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.cn domain: registry, rules and WHOIS

Businesses addressing the Chinese market

Facts

Type
Country-code top-level domain (ccTLD)
Registry operator
CNNIC
Country or territory
China
Added to the root zone
1990
RDAP
Not listed in the IANA bootstrap file
WHOIS server
whois.cnnic.cn
Registration
Eligibility requirements apply
IDN support
Yes
Typical use
Businesses addressing the Chinese market

RDAP availability is taken from the IANA RDAP bootstrap file published on 2026-09-16; WHOIS server and delegation year from the IANA root zone database. Registry policies change: check the registry's own policy before relying on an eligibility rule.

What is .cn?

.cn is the country-code top-level domain of China, administered by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). Chinese-script names are available both under .cn and under the internationalised TLDs .中国 and .中國.

Who can register it

Registration requires real-name verification: the registrant must submit identity documents (for a person) or business registration documents (for an organisation), and the name is not activated until they are approved. Hosting a site inside mainland China additionally requires an ICP filing, which is a separate process.

WHOIS, RDAP and privacy

.cn is not listed in the IANA RDAP bootstrap file dated 2026-09-16, so no public RDAP service is announced for it. OrbitProbe falls back to the classic port-43 WHOIS server (whois.cnnic.cn). WHOIS output is free text in a registry-specific layout, so only a fixed set of fields is read (registrar, dates, status, nameservers) and some of them may simply not be present. For ccTLDs, what is published is decided by the registry and local law rather than by ICANN, so output differs from one extension to the next. Most registries do not show the personal data of individuals in public output. OrbitProbe only ever shows the organisation name and country.

Look up a .cn domain

FAQ

Who can register a .cn domain?

Registration requires real-name verification: the registrant must submit identity documents (for a person) or business registration documents (for an organisation), and the name is not activated until they are approved. Hosting a site inside mainland China additionally requires an ICP filing, which is a separate process.

How do I run a WHOIS lookup for a .cn domain?

Type the name, in the form example.cn, into the form on this page. Because no RDAP service is published for .cn, OrbitProbe queries the WHOIS server whois.cnnic.cn. The result shows where the data came from and when it was observed.

Does .cn support RDAP?

The IANA RDAP bootstrap file dated 2026-09-16 does not list an RDAP service for .cn. Registration data is queried through the classic WHOIS server whois.cnnic.cn. Registries can add RDAP later, so this may change over time.

Does .cn support internationalised domain names (IDN)?

Yes, names containing non-ASCII characters can be registered under .cn. Which characters are allowed is defined by the registry's IDN table. In the DNS such names are stored in Punycode form starting with "xn--"; OrbitProbe accepts either form.