AI Domain Registration: Register a .AI Domain Name, Cost and the Two Year Rule
You cannot register a .AI domain for one year. The registry sells the extension only in two year blocks, which makes the real entry cost roughly double the price most guides still quote. Here is what registration actually costs in 2026, how the process runs, and what to do when the name you want is already gone.
The short .AI names are gone. See what is for sale.
Registration only works on names nobody has taken. These are already owned and priced.
The short answer
To register a .AI domain, search the name at any registrar that supports the extension and check out for a minimum of two years, because the registry does not sell one year terms. There is no residency or local presence requirement, so a US company registers a .AI exactly as it would a .com. Since 5 March 2026 the registry floor has been $80 per year, which puts the least you can pay at $160 for the mandatory two years, with retail prices landing just above that.
Last updated September 2026
The two year minimum is the part nobody tells you about
Nearly every article about .AI pricing quotes a per year figure, which sets an expectation the checkout page then breaks. The .AI registry does not sell one year registrations. It sells the extension in even numbered terms only, so your options are two, four, six, eight or ten years, and the shortest commitment available to anyone is two.
This matters for budgeting more than it looks. A founder who reads that a .AI costs about $80 a year and mentally files it next to a $12 .com is off by more than a factor of ten on the first invoice, because the real number at checkout is the two year block. Registering five candidate names to sit on while you decide is an $800 decision, not an $80 one.
The floor moved recently. On 5 March 2026 the registry raised its minimum .AI price from $70 to $80 per year, which lifted the least any registrant can pay for the mandatory two year term from $140 to $160. Retail sits a little above that, because registrars add a margin on top of a wholesale cost they cannot discount away. When we checked Porkbun on 2 September 2026 it listed .AI at $82.70 per year and $165.09 for the required two years.
The practical effect of a high, registry set floor is that registrars have almost nothing left to compete on. Where .com prices vary by several dollars because the wholesale cost is low relative to the retail price, .AI retail prices cluster within a few dollars of each other. Choosing a .AI registrar on sticker price alone is close to meaningless. Renewal pricing, whether WHOIS privacy is included, and how painless transfers are will cost or save you far more over the life of the name.
What you actually pay
- 1 Two years up front, always. There is no one year option to fall back on.
- 2 $160 is the registry floor for that block. Nobody sells below it.
- 3 Renewals repeat in two year blocks, so plan the recurring cost the same way.
- 4 No local presence, trading licence or Anguilla paperwork at any stage.
Prices verified 2 September 2026. Registrars change them, so confirm at checkout before you commit.
What .AI domain registration costs, line by line
Every figure below is the amount that leaves your account, not an annualized rate. The annualized rate is the number that misleads people, because it is never what the checkout page charges.
| What you are buying | Term billed | Typical amount charged | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| New .AI registration | 2 years minimum | $160 floor, commonly $165 to $190 | Only available if nobody has registered the name. Most short words are long gone. |
| Renewal | 2 years at a time | Similar to registration, sometimes higher | Check the renewal rate before you register. Introductory pricing is where the gap usually hides. |
| Transfer to another registrar | Adds 2 years | Roughly one registration period | Since the January 2025 platform migration a transfer adds time rather than replacing it, so nothing already paid for is lost. |
| WHOIS privacy | Per term | $0 at registrars that include it | Several registrars bundle it at no cost. Paying separately for it in 2026 is avoidable. |
| Buying a registered .AI name | One off purchase | Hundreds to tens of thousands | The only route once a name is taken. You still pay the registry renewal on top afterwards. |
Registry floor confirmed against the 5 March 2026 price change. Retail sample: Porkbun at $82.70 per year and $165.09 for two years, checked 2 September 2026.
How to register a .AI domain name, step by step
The process is ordinary. The only unusual part is the term you are forced to buy, and the fact that most of the names worth having were registered years ago.
Check availability
Search the exact name at a registrar that carries .AI. If it comes back registered, registration is closed permanently for that string and the aftermarket is your only path.
Pick the term
Choose two, four, six, eight or ten years. Two is the minimum. Longer terms lock today's price against future registry increases, which have now happened twice.
Complete checkout
Enter ordinary registrant contact details. No Anguilla address, tax number or local agent is required. Turn on privacy if the registrar does not include it by default.
Lock and point it
Enable registrar lock, set auto renew, and update nameservers. Then diarize the renewal, because a two year cycle is long enough to forget.
WHOIS for .AI no longer exists, and that changes how you research a name
The .AI zone moved onto the Identity Digital registry platform on 15 January 2025, under a five year agreement with the Government of Anguilla signed the previous October. On 4 August 2025 Identity Digital deprecated the WHOIS protocol across the zones it operates and moved to the Registration Data Access Protocol instead. A WHOIS query against a .AI name is querying a service that has been switched off.
RDAP returns the same categories of information in a structured, machine readable form: the sponsoring registrar, the creation date, the expiry date, the current nameservers and the domain status codes. Personal contact fields stay redacted, exactly as they are for .com, so a lookup will not hand you the owner's name or email.
The migration actually improved things for buyers in one specific way. Creation and expiry dates had previously been withheld from .AI records, and they came back with the platform change. Those two dates are the most useful signal you get for free. A name created in 2013 and renewed continuously belongs to someone who intends to keep it. A name registered eighteen months ago and pointed at parking nameservers belongs to an investor waiting for an offer.
So the research order for any .AI you cannot register is: run the RDAP lookup, read the dates and the nameservers, then check whether the name is already listed for sale somewhere with a price attached. That last step resolves a surprising share of cases without a single email.
What an RDAP lookup tells you
- + The registrar holding the name, which is where an offer form usually lives.
- + Creation and expiry dates, restored to .ai records by the 2025 migration.
- + Nameservers. Parking nameservers almost always mean the name is for sale.
- − No owner name, phone number or personal email. Those fields are redacted.
Most of the .AI names worth registering were registered years ago
This is the part where a registration guide has to be honest. The .AI extension stopped being an obscure Caribbean country code around 2022, and the land grab that followed took essentially every short English word, every common two word pairing and every recognizable product noun. If you are searching for a clean, brandable .AI in 2026, the availability check is going to come back registered far more often than not.
That is not a reason to abandon the extension. It means the acquisition is a purchase rather than a registration, and the budget question changes from $160 to whatever the current owner will accept. Names that were registered speculatively are usually available, because the person holding them bought them specifically to sell. The ones that hurt are the names attached to a live business, and those are rarely for sale at any sensible price.
Does a .AI domain hurt your rankings in the United States?
No, and the reason is a specific, documented decision rather than an opinion. Google maintains a list of country code extensions it treats as generic, meaning it attaches no geographic signal to them. It added .AI to that list in 2023, joining .io, .co, .tv and .fm. A .AI site is not read as an Anguillan site and is not disadvantaged when competing for US search results.
Two related points are worth stating plainly, because a lot of marketing copy blurs them. Extension choice is not a ranking factor in either direction, so a .AI does not rank better than a .com either. And keywords inside a domain name give no ranking boost, so buying a keyword rich .AI for SEO reasons alone is buying the wrong thing. What a good .AI actually buys you is recall and category signalling with a human audience, which is a branding argument, not a search argument.
The practical exception is user expectation. A US consumer brand aimed at a general audience still defaults to .com in most people's heads, and typing traffic will leak to the .com you do not own. For a developer tool, an API, or anything sold to technical buyers, that leak is small and the category signal from .AI is worth more. Weigh it as a branding decision and the answer usually falls out quickly.
AI domain registration questions, answered
How do I register a .ai domain name?
Search the name at a registrar that supports .ai, then check out for a minimum of two years, because the registry does not sell one year terms. There is no local presence requirement and no paperwork tied to Anguilla, so a US business registers a .ai exactly as it would a .com. Expect to pay roughly $160 to $190 up front for the mandatory two year block.
How much does a .ai domain cost?
The registry floor rose to $80 per year on 5 March 2026, and because .ai requires a two year minimum term, the least any registrant can pay is $160 for those two years. Retail prices sit just above that floor. Porkbun listed .ai at $82.70 per year and $165.09 for the required two years when checked on 2 September 2026.
Why do .ai domains require a two year registration?
It is a registry policy set for the .ai zone, not a decision made by any individual registrar. The registry sells .ai only in even numbered terms, so the available registration periods are two, four, six, eight and ten years. Any registrar advertising a one year .ai price is quoting an annualized figure, and you will still be billed for two years at checkout.
Do I need to live in Anguilla to register a .ai domain?
No. Although .ai is the country code assigned to Anguilla, second level registrations are open to anybody with no local presence requirement, no trading licence and no residency test. That openness is the main reason the extension became the default for AI companies worldwide rather than staying a local namespace.
How do I look up who owns a .ai domain?
Use RDAP rather than WHOIS. Identity Digital deprecated the WHOIS protocol for the zones it runs, including .ai, on 4 August 2025, and now publishes registration data through RDAP only. The lookup returns the registrar, the creation date, the expiry date and the nameservers, with personal contact fields redacted.
Is a .ai domain bad for SEO?
No. Google added .ai to the list of country code extensions it treats as generic in 2023, so a .ai carries no geographic signal pointing at Anguilla and competes for US rankings on the same footing as a .com. Extension choice is not a ranking factor, and keywords in a domain give no ranking boost either way.
What happens if the .ai domain I want is already registered?
Registration is closed for that name, so the only route is the aftermarket. Check whether the current owner has listed it with an asking price, which is common for short and brandable .ai names held by investors. If it is unlisted, look the name up through RDAP to find the registrar and send an offer through the contact channel it publishes.
Can I transfer a .ai domain to another registrar?
Yes. Since the zone moved to the Identity Digital platform in January 2025, a .ai transfer adds registration time to the name in the standard way, so you do not lose the term you already paid for. The usual gTLD conventions apply: unlock the name at the losing registrar and supply the authorization code.
The name you wanted is registered. It might still be for sale.
Every .AI name listed here already has an owner who has decided to sell and a price on the card. No availability check to fail, no two year term to argue with.
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