Who actually holds your .np domain
The registry for .np is Mercantile Communication Pvt. Ltd., Hiti Pokhari, Durbar Marg, Kathmandu. Registration is free, names are issued first come, first served, and everything runs through register.com.np. For what the rest of a website costs once the name is in hand, what a website costs in Nepal is the companion guide.
Free is the problem. No card on file, no annual invoice, no renewal receipt in the accounts inbox. The single thread connecting your business to its own name is one email address typed into a form years ago.
The Terms and Conditions say whose address that should be: “Domain admin name, email address must be of the actual owner of the domain and not of the technical contact.”
Does a .com.np domain expire? The registry says both
Ask that and register.com.np gives you two answers. Both were live when I checked in August 2026.
The Domain Reverification page opens: “Since .com.np domains do not expire, a periodic domain reverification process has been initiated.”
The notice on the registry homepage says something else: “We have also started capturing the domain renewal date for each domain. Based on this renewal date, email notifications will be sent 15 days prior to expiry to the registered domain administrator.”
I cannot reconcile those for you. What matters is the shape of it: a renewal date is now being recorded, and the warning attached to it is fifteen days, sent to one address. Log in and read your own domain’s status rather than trusting either sentence.
The admin email is the entire failure mode
Every warning the registry sends — reverification requests, the fifteen-day renewal notice, requests for further documents — goes to the contact held on the domain. Not to your office. Not to the number on your website. To that address.
The registry has already said this is going wrong. Its homepage states that reverification emails have been sent three times to the addresses given at registration, and that domains remain parked due to incomplete reverification, “which may be the result of improper or outdated contact details”. If a developer registered your domain under their own email, that sentence is about you.
Checking and changing the contact on file
The registry’s domain modification process runs like this. Log in with the username registered for the domain — the registry tells older customers that username is the email address used at registration, which may be the very address you are trying to replace. Your domains sit under the Active Domain tab: Edit Info changes contact details, Edit DNS changes nameservers, View shows the record.
Two things catch people out. Modifications are first come, first served, so nothing is instant. And the registry states that modification requests not accompanied by the required documents are ignored — not queued, not returned with a note.
If you are locked out entirely, the registry points correspondence to its Domain Administration Team at hostmaster@mercantile.com.np.
Reverification: parked first, released later
Since December 2024 the registry has been running a reverification exercise, in its own words to identify domains that are “unused, inactive, or parked” so they can be released to others.
Only domains showing Reverification State need action, and the page is explicit: “If your domain is not in this state, no action is required from your side.”
Ignore it and the registry’s wording is that the domain “may be subject to administrative action stopping/releasing the domains”; it also intends to publish the list of parked domains. The page sets no deadline, so check any fixed number of days quoted elsewhere against the page itself.
Reverifying needs a request letter — on organisation letterhead with authorised signature and official stamp, or confirming ownership if you are an individual — plus the documents below.
The documents you will be asked for
| Who you are | What the registry wants |
|---|---|
| Local company, firm or organisation | Its certificate of registration |
| Foreign entity registered in Nepal | Branch or liaison office registration, or Social Welfare Council affiliation |
| Non-incorporated entity, such as a permanent establishment | PAN registration certificate |
| Any entity with business interests in Nepal | Nepal trademark certificate, or the Department of Industry filing receipt with the certificate to follow within three years |
| An individual, for a personal-name domain | Citizenship, passport, driving licence, voter’s card, NRN ID card, or a Nepalese resident visa for foreign nationals |
The same list applies whether you are registering, modifying or reverifying. Uploads accept jpg, png, jpeg, gif and svg files up to 800 kilobytes.
The published rejection causes are mundane: blurred scans, a request letter missing its letterhead, stamp or signature, a domain name that does not match the company registration or identity document, and DNS given as a bare IP rather than a nameserver like ns1.example.com. One catches individuals — names based only on a surname or caste name are reserved for organisations representing that name.
Which .np extensions actually exist
Settle this before you promise a client an extension. Register.com.np publishes the list in several places and they do not match.
- Registry Policy names eight: com.np, org.np, edu.np, net.np, gov.np, name.np, coop.np, mil.np.
- The FAQ page names twelve — those eight plus biz.np, travel.np, asia.np and pro.np.
- The .np extensions table is far longer: well over a hundred entries, each with an eligibility note, from academy.np and clinic.np to shiksha.np and xyz.np.
- The homepage availability checker offers nine — the policy page’s eight, plus info.np.
Treat the checker as the operative list; it is the one that gates a registration. Run anything outside those nine through it before you put it in a proposal. gov.np is separate again — the registry’s FAQ says the National Information Technology Center handles it. Extensions are restricted by category too, and picking one that does not match you is a listed rejection cause.
What losing the domain does to your search presence
A parked or released domain is not a ranking dip. Every URL you have earned a link to stops resolving, your Google Business Profile points at a dead address, and rankings go with the pages that held them. If somebody else registers the name, you negotiate with them rather than the registry.
It is the one item on the technical checklist that no on-site work undoes afterwards — everything else assumes the domain still answers. Check it first when you work out why a site stopped ranking and the drop looks too total to be algorithmic.
Frequently asked questions
What to do this week
Log in at register.com.np and check three things: the status of your domain, the admin email address on it, and whether that inbox is one somebody actually opens.
If the address is wrong, fix it now rather than when a notice arrives — the fix requires documents and it queues. If your domain shows Reverification State, get the request letter drafted on letterhead with the stamp and signature, and upload it.
Then repeat the check every six months.