.gov
The domain name gov is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from the word government, indicating its restricted use by government entities. The gov domain is administered by the General Services Administration, an independent agency of the United States federal government.
The U.S. is the only country that has a government-specific top-level domain in addition to its country-code top-level domain. This is a result of the origins of the Internet as a U.S. federal government-sponsored research network. Other countries typically delegate a second-level domain for this purpose; for example,.gc.ca is the second-level domain for the Government of Canada and all subdomains.
Some U.S. government-related websites use .com, or .org instead of .gov, such as the United States Postal Service, various recruiting websites for armed services, and the websites for many US cities. The Department of Defense and its subsidiary organizations use the .mil sTLD instead of .gov.
All governments in the U.S. were allowed to apply for delegations in gov after May 2012. For example, domains have been registered for the city of Atlanta, for the county of Loudoun, Virginia, and for the U.S. state of Georgia. This was not always possible; under an earlier policy, only federal agencies were allowed to use the domain, and agencies below cabinet level were required to use subdomains of their parent agency. Inconsistencies exist in addressing of state and local government sites, with some using gov, some us, some using both. Pennsylvania uses www.pa.gov, www.pennsylvania.gov and www.state.pa.us for the same web site, and still others in com, org or other TLDs.
Availability
Use of the domain gov is restricted to government entities. According to GSA guidelines, this includes U.S. governmental departments, programs, and agencies on the federal level; federally recognized tribes, referred to by the GSA as Native Sovereign Nations, which must use the suffix -NSN.gov; State governmental entities and programs; cities and townships represented by an elected body of officials; counties and parishes represented by an elected body of officials; and U.S. territories.The URL for registration services is www.dotgov.gov.
Authorization
To register a gov domain, a letter of authorization must be submitted to the GSA. For federal agencies, the authorization must be submitted by a cabinet-level chief information officer. For state governments, authorization from the governor or state CIO is required. Domains for cities require authorization from the mayor or equivalent official; for counties, authorization may be submitted by county commissioners or equivalent officials, or by the highest-ranking county official. For Native Sovereign Nations, the authorization must come from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.In November 2019, it was discovered that the process was flawed after a researcher impersonated the mayor of Exeter, Rhode Island in a letter of authorization and GSA approved the request without verification. In response, CSA said it had implemented additional fraud prevention controls to avoid a recurrence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency launched an effort to assume control over the issuance of all gov domains.
Naming conventions
The GSA provides guidelines for naming of second-level domains, such as those used by state and local governments. For states, the domain name must include the full state name or postal abbreviation, and the abbreviation must not be obscured by inclusion in a larger word. For example, invalid.gov for Idaho would be an unacceptable domain name. For local governments, the domain name must include the state name or abbreviation. However, several cities registered.gov domain names using only the full name of the city or a common abbreviation without reference to the state before the GSA adopted the convention; the GSA grandfathered these domains, allowing them to remain despite the new convention.Policy
Policy regarding the gov domain is laid out in 41 CFR Part 102-173.No new gov domains for U.S. federal executive branch departments have been allowed to be registered June 13, 2011, as a result of the implementation of Executive Order 13571 issued by President Obama. The move was part of a general attempt to improve the efficiency of U.S. governmental Web usage by weeding out unnecessary, redundant, outdated, or wasteful sites.
Since May 2012, the Federal Executive Branch has a policy of registering no new second-level domains for its agencies, except on a case-by-case basis. Agencies are also prohibited from using other top-level domains such as.org and.com. "Federal Agency domains" were also deleted on August 26, 2014.
Use by states and territories
, all states, the District of Columbia, and all territories except for the Northern Mariana Islands have operational domains in gov:| State or territory | Domain |
| Alabama | al.gov and alabama.gov |
| Alaska | alaska.gov |
| American Samoa | as.gov and americansamoa.gov |
| Arizona | az.gov and arizona.gov |
| Arkansas | ar.gov and arkansas.gov |
| California | ca.gov |
| Colorado | co.gov and colorado.gov |
| Connecticut | ct.gov |
| Delaware | de.gov and delaware.gov |
| District of Columbia | dc.gov |
| Florida | florida.gov and fl.gov |
| Georgia | ga.gov and georgia.gov |
| Guam | guam.gov |
| Hawaii | hawaii.gov and ehawaii.gov |
| Idaho | idaho.gov |
| Illinois | il.gov and illinois.gov |
| Indiana | in.gov and indiana.gov |
| Iowa | ia.gov and iowa.gov |
| Kansas | ks.gov and kansas.gov |
| Kentucky | ky.gov and kentucky.gov |
| Louisiana | la.gov and louisiana.gov |
| Maine | maine.gov |
| Maryland | md.gov and maryland.gov |
| Massachusetts | ma.gov mass.gov and massachusetts.gov |
| Michigan | mi.gov and michigan.gov |
| Minnesota | mn.gov and minnesota.gov |
| Mississippi | ms.gov and mississippi.gov |
| Missouri | mo.gov and missouri.gov |
| Montana | mt.gov and montana.gov |
| Nebraska | ne.gov and nebraska.gov |
| Nevada | nv.gov and nevada.gov |
| New Hampshire | nh.gov |
| New Jersey | nj.gov and newjersey.gov |
| New Mexico | newmexico.gov |
| New York | ny.gov |
| North Carolina | nc.gov and northcarolina.gov |
| North Dakota | nd.gov and northdakota.gov |
| Ohio | ohio.gov |
| Oklahoma | ok.gov and oklahoma.gov |
| Oregon | oregon.gov |
| Pennsylvania | pa.gov and pennsylvania.gov |
| Puerto Rico | pr.gov |
| Rhode Island | ri.gov and rhodeisland.gov |
| South Carolina | sc.gov |
| South Dakota | sd.gov |
| Tennessee | tn.gov and tennessee.gov |
| Texas | texas.gov |
| Utah | utah.gov |
| Vermont | vt.gov and vermont.gov |
| Virgin Islands | vi.gov |
| Virginia | virginia.gov |
| Washington | wa.gov and washington.gov |
| West Virginia | wv.gov |
| Wisconsin | wi.gov and wisconsin.gov |
| Wyoming | wy.gov and wyoming.gov |
International equivalents
While the use of gov as a top-level domain is restricted to the United States, several other countries have second-level domains of the same name or similar semantics for governmental purposes, including:| Country or Territory | Domain | Notes |
| Afghanistan | gov.af | |
| Albania | gov.al | |
| Algeria | gov.dz | |
| Andorra | gov.ad | |
| Angola | gov.ao | |
| Anguilla | gov.ai | British overseas territory |
| Armenia | gov.am | |
| Aruba | gov.aw | Part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands |
| Argentina | gob.ar | |
| Austria | gv.at | |
| Australia | gov.au | |
| Åland | gov.ax | Part of Finland |
| Azerbaijan | gov.az | |
| Belarus | gov.by | |
| Belgium | gov.be | |
| Brazil | gov.br | |
| Chile | gob.cl | |
| Canada | gc.ca | All other provinces and territories of Canada: gov..ca where '' is the applicable province or territory's postal abbreviation |
| Quebec | gouv.qc.ca | Part of Canada |
| China | gov.cn | |
| Hong Kong | gov.hk | Part of China |
| Colombia | gov.co | |
| Croatia | gov.hr | |
| Cyprus | gov.cy | |
| Egypt | gov.eg | |
| Greece | gov.gr | |
| France | gouv.fr | |
| Hungary | gov.hu | |
| India | gov.in | |
| Indonesia | go.id | |
| Iran | gov.ir | |
| Iraq | gov.iq | |
| Kurdistan Regional Government | gov.krd | Part of Iraq |
| Ireland | gov.ie | |
| Israel | gov.il | |
| Italy | gov.it | |
| Japan | go.jp | |
| Kazakhstan | gov.kz | |
| Kenya | go.ke | |
| Latvia | gov.lv | |
| Lithuania | gov.lt | |
| Malaysia | gov.my | |
| Malta | gov.mt | |
| Mexico | gob.mx | |
| Myanmar | gov.mm | |
| Nepal | gov.np | |
| New Zealand | govt.nz | |
| Nigeria | gov.ng | |
| North Korea | gov.kp | |
| Paraguay | gov.py | |
| Peru | gob.pe | |
| Pakistan | gov.pk | |
| Philippines | gov.ph | |
| Poland | gov.pl | |
| Romania | gov.ro | |
| Russia | gov.ru | |
| Singapore | gov.sg | |
| Slovakia | gov.sk | |
| Slovenia | gov.si | |
| South Africa | gov.za | |
| South Korea | go.kr | |
| Spain | gob.es | |
| Sri Lanka | gov.lk | |
| Sweden | gov.se | |
| Switzerland | admin.ch | |
| Taiwan | gov.tw | |
| Trinidad and Tobago | gov.tt | |
| Turkey | gov.tr | |
| Ukraine | gov.ua | |
| United Kingdom | gov.uk | |
| Guernsey | gov.gg | British Crown dependency |
| Jersey | gov.je | British Crown dependency |
| Isle of Man | gov.im | British Crown dependency |
| Scotland | gov.scot | Part of the United Kingdom |
| Uruguay | gub.uy | |
| Venezuela | gob.ve | |
| Vietnam | gov.vn |