.ελ

ccTLD
Type	ccTLD
Status	Active
Region	EUR
Country	Greece
Implemented	May 6, 2015
Script	Greek
In English	el
Punycode	xn--qxam
Registry	ICS-FORTH GR
Websites	grweb.ics.forth.gr/public

.ελ is the IDN ccTLD for Greece. It is managed by ICS-FORTH GR.

"ελ" is represented in ASCII-compatible encoding according to the IDNA specification as "xn--qxam". The individual Unicode code points that comprise this string are U+03B5 U+03BB.

In Greek, the string has a transliteration equivalent to "el" in English. The string is expressed using the Greek script.

Delegation History

In 2010, an application was made to the "IDN Fast Track" process to have the string "ελ" recognized as representing Greece.

The string was initially rejected by the IDN ccTLD Fast Track DNS Stability Panel. According to GAC member at the time George Papapavlou, in a letter to the United States Government, the reason for the rejection was that the capital letters version of .ελ (ΕΛ) was considered to be confusingly similar to the Latin alphabet letters EA. However, there was not a EA TLD at the time, and that remains true as of 2025. One of the reasons considered is that ".ea" might be used in the future.

In October 2014, a second review panel called the Extended Process Similarity Review Panel (EPSRP) found that "the candidate string is not confusingly similar to any ISO 3166-1 entries".

On May 4, 2015, ICANN announced that the proposed IDN ccTLD string for Greece successfully passed the string evaluation.

On June 9, 2015, ICS-FORTH GR commenced a request to ICANN for delegation of “ελ” as a TLD, which was granted.

Rules and Restrictions

.ελ Domain Names can be assigned to a natural or legal person, Greek or foreign, whether established in Greece or not.

Domain Name Deletion

Please refer to the subsection "Domain Name Deletion" on the page .gr.

Characters

All .ελ Domain Names shall consist either:

• of Greek alphabet alphanumeric characters [i.e. Α-Ω, α-ω, 0-9] codified in PUNYCODE format plus the special characters [-] and [.] as regards both their Variable and Non-variable Fields; or
• of Latin alphabet alphanumeric characters [i.e. Α-Ζ, a-z, 0-9] as regards their Variable Field and of Greek alphabet alphanumeric characters [i.e. Α-Ω, α-ω, 0-9] codified in PUNYCODE format plus the special characters [-] and [.] as regards their Non-variable Field.

For more information on the allowed characters and structure of the .ελ Domain Names, check the "More Information" subsection in the .gr page.

Country code top-level domain. Determined by "ISO 3166-1: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 1: Country codes".

Internationalized Domain Name

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

Governmental Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, particularly matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN's policies and various laws and international agreements or where they may affect public policy issues (ICANN Bylaws).

Top-Level Domain

International Organization for Standardization