Register domains without a local presence
Juan Ku
on
If you've ever tried to register a country-specific domain and been turned away because you lack a local address, you're not alone. Many TLDs like .COM.BR, .NO have strict local presence requirements that shut out international registrants. With our new Domain Trustee feature, you can now use a trustee contact with local presence that satisfies the registry's eligibility requirements on paper, so you can register the domain you need from anywhere in the world while you keep day-to-day control in your DNSimple account.
Let's talk about what Domain Trustee is, why it matters, and how it works.
What is Domain Trustee?
Domain Trustee handles the policy-heavy parts so you don't have to. Instead of navigating local presence rules, eligibility checks, and compliance paperwork alone, you can focus on registering the domain your organization needs.
No extra legal entities and no local address in-country. You get access to domains that were previously out of reach.
Some TLDs like .KR require local presence, a designated registrant type, or other eligibility you cannot supply directly. Trustee bridges that gap: DNSimple arranges coverage so you can register or transfer eligible domains while you continue to manage the domain from your account. For the full picture, including how trustee interacts with extended attributes and billing, see What is Domain Trustee?.
Important:
You remain the domain owner for the life of the registration. The trustee is not listed as the owner; it fulfills the administrative requirement the registry demands. In the Support Documentation, we also describe you as the beneficiary: you keep operational control through DNSimple (DNS, renewal, transfers, and account billing).
Why Domain Trustee matters?
Some of the most valuable country-code TLDs in the world come with strict eligibility rules. Want a .COM.BR for your Brazilian-facing product? A .EU for your European audience? Registries enforce these rules for legitimate reasons, but those rules were never designed with global teams, indie developers, or bootstrapped founders in mind.
Domain Trustee matters when:
- Your business is expanding internationally and you want a credible local domain without opening an office in every market.
- You are a developer or agency managing domains for clients in multiple countries and you cannot spin up local entities on demand.
This is why Domain Trustee matters and how it will help you to register domains, without having a local presence in those different countries and by removing the extra paperwork those requirements would otherwise demand.
Optional vs required trustee
Not every TLD offers trustee, and behavior splits two ways:
- Optional trustee - The TLD supports trustee, but you may still be able to register or transfer without it if you supply every registry requirement yourself (for example all extended attributes). When you choose trustee, checkout may ask for fewer registry fields than when trustee is off.
- Required trustee - Trustee is required for this TLD. You cannot opt out; trustee is part of standard eligibility. How it appears in checkout (included in the price versus a separate line item) depends on the TLD. .COM.BR is an example where trustee is required.
Trustee is not universal. Whether a suffix supports optional trustee, requires trustee, or offers no trustee depends on the registry. Details for your TLD are in What is Domain Trustee?.
How does it work?
Getting started is straightforward after logging in to your DNSimple account:
- Search for the TLD domain you want to register.
- Check availability and confirm that the domain is available for purchase.
- If the domain requires local presence, select Trustee. DNSimple prompts you to add trustee at checkout when it applies.
- Complete registration or transfer. DNSimple and its trustee partners handle the compliance requirements behind the scenes.
- Manage your domain like any other domain. Your domain will land in your DNSimple account, ready to manage alongside everything else.
No extra portals. No back-and-forth with third-party services. Everything stays in one place.
Domain Trustee is a TLD-specific way to satisfy registry eligibility without you personally meeting every local requirement.
When you can add trustee
For now, Trustee can only be selected at the time of purchase: either when registering a new domain or transferring one into DNSimple. If you already have an active domain in your account, there's currently no way to add DNSimple Domain Trustee.
Billing
Trustee is an annual service available to all tiers of DNSimple customers and billed annually after the initial purchase.
[!Note] After trustee is enabled on a domain, you can update the registrant or other contact details without having to go through the local eligibility checks or policy confirmations again. For how extended attributes behave after registration, see What is Domain Trustee?.
Domain Trustee via API
If you are a customer of DNSimple, then you know that we love automation, which is why Domain Trustee is available not only through the DNSimple dashboard, but also through our API. If you manage domains programmatically, you can enable trustee during registration or transfer by passing trustee in your request.
The API also exposes trustee-related fields across TLD, domain, and order responses, making it possible to determine whether Domain Trustee is supported or required for a TLD, and whether it is enabled on a domain. Full details and examples are available in our API docs.
Next Steps
If you have been putting off domain registration because the local presence requirements felt out of reach, DNSimple Domain Trustee Service removes that barrier.
Already a DNSimple customer? The DNSimple Domain Trustee is available for you now.
New to DNSimple? Start your free trial and use Domain Trustee from day one.
Have questions about DNS, DNS hosting, or whether DNSimple fits your setup? Get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.
Juan Ku
Backend engineer at the kernel.
We think domain management should be easy.
That's why we continue building DNSimple.
