GoDaddy Refunds ICANN Fee Overpayments

Domain registrar GoDaddy is refunding domain name registration and renewal fees due to a change in ICANN fees.

ICANN-accredited domain registrars pay a number of fees to ICANN. Most of these are fixed fees that very only with sizable magnitudes of scale at registrars (very modest registrars pay less than very sizable ones). Still, one fee is directly tied to the number of domains under management. This fee is often referred to as the “ICANN fee” or “ICANN tax”.

When ICANN imposed this fee some registrars, counting GoDaddy, decided to break out the fee from its normal registration price. GoDaddy right now charges $8.95 for .com domains but this doesn’t include the fee.

ICANN recently decided to retroactively reduce the per-domain fee from $.25 USD to $.22 effective July 1, 2006. As a result, GoDaddy is crediting clients’ accounts for 3 cents per domain registered or renewed during this period. The credit will be applied to the next purchase and expires in 12 months.

The credit won’t amount to much (regarding $30 for a 1,000 domain portfolio). But in a year in which domain registration prices will likely increase, every penny counts.

Above: e-mail notice from GoDaddy regarding fee reimbursement.