Free domains:
is there anything left?
Most articles on this subject are three years out of date. Neither of the two best-known sources of free domains still works the way they describe — here is exactly what changed.
The genuinely free domain is effectively finished. What remains is "no extra cost".
Freenom — which handed out .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf and .gq with fees waived — halted new registrations in March 2023, days after Meta sued it for ignoring phishing abuse complaints. Following a February 2024 settlement it sells three of those extensions again, but from around EUR 8.22 a year. It is not free any more.
And Google does not give away domains, nor did it ever. It sold Google Domains outright to Squarespace in June 2023, with roughly 10 million domains migrated. The service is not Google's at all any more.
The honest route that remains: a domain included free for the first year with a hosting plan. You need the hosting regardless, so the domain genuinely costs you nothing extra — which is different from "free".
Sources: Krebs on Security and CircleID on Freenom; 9to5Google on the Google Domains sale. Reviewed 12 August 2026.
What exactly happened to Freenom?
Freenom was a Dutch registrar operating five country-code domains: .cf (Central African Republic), .ga (Gabon), .gq (Equatorial Guinea), .ml (Mali) and .tk (Tokelau) — waiving the registration fee on all of them.
On 3 March 2023 Meta sued it in a Northern California court, alleging cybersquatting and trademark infringement, and claiming it ignored abuse complaints about phishing sites while monetising their traffic. Within days it stopped new registrations entirely.
The number of phishing sites tied to it fell sharply in the months around the case — which is worth sitting with for a moment. The "free" domain was free because its business model did not depend on your fee.
The case settled in February 2024 on confidential terms. As of July 2026 Freenom sells .tk, .cf and .gq again — for money. The one thing that distinguished it is gone.
Why was a "free" domain a bad idea anyway?
Even before it stopped, we would not have recommended these domains. The reasons have nothing to do with price:
- An earned bad reputation — extensions associated with phishing and spam for years, which some mail filters and networks treat with suspicion by default.
- You did not really own it — the terms allowed the domain to be reclaimed or suspended, so you could lose your address after building on it.
- You cannot run a business on it — nobody puts business email or a store on an extension their customers know is free.
- SEO — the extension itself is not a penalty, but links and trust are hard to build on an address widely used for fraud.
And the financial difference was small from the outset: a real domain for less than two cups of coffee a year, against all of that risk. It was never a fair trade.
What is genuinely still free?
One option is truly free, and it is useful in exactly one situation:
A free subdomain — your name inside another platform's domain, such as yourname.pages.dev on Cloudflare Pages or yourname.github.io on GitHub Pages. That is free, permanent, and has no time limit.
But it is not yours: it does not move with you, you cannot sell it, and if you change platform you lose the address. So it is excellent for learning, experimenting and side projects, and wrong for anything you are building a reputation on or putting business email behind. We cover those platforms in our free hosting guide.
Is there a lifetime free domain?
No, and this is not a detail of any particular offer — it is how the system works. Domains are leased through annual renewal, not owned. So no domain is lifetime, free or paid. Anyone offering one is either renaming a long subscription or selling something they have no right to sell.
What is the cheapest honest way to get your domain?
Bundled with hosting. You need hosting to run the site regardless, and most respectable plans include the domain free for the first year — so the marginal cost at the start really is zero.
Of the plans we tested, Hostinger Premium suits most people: $143.52 for four full years, with a free first-year domain and SSL. The full arithmetic — and the renewal price — is in our hosting comparison.
Be clear with yourself on one point: "free" means the first year. After that you pay an annual renewal, as you would anywhere. Details in our domain cost guide.
Some links on this page are affiliate links — they cost you nothing extra, and they do not affect how we rank recommendations. Full disclosure.
Free domain questions.
Does Freenom still give away free domains?
No. Freenom used to offer .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf and .gq with fees waived, but it halted new registrations in March 2023, days after Meta sued it for ignoring phishing abuse complaints. Following a February 2024 settlement it sells .tk, .cf and .gq again — but from around EUR 8.22 a year. The free model is over.
Does Google give away a free domain?
No, and it never did. Google sold Google Domains outright to Squarespace in June 2023 and roughly 10 million domains were migrated, so the service is no longer Google's at all. Any result promising a "free domain from Google" is out of date or wrong.
Is there a lifetime free domain?
No. Domains are leased through annual renewal rather than owned, so no domain is lifetime — free or paid. Anyone offering one is renaming a long subscription or selling what they do not own.
What is the cheapest honest way to get a domain?
A hosting plan that includes the domain free for the first year. You need hosting anyway, and the Hostinger Premium plan costs $143.52 for four years including the first-year domain and SSL.
What about free subdomains?
A free subdomain — your name inside another platform's domain — is genuinely free and permanent, but it is not yours and it does not move with you. Fine for learning, wrong for a project you are building a reputation on.
If your site is static files, pay nothing at all.
A free subdomain on a static hosting platform is perfectly adequate for a personal project or an experiment — and the hosting itself is free and permanent, within published limits.