Quick answer
Who can register a .sh domain?
Anyone. The Government of Saint Helena sponsors .sh, and the registry says it is available to everybody, first come first served. Developers favor it because .sh is also the extension of shell scripts. At Pearlcay, a .sh costs $50.49/year the first year and $50.49/year to renew (2 November 2026), paid in crypto with no KYC.
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- .sh $50.49
Type a name to see if it is free. If the name is taken before we register it, or the registry refuses it, the full amount goes back to your balance.
.sh at a glance
| Country code of | Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a UK overseas territory in the South Atlantic |
|---|---|
| Registry | Government of St. Helena |
| Technical operator | Internet Computer Bureau, a subsidiary of Identity Digital |
| Who can register | Anyone, anywhere. Names under .co.sh and similar are for Saint Helena residents. |
| Registration term | 1 to 10 years |
| Public WHOIS / RDAP | Privacy is not confirmed for .sh; some registrars do not offer it |
| Known for | Developer tools and shell-related projects, such as brew.sh |
.sh price per year
| Extension | 1st year | Renewal | Transfer | WHOIS privacy | Restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| .sh | $50.49 | $50.49 | $50.49 | — | None |
No first-year discount: the first year costs the same as the renewal. A transfer in needs a domain at least 60 days old and adds one year. We found no registry price notice for 2025 or 2026.
Saint Helena, the island behind .sh
Saint Helena is a volcanic island in the South Atlantic, one of the three parts of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Its capital is Jamestown. Napoleon Bonaparte was held there from October 1815 until his death on 5 May 1821. The island's airport received its first scheduled commercial flight on 14 October 2017.
The code .sh is the territory's ISO 3166 code, SH, and Wikipedia gives 23 September 1997 as its introduction date. Today IANA lists the Government of St. Helena as manager of .sh and Internet Computer Bureau Ltd as the technical contact. The Bureau belongs to Identity Digital, which also runs .io and .ac.
The registry website, NIC.SH, describes itself as the official registry and states that .sh is available to everybody on a first come, first served basis. A banner on the site also offers a free domain to Saint Helena residents. Wikipedia notes that most .sh websites have nothing to do with the island: the code is used for domain hacks and for shell-related projects.
So a .sh name is a small territory's extension sold worldwide, with a technical operator shared with a better-known sibling, .io.
Who uses .sh, and why?
The letters sh are also the file extension of Unix shell scripts, so developers took to the ending. Homebrew, the package manager, lives at brew.sh. Oh My Zsh, the community project that customizes the Zsh shell, lives at ohmyz.sh. Astral, the company behind the Python tools Ruff, ty and uv, is at astral.sh.
It suits command-line tools, installers, documentation sites and short links. It also works for domain hacks: a word ending in sh can be split before its last two letters, so "fresh" would become "fre.sh". Our domain hacks guide shows how to find one and what to watch for.
Check the details that matter to you before you buy. Privacy is not confirmed for .sh, and the registry publishes its own terms and allocation rules on NIC.SH. For a developer project, though, the combination is simple: any name, 1 to 10 years, and an ending that people in the field recognize at once.
.sh at other registrars, 2 November 2026
Prices per year in US dollars. First-year offers are lower than the renewal at most registrars, so compare the Renewal column. Cloudflare sells at cost, with no first-year discount.
| Registrar | First year | Renewal | Pays in crypto |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pearlcay | $50.49 | $50.49 | Yes, only crypto |
| Namecheap | $34.98 (sale; list $62.98) | $76.98 | Yes (deposit to account funds first) |
| Spaceship | $31.05 | $46.58 | Yes (Bitcoin; other coins not documented) |
| Porkbun | $31.20 | $46.65 | Yes (USDC via Coinbase) |
| Dynadot | $32.10 | $48.15 | Yes (BTC, USDT, USDC and more) |
| Cloudflare | $45.00 | $45.00 | No |
Last checked on ; older figures carry their own date
Prices per year in US dollars, from each registrar's public price list on 2 November 2026 (sources below). They change often: check before you buy.
.sh rules: eligibility, terms and privacy
Who can register. Anyone. The registry says .sh is available to everybody, first come first served. Wikipedia reports that older registry rules mention a professional or academic qualification for second-level names and that this is apparently not enforced; every registrar in our survey sells to anyone. Third-level names such as .co.sh are for residents of Saint Helena.
Terms. 1 to 10 years. A transfer in needs a domain at least 60 days old and adds one year.
Privacy. Not confirmed. NameSilo lists .sh as unsupported for WHOIS privacy, and Amazon's Route 53 does not offer it. If you need your own name kept out of the record, the optional Domain protection registers the domain in our company name.
Content. The sources we checked list no content rule specific to .sh. Our acceptable use policy applies, as for every extension.
Premium names. The registry prices some names higher; see why some .sh names cost more.
Risks. A single registry controls the extension, and its last public rise was about 10% on 1 January 2019, shared with .io and .ac, according to Gandi. We found no notice for 2025 or 2026.
.sh questions
Why do developers like .sh?
The letters sh are the file extension of Unix shell scripts and the name of the shell itself. Projects such as Homebrew (brew.sh) and Oh My Zsh (ohmyz.sh) use the ending.
Do I need to live on Saint Helena to register a .sh?
No. The registry says .sh is available to everybody. Only third-level names such as .co.sh are for island residents, and Pearlcay sells names directly under .sh.
Can I get WHOIS privacy on a .sh?
It is not confirmed. Some registrars do not offer privacy for .sh. The optional Domain protection registers the domain in our company name, which keeps your own name out of the record.
How long can I register a .sh for?
From 1 to 10 years.
Does a transfer in cost extra?
A transfer in adds one year to the domain and needs a domain at least 60 days old. The price is the renewal price of the extension.
Is .sh the same registry as .io?
They share a technical operator: IANA lists Internet Computer Bureau for both, and the Bureau belongs to Identity Digital. The territories and the sponsors differ: Saint Helena for .sh, the British Indian Ocean Territory for .io.
Sources (5)
- Delegation record for .sh — IANA (checked 2026-11-02)
- The official .SH domain registry and network information centre — NIC.SH (Internet Computer Bureau) (checked 2026-11-02)
- .sh (introduction date, second-level names, sites on .sh) — Wikipedia (checked 2026-11-02)
- Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (Napoleon, airport) — Wikipedia (checked 2026-11-02)
- Registrar price lists read on 2 November 2026 (Namecheap shown; Spaceship, Porkbun, Dynadot, Cloudflare read the same day) namecheap.com/domains/full-tld-list — Namecheap and the other registrars named (checked 2026-11-02)