America's campus domain
.edu dates to 1985 and has become shorthand for American higher education — mit.edu, harvard.edu, stanford.edu. Eligibility is narrow: you need to be a U.S. postsecondary institution accredited by an agency the U.S. Department of Education recognizes. A handful of foreign institutions kept .edu names registered before the rules tightened.
Universities elsewhere use academic spaces under their ccTLD: .ac.uk, .edu.au, .ac.jp and so on.
Good for
- Accredited U.S. postsecondary institutions
Watch out for
- K-12 schools and non-U.S. universities generally don't qualify
.edu by the numbers
.edu stands for "education". It's a generic top-level domain (gTLD), today used for education & research and government & institutions. EDUCAUSE runs the registry under a contract with ICANN.
Under the hood, the root zone points to 13 name servers for .edu, every one of them reachable over IPv6. The delegation is DNSSEC-signed, so resolvers can verify that answers for .edu haven't been tampered with on the way. Registration data is published over WHOIS (the WHOIS server is whois.educause.edu).
.edu vs other endings
.edu FAQ
Who can register a .edu domain?
U.S. postsecondary institutions accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Who runs .edu?
Educause, a nonprofit association for higher-education IT, under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
What does .edu stand for?
.edu stands for "education".
What is .edu used for?
.edu is mostly used for education & research and government & institutions. Like most gTLDs, it's a label of intent rather than a guarantee — check the site, not just the ending.
What country is .edu?
Formally none — but in practice .edu is reserved for United States institutions.
Who owns the .edu domain extension?
EDUCAUSE operates .edu as its registry, under a registry agreement with ICANN.
Is .edu a valid domain?
Yes. .edu is an active top-level domain in the DNS root zone, so .edu addresses work in every browser.
Is .edu DNSSEC-signed?
Yes, the root zone holds a DS record for .edu.
Sources
Data from IANA root zone version 2026102000. Last changed October 21, 2026. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
