What auDA's new .com.au eligibility rules could mean for your domains

auDA, the .au domain administrator, has accepted changes to the eligibility rules for .com.au and .net.au registrations. If you manage domains through Tucows OpenSRS, it’s worth understanding what this could mean, since it may affect a large share of the domains you or your customers already hold.

As announced on 7 September 2026, the proposed change removes the "Close and Substantial Connection" pathway, which previously let a domain be registered if it had a genuine, demonstrable connection to a business. This held even if the domain name wasn't an exact match to that business's registered name.

Going forward, eligibility is expected to rest solely on a "Match/Acronym" test: the domain name has to either spell out the words of the registrant’s legal or business name, in order, or use the initials of that name. Names that don’t fit one of those two patterns—trading names, brand names, and other names with a real but less literal connection to the registrant—may no longer qualify on their own.

If the new rule is applied to domains that are already registered, registrants whose domains match what they sell or do, rather than what they’re called, would be among those most affected. And getting a business name or trademark that actually matches the domain isn’t always straightforward: both come with costs that didn’t apply before and some domains use generic terms that may not be trademarkable at all.

To be clear, none of this is in effect today. auDA’s board has only approved the change in principle; there’s no confirmed effective date, and it’s still an open question whether it would apply only to domains registered after that date or to existing registrations at renewal as well.

How many domains could be affected?

Given how many registrants could be affected by this, we wanted to understand what it might actually mean in practice, so we ran our own analysis. We sampled 1000 .com.au registrations across our reseller channels and checked each domain's actual registrant and eligibility data against the new Match/Acronym test. That included checking every business name registered against a registrant's Australian Business Number (ABN), not just the name captured at the time of registration, to give the rule the most generous reading possible.

The result: roughly 54% of the domains we checked would fail under the new rules.

This sample spans multiple resellers and a wide range of registration dates, and it was tested using the most favorable possible interpretation of the rule. If that failure rate holds across our full .com.au portfolio, it suggests that roughly half of all .com.au domains registered through us—domains that were entirely valid under the rules in place when they were registered—could become non-compliant if the new test is applied retroactively.

What this means if you're affected

If auDA does decide to apply the new test retroactively, an existing domain that no longer satisfies the new test could become ineligible for renewal under its current registration details. In practice, that could mean:

• The domain's registrant may need to be changed to one whose name satisfies the new Match/Acronym test, if one exists. 

• If no such business name, company name, or trade mark exists, the registrant may need to register one before the domain can be renewed. 

• If one cannot be created, the domain may not be renewable at all under the registrant's current details.

• Registrants who've built a business, website, or brand around a domain name for years could be at real risk of losing it through no fault of their own and no change in how they use it.

How we’re responding

We've shared this data directly with auDA, along with our concerns about the impact of a rule change of this scale. Our core concern is retroactivity: applying new eligibility rules to registrations that were entirely compliant when they were completed.

We've asked auDA to reconsider the change. If it proceeds regardless, we've strongly urged a grandfathering approach, where existing registrations continue to be assessed under the rules they were originally registered under, rather than being tested against the new Match/Acronym rule at renewal.

What you can do

Start by checking your own domains. If you have .com.au or .net.au domains registered under a trading name, brand name, or anything that isn't an exact match to the registrant's legal or business name, it's worth taking a look now to see whether they would hold up under the Match/Acronym test. The same applies if you’re planning a change of ownership: check whether the new registrant’s legal or business name would satisfy that same test, since it would be assessed just like a new registration.

It’s also worth speaking up. If this rule concerns you, we encourage you to share your feedback with auDA directly. The more registrars, resellers, and registrants push back, the more likely auDA is to weigh the real-world impact before finalizing how the transition is handled.

We know this is a lot to take in. As things progress, we'll continue to push for an outcome that doesn't put existing, legitimately-used domains at risk.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as we learn more and, if we believe your domains will be affected, we’ll reach out directly.