Is .SU outside ICANN? How the .SU domain is governed

“Outside ICANN” is half right for .SU. ICANN has no contract with the .SU registry and does not accredit its registrars, and its dispute and registrar policies do not apply. But .SU still exists because it is delegated in the root zone that ICANN’s affiliate administers. That dependency is real, even though no formal retirement notice has been issued.

The detail matters if you are choosing .SU partly to avoid ICANN rules.

Where ICANN’s contracts stop

ICANN’s contracted parties are generic-domain registries and the registrars it accredits. For .com, .net or .org, that contractual chain brings in the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, ICANN’s transfer and registration-data policies, and the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), which ICANN applies across all generic domains.

Country-code domains are different. Their registries set policy locally, and any relationship with ICANN is voluntary. ICANN publishes its ccTLD agreements and exchanges of letters: there is a 2007 exchange of letters for .ru and nothing for .su.

Who runs .SU

The IANA record lists the manager as the Russian Institute for Development of Public Networks (ROSNIIROS, usually called RIPN) in Moscow. The technical contact is the Technical Center of Internet. IANA’s WHOIS entry shows the domain was created on 19 September 1990.

• Registry: RIPN operates .SU and accredits its registrars. ICANN accreditation plays no part. The Foundation for Internet Development, often named in older articles, administered .SU until 31 July 2020.
• Rules: since 1 September 2026, registration follows Russian Government Decree No. 1119, a single set of rules for .RU, .РФ and .SU that runs to 2032.
• Coordinator: in April 2026 the Government named RIPN coordinator for .SU, while the Coordination Center coordinates .RU and .РФ.
• Registrars: the Government’s registrar requirements under the companion Decree No. 1120, published by RIPN, require registrars to be Russian legal entities without foreign affiliation.

What changes without an ICANN contract

No UDRP. A trademark owner cannot file a quick administrative UDRP complaint against a .SU name. .SU is not on WIPO’s list of ccTLDs using UDRP. Under RIPN’s published court-dispute policy, the registry and registrars may not decide disputes on their own initiative (clause 1.4). They lock a name on a court act (clause 2.1) and transfer it after a final judgment (clause 3.2). A claimant needs a Russian court.

Russian registration-data rules, not ICANN’s. WHOIS and data access for .SU follow the Russian rules. From 5 October 2026, RIPN changed .SU WHOIS to show a link to the registrar’s contact form in place of the holder’s email address and phone number.

Russian accreditation, not ICANN accreditation. Every .SU registrar is accredited by RIPN under Russian requirements. A company being ICANN-accredited tells you nothing about whether it can register .SU names.

The part ICANN still controls

Every top-level domain needs a delegation in the DNS root zone, which IANA maintains. IANA’s long-standing practice follows the ISO 3166-1 list of country codes. After the Soviet Union dissolved, SU left the list of current country codes but stayed reserved. In a 2007 IANA blog post, Kim Davies wrote that if .SU did not meet the policy criteria, the domain would need to be transitioned into retirement.

It was not retired. The code is now exceptionally reserved, a status that keeps it available, according to RIPN. In 2022 ICANN’s Board adopted a ccTLD retirement policy for codes that ISO removes.

In March 2025, Domain Name Wire reported that IANA’s operator had privately written to RIPN about retiring .SU by 2030, a letter later described as a pre-notice. What followed:

• RIPN said it had received no notice of removal.
• DomainIncite quoted ICANN’s chief executive: “There has not been sent a formal notice of removal to the ccTLD manager and no timeline for sending one.”
• IANA asked the body that writes ccTLD policy how its retirement policy should be read. In April 2025 that body replied. Its letter explains that the retirement policy is relevant only if a code is no longer on the list of country names or exceptionally reserved codes.

ICANN has also declined to use the root zone as a sanctions tool. In 2022 Ukraine asked it to revoke .ru, .рф and .su. ICANN’s chief executive replied that ICANN has no sanction-levying authority.

What this means when you choose .SU

Day to day, ICANN plays no part in your .SU name. No UDRP, no ICANN-accredited registrar and no ICANN data policy applies. Disputes and suspensions run through Russian rules and courts, which are covered in Is .SU a lawless offshore haven?

In the long run, the extension’s place in the root depends on the code SU staying exceptionally reserved. Treat that like any other dependency. Keep your content backed up and your DNS records documented, so you could move the project if you ever needed to.

Register .SU through xUID

xUID registers .SU names through a trustee, so you open an account with an email and password and don’t upload identity documents. Base registration with a shared trustee costs $75/year. A dedicated trustee through Private Identity totals $825/year, and Full Bulletproof totals $8,075/year. Renewals use the same fees.

For the wider case for the extension, read Why choose .SU for an anonymous domain?, then search .SU names.