Unpacking the continued popularity of .au domains

What reached a new all-time high in December 2025 after going through some ups and downs earlier in the year? Believe it or not, we’re not talking about RAM prices (that news is here), but rather the growing popularity of .au domains.

Tracking registered domain numbers may seem an unconventional economic indicator, but it offers a unique perspective for analysing the local market.

While we aren’t seeing the same levels of explosive growth that we saw in 2022 and 2023, the .au namespace is showing stronger signs of market optimism than it did in 2024. 

So, how did 2025 fare?

Still tracking upwards

The .au Domain Administration, or auDA, shares monthly registry market data reports. Their latest numbers cover through to the end of December 2025, when there were 4,294,913 domains registered—a new all-time record in total .au domains.

More important than the total number of domains registered is the trend over time. Year-on-year growth was at 1.5%, a positive indicator, reaching highs we haven’t seen for two years.

While this growth isn’t remotely comparable to the substantial rise in domains we saw in 2022 and 2023 following the introduction of direct .au domains, there is still a noticeable upwards trajectory—albeit not as dramatic.

Renewals, deletions, creates

Each month, a portion of .au domains are up for renewal. While the vast majority of them are renewed for another year, there’s always a small percentage of domains that lapse. 

Our estimates suggest that around 45,000 domains were allowed to lapse in December. That’s not far below the amount of new domains created (47,338). It's an important metric to keep tabs on—If domain deletions outnumbered domain creations we’d be experiencing a shrinking .au namespace.

The total number of deletions per month has been trending upwards since at least 2019. We noticed a pattern beginning in 2023 where deletes spike upwards in the September to November period. 

That’s likely due to the rush of direct .au domains registered in September to November 2022 (when they first became widely available) coming up for renewal at that time each following year. 

The data shows that .au direct domains are still steadily growing over time, and that the .au direct deletion season of September to November may also be cooling off year-on-year.

Another interesting way to assess the health of the namespace is to monitor the expiry rate, which we’ve calculated ourselves. The expiry rate measures what percentage of one month’s total registered domains are allowed to lapse. Since 2021, the monthly expiry rate has hovered just above or below 1% per month. This month was no different, sitting at 1.05%.

In the last month

Looking at the December month-on-month data doesn’t reveal too much excitement—there was 0.05% growth over November. 

In recent years December has demonstrated itself to be more of a quiet month for domain registrations, with companies and people probably in holiday mode and not prioritising new domain creations.

Throughout December, 47,338 new domains were created. That’s just below the rolling monthly average from recent years (50,851 per month average between January 2023 and December 2025), but well above par for December going back to 2021 (averaging 38,617). This is likely a residual effect of .au domains growing in popularity—if the namespace continues expanding in the coming years, December stats could get stronger and stronger.

In fact, 2025 was the first year since 2022 where total domains grew at all in December over the previous month. Even then, December 2022 only experienced a paltry 0.01% growth, so perhaps 0.05% growth in December isn’t a stat we shouldn’t look at too pessimistically. 

Only one other month in 2025 demonstrated a smaller month-on-month change in total domains (April had a decrease in domains smaller than -0.01%).

Breaking down the namespace

auDA’s data gives us stats of the most popular second level domains. That gives us some interesting insight into what the .au namespace is made up of, and to gauge which second level domains are growing in popularity, and which are shrinking.

Off the bat, the most significant change is with .net.au domains, which have dropped in popularity by -5.6% over the last year. This does seem indicative of a continued decline in .net.au domains, with decreased totals every month since September 2022.

On a more optimistic note, .au direct, which had been growing a lot throughout the year before dipping a bit in the last quarter, seems to be trending positively again with 3% growth year-on-year.

The other notable pattern is with .com.au domains, which have grown by 1.7% year-on-year, slightly above the total growth rate of au domains.

Where to from here?

If domains are registered in January in February at the rate they have been in recent years then we can expect to see increasing all-time high records for .au domains. 

The auDA data shows that in previous years January has traditionally been a month of positive growth, but with deletions potentially slowly trending over time we’ll have to wait and see.

Looking to register a new .au domain?

Towards the end of 2025 we officially became an auDA accredited registrar for .au domains, meaning we can register .au domains on your behalf without going through a reseller. If you’re looking for a new .au domain, there’s never been a better time to register one with us.