Europa domain and subdomains overview

The Europa domain (or "Europa") refers to the second level domain europa.eu. It belongs to the '.eu' top level domain established by Regulation EC 733/2002 and it is managed by DG Communication on behalf of all EU institutions.

Directorate-General for Communication (DG COMM), as domain leader for external communication, is mandated by the Commission  to take emergency actions concerning content on the Europa domain. For more details, please check the Emergency procedure for content moderation on the Europa domain.

Institutions' websites are either on a third level domain (e.g. website-name.europa.eu) or a fourth level domain (e.g. website-name.ec.europa.eu). See the rules section below. 

Why is it critical to use the europa.eu domain?

• It helps users understand they are visiting an authentic EU website.
• In the context of disinformation, the web address is a guarantee of trustworthiness and reliability.
• It implies that the services apply the security standards required by the European Commission's IT department to protect the web content. 

Since 2005, following a decision of the Secretaries General, the Europa domain has been used by the EU institutions for their online communications (see decision of the Secretaries General from January 2005 - in French).

It is mandatory for the European Commission’s DGs and executive agencies to publish public websites in the europa.eu domain (see CCSC, minutes, November 2018 - Corporate Management Board, minutes, January 2019 - CCSC, minutes, June 2019 – EU login required).

All official websites of EU institutions, bodies and agencies (such as European Parliament, European Commission, Council, Court of Justice) must use the ‘europa.eu’ domain: 

• 3rd level domains on the europa.eu domain are subject to the approval of the Inter-institutional Online Communication Committee (IOCC) - EU login required) and are mainly allocated to the official websites of EU institutions, bodies and agencies. For example: commission.europa.eu for European Commission, europarl.europa.eu for European Parliament.

In certain cases, 3rd level domains on europa.eu domain can also be allocated to the following website types:

1. inter-institutional cooperation entities or services
2. sites providing access to the information and services of an official programme
3. sites providing access to a service or database with a well-established brand name
4. sites requiring high visibility for promotional purposes.

3rd level domains on europa.eu domain are owned by the IOCC and managed by COMM Europa Management.

• 4th level domains are managed by the owner of the 3rd level domain. EU branded 3rd level domains are owned by the IOCC and managed by COMM Europa Management. Any new 4th level domain needs to be approved by DG COMM. 

The European Commission’s websites

All Commission websites must be hosted on europa.eu.

All Commission websites must respect the rules and guidelines as published on the Europa Web Guide.

To request a new URL or a new website, please read the requests procedure section.

Choosing a second level domain name for the European Union's websites  (In French only - 122.9 KB - PDF)

Rules and procedures on assigning website addresses in the .eu domain (In French only - 122.9 KB - PDF)

Europa high level governance (Corporate Communication Steering Committee - 6 September 2019 - 330 KB - PDF)

Need further assistance on this topic? Please contact the team in charge of Europa Domain Management (EU Login required).