary, use a trustee. The full mechanics of both ordering routes are in how to get a .no domain as a foreigner, and if you are choosing which trustee to trust with it, how to choose a .no domain trustee is a plain checklist for that decision specifically, including a point worth knowing before you read anything else: a company mentioning it is an accredited Norid registrar is telling you about registry access, not about whether it is a good trustee. Those are different questions, and accreditation doesn’t answer the second one.
What it actually costs
The registry fee itself, what Norid actually charges for the domain, is small, roughly 85 to 99 Norwegian kroner (about $9 to $11) a year. What varies enormously is the trustee or registrar fee stacked on top of it. We charge $89 a year with the registry fee included, and the same if you would rather register it yourself using our Norwegian holder details. Corporate registrar chains routinely charge $220 or more for the same domain, most of it margin rather than anything Norid itself requires.
Cheaper trustees exist too, and the honest question to ask is what the saving is made of. That is exactly what the trustee checklist walks through.
Is a .no domain worth it?
If you are building anything for Norwegian readers or customers, yes, and more emphatically than most people expect. Norwegian search is far less crowded than English, Norwegian buyers spend heavily online, and a site written in Norwegian but sitting on a .com reads as translated or fake to a Norwegian visitor in a way that actively costs conversions. None of that applies if Norway is not your audience, a .no domain is not a general purpose credibility badge, it earns its keep specifically for a Norway facing business.
The full case, with real numbers from running sites in both markets, is in why a .no domain is the fastest way into Norway.
How to register one
Check the name first, since the short, obvious Norwegian words go quickly and there is no point planning around one you cannot have. Our lookup tool on the homepage checks live against Norid’s own registry, so the answer you get is the same one any Norwegian registrar would give you.
From there, if you are not Norwegian, pick a route from how to get a .no domain as a foreigner and either register it yourself with our Norwegian holder details or let us handle it end to end. Most people are live within twelve hours on a working day.
Check whether your name is free
The answer comes straight from Norid’s registry. If it is available we can register it for you today.
Go deeper
Each section above has a full article behind it. Here is all four in one place.