.bh

.bh is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Bahrain. It is administered by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Bahrain (TRA).

Delegation History

The .bh domain was first delegated in 1994 to the University of Bahrain Computer Center. In 1999, the domain was redelegated to the Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco).

In 2002, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority was established by Legislative Decree No. 48, and is responsible for regulating, licensing and developing the telecommunications market in Bahrain.

In 2008, the Minister of Telecommunications of Bahrain issued Resolution No. 3, which assigned TRA as the governmental agency responsible for the management of the .bh top-level domain. It resolved that “An office shall be set up ... to be affiliated to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. It shall undertake all the duties related to the registration of the domain names including the Kingdom of Bahrain’s domain name .bh”.

On 6 December 2011, the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority commenced a request to ICANN for redelegation of the “.bh” top-level domain. In March 2012, a request to transfer management of the .bh top-level domain from the Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) to TRA was completed.

Rules and Restrictions

The top-level .bh are open to the public for registration. Under .bh, there are the following subdomains with different eligibility criteria according to the regulations:

• com.bh: Businesses (globally);
• net.bh: Telecommunications and information technology service providers registered in Bahrain;
• info.bh: Information provision services in Bahrain;
• edu.bh: Educational institutes operating in Bahrain;
• biz.bh: Businesses registered in Bahrain;
• org.bh: Organizations licensed in Bahrain;
• med.bh: Only for medical related;
• cc.bh: Businesses registered in Bahrain;
• name.bh, me.bh: Natural persons (citizens or residents) in Bahrain.

Any Domain Name requested to be registered shall satisfy the following requirements:

• Not to prejudice any intellectual property right of any person, whether natural or juristic entity.
• Not to violate the Law, public morals or public order, and not to be used for illegal purposes.
• Not to offend the name of any country, city, celebrity, family, or famous trademarks.
• The Domain Name shall not be a reserved name.

It must not involve:

• Anything that would compromise the national security or military secrets or infringe on the dignity and prestige of the Kingdom of Bahrain in any way.
• Anything that would harm the national interests.
• Anything that would create any form of discrimination among members of the community.
• Anything that would incite terrorism, violence, or crime, or threaten public safety and security.
• Anything that would spread rumors, disturb and destabilize the community and public opinion.
• Anything that would offend or harm the reputation of others or infringe on their legal rights and interests.
• Any other requirements approved by the Authority, in light of whatever may be issued by the ICANN.

Characters

The following requirements shall be satisfied to register a Domain Name of the Kingdom of Bahrain (.bh):

• The Domain Name shall not be less than one field and not more than sixty-three fields.
• The Domain Name shall contain only letters (A to Z), numbers (0 to 9), the sign (-), or a combination of letters, numbers and the sign (-), to be in line with the Internationalized Domain Name.
• The Domain Name shall not contain the sign (-) in the third or fourth position, unless it corresponds to an Internationalized Domain Name in ASCII encoding.
• The Domain Name shall not start or end with the sign (-).
• The Domain Name shall not contain any spaces.