.br
Top-level Internet domain for Brazil
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With the exception of universities, the second-level domain is fixed and selected from a list that defines the category. For example, .art.br is in the art (music, folklore etc.) category, and .org.br is in the non-governmental organization category. Institutions of tertiary education were allowed to use the ccSLD .edu.br, although some use .com.br and others (mainly public universities) use .br. There are also some other few exceptions that were allowed to use the second level domain until the end of 2000. As of April 2010, most domain registrations ignore categories and register in the .com.br domain, which has over 90% of all registered domains. The .jus.br (Judiciary), and .b.br (banks) domains have mandatory DNSSEC use.
History
Created and delegated to Brazil in 1989 by Jon Postel, initially the domain was operated manually by Registro.br and administered by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP). Originally, only researchers and institutions to which they belonged had the interest and ability to adopt the new system and register domains under .br.
At the time, networks prevalent in the Brazilian academic setting were the BITNET ("Because It's Time NETwork"), the HEPnet ("High Energy Physics Network") and the UUCP ("Unix-to-Unix Copy Program"). As such, even before Brazil officially connected to the Internet in 1991, the .br domain was used to identify the machines participating in networks already in use by academics.
In 1995 the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (Portuguese: Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil, or simply CGI.br) was created with an objective to coordinate the allocation of Internet addresses (IPs) and the registration of .br domain names. There were 851 domains registered with the Brazilian DNS by the beginning of 1996, thereafter experiencing rapid growth with the mass arrival of companies, Internet providers and media onto the Internet. The registration system was automated in 1997 and was developed using open source software.
In 2005, CGI.br created its own executive arm, the Brazilian Network Information Center (Portuguese: Núcleo de Informação e Coordenação do Ponto BR, or simply NIC.br), which currently serves in both administrative and operational capacity for the registry.
In 2017, accounts associated with DNS records of Brazilian banks were hacked. Kaspersky's researchers pointed out to a vulnerability in NIC.br's website and suggested its infrastructure had been compromised. NIC's director at the time, Frederico Neves, denied that NIC.br was "hacked", although NIC.br admitted the vulnerability.
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Domain registry
To register any domains under .br, it is necessary to enter into contact with Registro.br. Entities legally established in Brazil as a company ("pessoa jurídica") or a physical person ("profissional liberal" and "pessoas físicas") that has a contact within Brazil can register domains. Foreign companies that have a power-of-attorney legally established in Brazil can also do it by following specific rules.
The registration of domains including non-ASCII Portuguese characters (à, á, â, ã, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú, ü and ç) is accepted since 2005.
Syntactic rules for .br domains
- Minimum of 2 and maximum of 26 characters, not including the category. For example, in the field XXXX.COM.BR, this limitation relates to the XXXX.
- Valid characters are [A-Z, 0-9], the hyphen, and the following accented characters: à, á, â, ã, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú, ü, ç.
- Domains cannot contain only numbers.
- To maintain the integrity of the registry, Registro.br sets up an equivalence mapping to compare domain names with and without accented characters. The mapping is done by converting accented characters and the cedilla for their non-accented versions and "c", respectively, and discards hyphens. A new domain will only be allowed to be registered when there is no equivalent to a pre-existing domain, or when the applicant is the same entity that owns the domain equivalent.
- Specifically for the domain .NOM.BR, it is necessary to choose two names, i.e.: NAME1.NAME2.NOM.BR.
Second-level domains
Direct registration
In 1991, it was decided that universities and research institutes would be allowed second-level .br domains directly. For example: Federal University of Rio de Janeiro got ufrj.br; University of São Paulo got usp.br; National Institute for Space Research got inpe.br; and so on.
In late 2000, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee reported abuse in this system, and called for all institutions directly under .br to be moved to .edu.br – so, for example, ufrj.br would become ufrj.edu.br. During a meeting in early 2001, however, the Committee decided it would be of public interest to not move every second-level domain as to avoid confusion, but instead established rules regarding their registration:
- No longer accepting automatic registration of second-level domains, and evaluating every request for one individually;
- Creating edu.br, and forwarding requests from education and research institutions to it;
- Concession to education and research institutes that already had a second-level .br domain, as long as its usage is appropriate and that domain name is related to the institution's name or acronym. Domains approved are automatically duplicated under edu.br as well, and both may exist concurrently – for example, the still existing ufrj.br also has a registered ufrj.edu.br, although the latter is not used;
- Other institutions not approved above must be migrated permanently to edu.br (but would be given sufficient time for the transition).
As of September 2024, Registro.br reports 1207 domains registered directly under .br.
Predefined domains
As of August 2025, there are 147 different second-level domains of .br under which custom domains can be registered, and they are divided into eleven categories: "Generic", "Business", "Culture", "Education", "Personals", "Entertainment", "Public Authority", "Locations", "Professions", "Technology" and "Third Sector". They are the following:
Special second-level domains
From 2000 until 2009, during election cycles, electoral candidates could register domains under CAN.br, with the format [name][number].can.br – where the name is the registered candidate name, and the number is the identification number for that candidate in the election (related to the party's identification number). The second-level domain was in a category of its own, called "natural persons, special".
As an example, during the 2004 elections for mayor of Aracaju:
- Marcelo Déda had the website deda13.can.br (his surname and Worker's Party's identification number, 13);
- Susana Azevedo had the website susana23.can.br (her first name and Cidadania's identification number, 23);
- Jorge Alberto had the website jorgealberto15.can.br (his name and MDB's identification number, 15).
Domains were free for registered candidates. Additionally, domains were automatically cancelled at the end of the first round if the candidate lost, and remaining ones were cancelled after the end of the second round.
No new .can.br domains have been registered since 2009.
Online gambling
In late 2024, legislation regulating online gambling in Brazil – usually referred to simply as "bets" in the country – was passed. Among the stipulations was that, from January 2025 onward, such companies must operate under a BET.br domain. By definition, any online gambling websites not operating under a .bet.br domain are operating illegally.
Agencies
There are multiple agencies registered directly under .br, as second-level domains, that are not higher education or research institutions. The following list might not be exhaustive:
Most of these agencies are subsidiaries of CGI.br and, as such, they follow a similar corporate identity. The "logos" are combinations of the names of the agencies with the logo for .br, all of which are simply typed out with Brandon Schoech (Tepid Monkey)'s freeware font "Qhytsdakx":
Networks
There are multiple networks registered directly under .br, usually of academic nature. Again, this list may not be exhaustive:
Usage statistics
As of September 2024, .BR is the 9th most used TLD in the world and the 6th most used ccTLD, accounting for approximately 1.5% of all domain names. It is also the most used Portuguese language TLD.
As of 9 September 2024, Registro.br's statistics page reported the following:
- 5,388,244 total domains registered under .BR;
- 1,629,955 (30.25%) domains using DNSSEC.
The "Education" category also includes 1,207 (0.02% of the total) custom second-level domains registered directly under .BR – for example, the National Observatory at ON.BR.