NIC is the delegated authority for registering domain names in the .bi top-level domains. The domain name space is served on a first in first out basis. NIC has a rather liberal policy about domain names as soon as the domain name is in relation with the business name or one of its marks. The general principle is that a domain must reflect the truth.

The foreign entities are not obliged to keep a DNS or an administrative contact in the country. Except those qualified by NIC as restricted or undesirable, any domain name related to the business may be assigned to these entities.

A restricted domain is one of these : gov net edu ac com co int mil gouv or any other name related to government or public company use. Contact domain@nic.bi if you want to create such a domain. Note however that it will be assigned only if sponsored by an official authority. We also discourage generic names such as bank nom art ... or a geographic notion as it also misleads people.

An undesirable name is defined as being vulgar, misleading people or being rejected by NIC at its own discretion. It is also applicable for domain registration of wellknown brands/trademarks registered by third parties without the consent of the owner of the brands/trademark. The domain will be deleted immediately at the owner's request.

We strongly discourage the use of suffixes of our country for misleading people. We remind that .bi stands for Republic of Burundi and for nothing else.

The domain name must have a minimum of three characters. Applications for one or two characters domain may be considered with prior arrangment with domain@nic.bi

There is no notion of property as far as a domain name is concerned. It is rather to be seen as a sub-delegation, and the sub-delegated entity is supposed to manage it in compliance with the RFC's and with the usual rules applicable to such a sub-delegation. For instance, domains should only be used for matters in connection with the sub-delegated entity's business. The name of the domain must correspond to the name of the business, or one of its marks.

NIC will do its best so that second-level domains are run in a fair way. NIC may delete a domain name without compensation, should the domain be run in an inappropriate manner or be restricted or undesirable. No auction or reselling of domain names will be accepted.

The invoicing is per e-mail only. NIC sends yearly invoices to the billing contact e-mail address at the anniversary date of the domain creation. There is no reminder sent afterwards. It is your responsability to maintain the record accurate so that the e-mailed invoice reaches the right person. An unpaid domain is deleted after two weeks and made available for new sub-delegation.

As rendered service for domain creation, NIC installs the requested domain in the database of the DNS server 81.xxx.xxx.xxx (dns.nic.bi) and the NS records will be pointed to the DNS servers you specify on the form. This is the only service rendered. It does not include a sale of the domain name as there is no notion of property on a domain. Future changes of pointers are free of charge (max 3 per year). NIC will do its best effort to keep this pointer, the delegation and the DNS running, but shall by no means bear any responsibility for an unvoluntary disruption of service as it sometimes may occur on the Internet.

Resellers are normally not eligible for rebates.

By using a registration form, the user agrees to comply with all the present and future policies of NIC.