Each year we publish our Annual Report & Review, which takes an in-depth look at our company, our activities and our industry.
2025: Twenty-five years of Ireland’s national domain, now formally endorsed by Government
.IE runs the registry for .ie, Ireland’s country-code top-level domain. Every website and email address ending in .ie depends on it. We are a designated Operator of Essential Services, and this report is our public account of how we carried out that responsibility in 2025, the year the registry completed twenty-five years of continuous operation.
The registry ended 2025 with a growing namespace, an unbroken service record, a strengthened balance sheet and, within the governance reporting period, a formal Government endorsement of its mandate.
Key points for Government, regulators and policymakers
- Formal endorsement by Government. In April 2026, following public consultation, the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport established Terms of Endorsement with .IE, identifying IE Domain Registry CLG as the ccTLD manager for .ie. This resolves a question of formal recognition that had been open since 2011, and simplifies the designation of the .ie registry under NIS2. The endorsement was concluded on 7 April 2026, within the governance reporting period that closed at our AGM on 14 April 2026. We will report on our performance against the Terms every year.
- Security that is independently evidenced. Our information security management is certified to ISO 27001:2023 and aligned with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. Regular penetration, vulnerability and intrusion testing, a structured internal audit programme, and tabletop exercises with peer registries in the European TLD ISAC support this.
- Resilience and continuity. A 24/7 security operations centre, tested business continuity and disaster recovery plans, and data escrow operated throughout the year. Data escrow means the .ie namespace can be rebuilt independently of the registry’s own systems if needed.
- Stronger governance. We completed implementation of our enterprise risk management framework, and the Board retained a low risk appetite. The Board approved the Corporate Strategy 2025–2028 in April 2025 and appointed a Chair designate ahead of the change of Chair at the AGM on 14 April 2026.
- Regulatory readiness. We welcome the EU’s aim of harmonising cybersecurity standards. NIS2, the Critical Entities Resilience Directive (CER) and eID requirements will, however, raise compliance costs for the registry and, more acutely, for registrars. We assess this as potentially an existential risk to the viability of some registrars, and therefore a risk to the infrastructure as a whole. Our Policy Advisory Committee is working on the practical effects of NIS2 identity verification and supply chain obligations.
- Financial capacity. Turnover rose 8.4% to €4.68 million, and the operating loss narrowed by €337,017 to €134,235. The after-tax surplus was €147,474 (2024: €385,690); the reduction reflects lower investment gains, not trading. Members’ Funds rose 2.6% to €5.89 million. As a company limited by guarantee with no shareholders, our reserves are our only source of capital.
- Internet governance. We hosted Ireland’s first national Internet Governance Forum in Dublin on 22 May 2025 and supported ICANN 84 in Dublin.
What it means if you own or use a .ie domain
- .ie kept working, and kept growing. The registry kept its unbroken service record through 2025. There were 332,990 .ie domains at the end of the year, and the 50,584 new registrations were the second-highest total in the registry’s history. .ie is the address of choice for 55.75% of hosted Irish domains.
- Your .ie is protected behind the scenes. Independent security certification, round-the-clock monitoring and a secure backup copy of the .ie database, held by an independent third party, protect the address your website and email rely on.
- Helping you stay safe online. Ahead of the November 2025 shopping season we published research by Core Research with five simple checks for safer online shopping. One in five people in Ireland has lost money to an online scam, losing €401 on average. We also fund a monitoring service that alerts partners and helps victims when a .ie website is misused.
- New EU rules are coming. NIS2 is expected to bring stronger checks on the identity of domain holders, and new obligations for the registrars you buy your .ie from. The report explains how we are preparing.
Giving back
We apply our surplus for public benefit. To mark our twenty-fifth year, .ie Gives Back donated €1 from every .ie registration and renewal between 19 September and 13 October 2025, shared equally between An Cosán, the DSPCA, Make-A-Wish Ireland, Focus Ireland and UNICEF Ireland. We also published free research on Ireland’s digital divide and called for better digital skills supports for small and micro businesses.
Louise English, Chair of the Board (to 14 April 2026)
“Ensuring that the .ie namespace is safe and secure for Internet users and for Irish business is the priority against which the Board judges everything else, including financial performance. … With the Terms of Endorsement now in place, the Board’s task from here is to give effect to them while the NIS2 and CER obligations take legislative shape.”
David Curtin, Chief Executive
“The return to net growth in 2025, and the improvement in renewal rates that accompanied it, give the Company a firmer base entering 2026 than it has had for three years. … The regulatory workload also increases from here, as the transposition of NIS2 and the CER Directive proceeds and as the Company gives effect to the Terms of Endorsement 2026 following the Government’s endorsement of the Company as ccTLD manager for the .ie namespace.”
Read the full report – digital edition
Click on the cover below to open the digital edition of our Annual Report & Review 2025.
Download
You can download the full report as a PDF below.
The Terms of Endorsement 2026, the Minister’s letter of 30 March 2026 and our signed acceptance of 7 April 2026 are published by the Department at gov.ie. The links are set out in Annex C of the Report.
