Bulgaria

Register.BG is a private company, operational since 1991. There are approximately 42 500 domains in .bg (as at December 2014). The Bulgarian registry has fewer than 10 locally accredited registrars.

Register.BG operates a first-come, first-served policy for registration of .bg domains, so long as the administrative contact for each domain is in the EU or has a proxy in the EU.

IDNs have been offered at the second level under .bg since 2009, in Cyrillic script to support the Bulgarian language. There are fewer than 1 000 IDN registrations in .bg (less than 2% of overall registrations in .bg). To some extent, this reflects the poor user experience of mixed script IDNs, which has been documented in earlier reports. The Bulgarian registry has applied through the ICANN ccTLD Fast Track process for .бг, which when granted will enable the Register.BG to offer IDNs entirely in Cyrillic script. It is hoped that the .бг domains will be available from the Spring of 2016.

To coincide with the launch of .бг, a new multistakeholder organization, set up by Register.BG, will take on marketing of both .bg and .бг.