Comprehensive guide and history of grandfathered (disallowed) unicode character general top-level (gTLD) domain names.

Introduction

Unicode domain names, also known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), allow the use of non-ASCII characters, such as emojis and symbols from various scripts, in internet domain names. Unlike traditional domain names restricted to 37 ASCII characters (English letters, digits 0-9, and the hyphen), unicode domain names expand possibilities by incorporating characters from diverse unicode character sets, like currencies (€), mathematical operators (÷), and emojis (😉).

To function within the internet’s infrastructure, these special characters are encoded into an ASCII-compatible format called punycode, prefixed with "xn--". For example, "music♫.com" becomes "xn--music-ht1c.com" in punycode.

With the exception of the information symbol (ℹ), trademark symbol (™️) and "m" emoji (Ⓜ️), a unicode character or emoji must be converted into punycode to function as a domain name. Punycode is a character encoding method used for IDNs. This representation is used when registering domains containing special characters. The ASCII representation starts with the prefix "xn--" and is appended with the unicode character(s) or emoji(s) encoded as punycode.

Each unicode character and emoji has a unique punycode representation. Unicode characters can be identified by their individual length of xn--123, while emojis can be identified by their individual length of xn--1234. When combined with other letters, numbers, and dashes, their punycode values change. There are several tools on the internet that help with converting unicode characters and emojis to punycode and back, but the most popular is punycoder.com. Here are some examples:

Input	Punycode	Breakdown
❤	xn--qei	unicode character
👍	xn--yp8h	emoji
☚	xn--b4h	unicode character
😉	xn--n28h	emoji
i❤	xn--i-7iq	letter + unicode character
❤❤	xn--qeia	unicode character + unicode character
❤❤❤❤❤	xn--qeiaaaa	unicode character + unicode character + unicode character + ...
♫	xn--m6h	unicode character
music♫	xn--music-ht1c	letters + unicode character
©	xn--gba	unicode character
©opy©at	xn--opyat-bhad	unicode character + letters + unicode character + letters

While it is possible to register disallowed unicode character and emoji domain names on some country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) to this day, it is NOT POSSIBLE (since 2010) to register disallowed unicode character or emoji domain names on general top-level domains (gTLDs).

This is because all gTLDs must follow a strict set of rules and restrictions imposed by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). ccTLDs are not required to adhere to all of these registration restrictions, as it is up to each country to decide what is best for it's respective, assigned ccTLD.

For more details, go to datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5891.

For a specific list of disallowed unicode characters, go to datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5892.

Notable Events

Prior to April 2001, domain names were limited to 37 characters: 26 English letters, 0 to 9, and the hyphen (-).

On 19 April 2001, ICANN and Verisign expanded the allowed set of characters to include a limited range of symbols drawn from a few different Unicode character sets below:

• Currencies (ex: € ₪ ₥ ₩)
• Mathematical Operators (ex: ÷ × ∞)
• Punctuation (ex: • ‐ †)
• Miscellaneous Symbols (ex: ♥ ♨️ ♻)
• Geometric Shapes (ex: ● ◯ ◳)
• Letterlike Symbols (ex: ℗ ℞)
• Technical Symbols (ex: ⌨ ⌚ ⎈)
• Wingdings (ex: ✂️ ❄ ☎️ ✈️)

At least four single-character unicode domains were created on this day: ☻.com (xn--84h.com), ♨️.com (xn--j6h.com), ♨️.net (xn--j6h.net), ☮️.com (xn--v4h.com).

In 2003, i♥you.com (xn--iyou-5u3b.com), i♥.com (xn--i-n3p.com), and over a thousand other heart-related unicode domains were registered by Menno de Ruiter for the first mass-scale emoji project on the internet in conjunction with the two principal programmers for the punycode/IDN project at VeriSign and Galcomm ICANN registrar. VeriSign would later delete the majority of these heart-related unicode domains, without notice, leaving the project owner out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 2005, ICANN deleted all .org domain names that contained disallowed unicode characters without notice, leaving owners confused, upset, and empty-handed.

In 2008, the IDNA2008 standard is initiated by ICANN and advises against emoji domains due to security and usability concerns.

In 2009, ICANN introduced IDNs, allowing domain names in non-Latin scripts to be registered.

In 2010, the Unicode Consortium formally recognized 722 emojis and adopted 33 of these unicode characters as emojis (unicode.org/reports/tr51/).

You can view the list of unicode characters that have been converted into emojis at wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Unicode/Miscellaneous_Symbols

The IDNA2008 is published and accepted by ICANN, effectively banning any further emoji-based .com and .net registrations (unicode.org/reports/tr46/).

Currently Registered

On 7 July 2017, the people over at i❤️.ws (Domain Research Group) were granted access to the raw .com zone file containing all registered .com domain names in existence. Of the 305,782,825 registered domain names at the time, only 233 contained disallowed unicode characters. Regrettably, there is no guaranteed way to know exactly how many of these historical domain names were not renewed and were left to expire and be permanently deleted throughout the last years.

Below are .com and .net lists of disallowed unicode character domain names that are currently known to still be registered:

List of 166 known, registered, disallowed unicode character .COM domain names as of May 2025:

List of 81 known, registered, disallowed unicode character .NET domain names as of May 2025:

For punycode-only lists, historical lists, or if you are having trouble viewing the lists on this page, go to the GitHub text file folder.

Note: These lists may not be complete. If you find a discrepancy, please email [email protected].

Emoji Domains Today

As of May 2025, only country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) are able to allow the registration of unicode/emoji domains. Of the 308 ccTLDs in existence today, only 8 actively allow for unicode and/or emoji character domain registrations:

ccTLD	Registrars with Functioning Emoji Registrations
.fm (Federated States of Micronesia)	regery.com, dot.fm, dynadot.com, *
.gg (Bailiwick of Guernsey) **	porkbun.com, channelislandhosting.net, sav.com, *
.je (Bailiwick of Jersey) **	porkbun.com, channelislandhosting.net, sav.com, *
.kz (Kazakhstan)	ps.kz, *
.st (São Tomé and Príncipe)	gandi.net, istanco.net, nic.st, *
.to (Tonga)	istanco.net, directnic.com, *
.uz (Uzbekistan)	webname.uz, ahost.uz, pscloud.uz, billur.com, *
.ws (Samoa)	porkbun.com, regery.com, *

* The registrar lists above may not be 100% accurate or complete. Most likely, there are other registrars that allow the registration of unicode/emoji ccTLD domains on their website. Plus, some of these registrars my change their registration restrictions over time.

** The .gg and .je ccTLDs are unique regarding their unicode/emoji character registration acceptance. They allow for unicode characters (xn--123) to be registered, NOT emoji characters (xn--1234).

The registration of unicode or emoji character domain can difficult since it is sometimes not possible to enter special characters into the registration text fields at some registrars. To get around this, try using the punycode version of the character(s) instead.

The availability of a unicode/emoji domain name can be verified by checking the WHOIS (who.to) data of the punycode (punycoder.com) version of the domain.

References and Sources