Bought a .si domain on the hype? What to check before you hold, resell or renew

If you registered a .si name in the last few weeks, you are in good company, and in a long queue. The short version for a domain investor is this: .si is open to anyone, the registry fee is low, and the surge is real. But three things decide whether your names stay yours and stay useful: verification of your data, the practical mechanics of moving and changing names, and the fact that a great many other people bought the same kind of name at the same time.

I will not tell you what a .si name will sell for. Nobody knows, and anybody who says they do is selling something. What I can do is go through what the registry and the registrars say, so that you do not lose names for boring reasons.

The queue outside the bakery

When a queue goes round the corner outside a bakery, you learn two things. Something is popular, and many people want to buy the same thing. What you do not learn is whether the bread is good, or whether half of the queue plans to sell it to the other half.

That is a fair picture of .si in the weeks after 22 September 2026. Domain names are not bread, but the logic of a queue is the same.

What happened

After the US "super intelligence" announcements on 22 September and an executive order on 29 September, registrations of .si names went up sharply. CircleID reports the following figures, based on numbers from Register.si, the registry run by Slovenia's Academic and Research Network, ARNES:

• 3,515 new registrations in August 2026.
• 46,066 new registrations in September 2026.
• A zone of 241,459 names on 1 October.
• Around 12,000 registrations a day at the peak, in the last days of September.

Register.si itself cautioned against comparing its windfall with what Anguilla earns from .ai, and estimated about 300,000 euros of additional revenue in September. If you want the story of how the surge started, I covered it in a post on the super intelligence speech and .si, and brand owners have their own questions in the post on what companies should decide about .si.

The basics

• Who may register. Registrar pages describe .si as open to natural and legal persons anywhere in the world, with no residency, local presence or trademark required.
• Registry and price. The registry is Register.si, regulated by ARNES, and the extension dates from 1992. ARNES states a registrar tariff of 10 euros a year excluding VAT for a new registration or a renewal. Retail prices are up to each registrar.
• Format. Names may be 2 to 63 characters, hyphens are allowed but not at the start or end, and internationalised names and DNSSEC are supported.
• Public data and privacy. Register.si publishes registration data that is not personal data through RDAP. Keeping personal data out of public lookup does not remove your obligation to provide accurate details to the registry and your registrar.

Verification: the rule that can switch a name off

Under the EU's NIS2 directive, both registrars and the registry must make sure that holder data is accurate. Register.si says on its own site that authorities can ask for registration data with a response time of only 72 hours.

Register.si's verification policy says that an unsuccessful contact check can lead to a deadline of no more than 21 days to correct the data or make the contact work. Where identity and postal-address checks are required, an additional deadline may also be set, again no longer than 21 days. Failure can lead to deactivation or deletion under the registry's terms.

For an investor, the practical point is simple: use an email address somebody reads, and follow the deadline in the actual request. Do not assume you always have three weeks. A hold also does not make renewal dates disappear, so track both the verification request and the domain's expiry.

Mechanics for portfolio owners

Register.si's terms and domain-management guidance distinguish a change of holder from a change of registrar. These are the checks to make before a sale or portfolio move:

• Changing the holder. The registry allows a holder to transfer a domain to a third party during its registration period. Ask your registrar which confirmations, verification steps and fees apply before agreeing a handover date.
• Transfers. You need an authinfo code from the current registrar to move to a new one. Confirm its validity and arrange the transfer while you can still reach the existing holder's contact address.
• Nameservers. Check that the destination nameservers serve the correct zone before you switch. A registrar transfer and a working DNS configuration are separate jobs.
• Expiry. Register.si describes a 30-day quarantine period after expiry during which renewal is possible. Check your registrar's renewal cutoff and do not rely on auto-renew being enabled. The post on what happens when a domain expires explains why country-code stages can differ.

If you hold names across several registrars, put these dates into the same sheet as everything else. The guide to portfolio management shows one way to do it.

Resale: what I could and could not confirm

I did not find a resale or auction ban for .si in the sources I read. That is not the same as confirming that there is none, so read the registry's general terms before you build a business plan on it. The terms also carry an obligation not to infringe the rights of third parties, and trademark disputes can be settled under a formal dispute process, so a name that matches somebody's brand is not safe just because you registered it first.

Then there is the market itself. CircleID reported that about 52 percent of .si names registered through Dynadot between 19 and 22 September were later offered for resale. If that is anywhere near typical, supply grew at the same speed as interest. I cannot tell you whether buyers will follow, and the sensible way to think about it is that the names are an inventory with a holding cost, and the hype is a mood.

Compare .in. India's registry published an advisory in May 2026 saying that auctions and speculative sales of .in names are not permitted. Resale rules differ between country codes, and they can change, which is why it is worth reading them before you buy and again at renewal.

A checklist before you register more

1. Write down which names you hold and why. A reason is a plan; a mood is not.
2. Make sure the contact details match your documents, and that the email is read daily.
3. Calendar the first renewal and the verification deadline.
4. Read Register.si's terms for resale, disputes and holder changes, and note the date you read them.
5. Check names against trademarks before you register, not after.
6. Decide your exit price and your exit date now, while you are calm.

This is operations, not investment advice. I am not telling you whether .si names are a good bet.

Where AiVikings.ai fits

If you manage a portfolio, the part we can help with is the boring part: one place to see expiry dates, contacts and status across your names, through a dashboard, an API or MCP. Check the prices page for the extensions we list today, and the page for domain investors for more. I will not promise a particular extension here, because the prices page is the source of truth.

Sources

• Register.si, general terms and domain management guidance

• Register.si, holder-data verification and publication policy

• CircleID, .si domain registrations surge after US shift to super intelligence

• Register.si, information on NIS2 and domain holder data
• NIXI, Advisory to .IN registrants and registrars, 11 May 2026

If you have run into a .si rule that surprised you, I would like to hear it. Write to me in the chat on the website.

/Thomas