European Commission - Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology

04/08/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 04/08/2026 03:55

Two decades of .eu domain reflecting European integration and identity online

The EU's top-level domain, .eu, marks two decades of providing European companies, organisations and citizens with the ability to give their websites and e-mail addresses a European identity.

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Europe's trusted digital address counts over 3.8 million active registrations. It stands for the EU single market and European integration.

The domain name has simplified e-commerce with European retailers which use a single web address across the EU market. The .eu domain name is fourth in terms of use in Europe, and ninth in the world. Registrations of .eu domain names continue to grow by over 2% every year and owners keep using their .eu names, with 80% of registrations being renewed.

Associated with European standards, trust and values, .eu allows European companies and organisations, including the European institutions, to use one domain name across borders.

The systems behind .eu websites continue to evolve, with machine learning tools now in place to prevent abuse, perform data quality checks and ensure reliability and security. The domain has been continuously online for 20 years, without a millisecond of downtime.

The anniversary will be marked on 26 and 27 May, at the conference 'European Voices for the Future of the Internet - Celebrating 20 Years of .eu and the Beginning of a New Internet Governance Decade'. Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, will give a keynote speech at the event, joining discussions on how European values can shape the future of the internet.

Read more about the .eu top-level domain.

Related topics

.eu International relations
European Commission - Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology published this content on April 08, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on April 08, 2026 at 09:55 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]