Someone registered your business name as a domain: your options (and what UDRP actually costs)

Someone registered your business name as a domain, and you want to know what you can actually do about it. You have four options, roughly: reach out and buy it from the current owner; file a UDRP complaint — a fast administrative process — if the registration is genuine cybersquatting and your trademark rights predate it; go to court, which in the US means the ACPA, if you want damages and not just the domain; or, if the name sits on a country-code domain like .eu, .de, or .co.uk, use that registry’s own process — because the UDRP does not apply there at all. Which route fits depends less on how you feel about the name and more on the facts: when they registered, what they’re doing with the domain, and what rights you actually hold. This guide walks through each option with real numbers where they exist.

This is general information, not legal advice — if you’re facing a real dispute, talk to a trademark or domain attorney in the relevant jurisdiction before you act.

Is it cybersquatting, or a legitimate collision?

Before you spend a dollar, figure out which situation you’re in. Not every unwelcome registration is an attack. Names collide constantly: another business may genuinely trade under the same word in a different market, or may have registered the domain years before your company existed. That’s a collision, not cybersquatting — and it calls for the calm playbook in what to do when the domain you want is taken, not a legal filing.

Cybersquatting looks different: a parked page covered in ads, an immediate offer to sell at a startling price, a portfolio of lookalike registrations, no plausible use of the name beyond its resemblance to yours. Those patterns are what dispute processes were built for.

Two practical notes before you investigate. First, you usually can’t see who owns the domain: since GDPR, public WHOIS records are redacted, so contact generally has to go through the registrar’s relay channel — our guide to GDPR and WHOIS privacy explains how that works. Second, check that you actually have enforceable rights. A company registration or a domain of your own is not a trademark; trademark basics before you register covers what counts. Crucially, your rights generally need to predate their registration — a point that decides more disputes than any other, and one we’ll return to. (If UDRP, registrar, or ccTLD are new terms, the domain glossary defines them in plain language.)

What does a UDRP actually cost — and what can it get you?

The headline numbers are lower than most founders expect. The UDRP — the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy — is the standard administrative route for gTLDs like .com, administered by ICANN-approved providers, chiefly WIPO and the Forum. At WIPO, the busiest venue, the filing fee for a dispute covering one to five domains is USD 1,500 with a single panelist, or USD 4,000 if you request a three-member panel. That fee doesn’t include your own attorney’s time, if you use one — most complainants do. A standard case takes about two months from filing to decision, and WIPO now also offers an expedited single-panelist track at a flat USD 4,000 that aims to decide within roughly a month.

The catch is what you have to prove. A complainant must establish all three of the following: the domain is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark you have rights in; the registrant has no rights or legitimate interests in it; and the domain was registered and is being used in bad faith. Two out of three loses. This is why the dating question above matters so much — if they registered before your mark existed, bad-faith registration is close to impossible to show.

And be clear about the remedy: a UDRP panel can order the domain transferred to you or canceled — nothing else. No damages, no costs, no ruling on wider infringement. A decision also doesn’t foreclose going to court later. If you win, you get the domain; if money is the point, you’re in the wrong forum.

What if you want damages, not just the domain?

Then you’re going to court. In the US, the route is the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), which — unlike the UDRP — lets a federal court order the domain transferred and award statutory damages of USD 1,000 to 100,000 per domain, with attorneys’ fees on top in some cases. The trade-off is everything you’d expect from federal litigation: it’s slower and considerably more expensive than a UDRP, so it tends to make sense only where the harm is real and provable, not merely irritating.

At the other end of the spectrum sits a narrower cousin, the URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension), available for new gTLDs like .app or .xyz. It costs a few hundred dollars — far less than a UDRP — and typically resolves in a few weeks, but the remedy is suspension only: the domain gets frozen with a notice page, and it never transfers to you. Useful for shutting down a clear-cut squat quickly; useless if you actually want the name.

What if it’s a .eu domain?

Then none of the above applies — .eu has its own process. Disputes over .eu domains go through an ADR mechanism with its own rules under EU Regulation 2019/517, historically administered by the Czech Arbitration Court and, since 2017, also by WIPO. It’s a separate system from the UDRP, but the remedies rhyme: the panel can order revocation of the domain or transfer to you (transfer requires that you meet .eu eligibility criteria yourself), and — as with UDRP — no damages.

The pricing is unusually founder-friendly right now. The standard single-panelist fee is EUR 1,300, but as of 2026 EURid is subsidizing filings down to EUR 700 — a time-limited discount running through the end of 2026, so check the current fee schedule before budgeting. Timelines run roughly two to three months. Your rights basis will often be an EU trademark, and it’s worth confirming exactly what you hold before filing — how to check an EU trademark walks through the EUIPO search.

What if it’s a national domain like .de or .co.uk?

Then check that country’s registry first, because the UDRP almost certainly doesn’t reach it. The UDRP is a contractual term written into every generic top-level domain registration — .com, .net, .org, and the newer extensions. Country-code domains belong to national registries, and each one writes its own policy. A handful have voluntarily adopted the UDRP more or less verbatim — .tv, .ws, .cc, .ai, .nu and .la among them — and for those, everything in the UDRP section above applies unchanged. Most of Europe runs something of its own, with different standards, different remedies, and in one important case no dispute procedure at all.

Domain	Where a dispute actually goes	Can it hand you the domain?
.com, .net, .org, new gTLDs	UDRP, via WIPO or another ICANN-approved provider	Yes — transfer or cancellation
.uk	Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service — filed via WIPO since July 2026	Yes — transfer, suspension or cancellation
.de	No dispute procedure exists — the German courts	No — see below
.eu	ADR under Regulation 2019/517	Yes — transfer (if you qualify) or revocation
.fr	AFNIC’s SYRELI or PARL EXPERT	Yes — transfer or cancellation
.nl	SIDN’s procedure, administered by WIPO	Transfer only — cancellation isn’t available
.it	Reassignment via an accredited provider	Transfer only — cancellation isn’t available
.es	The Spanish Chamber of Commerce’s procedure	Yes — transfer or cancellation
.dk, .se, .no	National complaints boards	Yes

The .de trap is the one worth knowing before you spend anything. DENIC, the German registry, runs no arbitration or adjudication of any kind. What it offers is a DISPUTE entry, and it is widely misunderstood: in DENIC’s own words, it “does not decide on the legality of the claim, but only manages the process.” A DISPUTE entry blocks the domain from being transferred to anyone else and holds for a year, renewable while you litigate. If the current holder lets it lapse during that period, it passes to you — but that is an allocation rule, not a ruling in your favour. It never awards you the domain on the merits. Winning a .de means a German lawsuit, on your own time and at your own cost, with the DISPUTE entry acting only as a freeze so the domain can’t be sold out from under you while the case runs. Anyone who tells you to “file a dispute with DENIC” and expect the name is describing something that doesn’t exist.

Nominet’s process is the friendliest of the group, and it’s genuinely different from the UDRP. Where the UDRP demands bad faith in both registration and use, Nominet’s “Abusive Registration” standard is satisfied by unfair registration or unfair use — a materially lower bar if someone registered a name innocently and later turned it against you. It also offers free informal mediation before anyone pays a fee — though not in every case: if the respondent never files a response at all, mediation is skipped and you can ask for a summary decision for £200. A full expert decision, where they do respond, costs £750, with an appeal at £3,000, and a fully contested case runs roughly eight to twelve weeks. One recent change worth knowing, because most guides still have it wrong: since 7 July 2026 WIPO administers the DRS on Nominet’s behalf, and new complaints are filed through WIPO rather than Nominet. The policy, the experts and the fees are unchanged — only the filing venue moved.

Costs vary far more than the UDRP’s flat fees would lead you to expect. France offers two routes at very different prices: SYRELI, decided by AFNIC’s own in-house jurists, costs €250 excluding VAT, while PARL EXPERT puts the case to an independent expert vetted jointly with WIPO for roughly €1,500 — practitioners generally reach for the second in higher-value or genuinely contested disputes. Spain’s procedure runs around €1,400 plus VAT and covers up to three domains in one filing. Fee schedules move, so treat every figure here as a starting point to check rather than a quote.

One thing is constant across every mechanism in that table, and it’s the part most readers need to hear. All of them — UDRP, URS, Nominet’s DRS, the .eu ADR, SYRELI, and every national board listed — require the complainant to hold a pre-existing right: a trademark, a registered trade name, a protected personal or company name. None of them exists to settle who wanted a name more. If your situation is “I planned to use this name and somebody else registered it first,” and you hold no mark and no established goodwill, there is no forum in this article that will help you. Your options are to negotiate a purchase or to choose a different name — and knowing that now is worth more than finding it out after a filing fee.

When is buying it simply the smarter move?

Whenever you probably can’t win — and sometimes even when you could. If the registrant genuinely predates your trademark, or has a real legitimate interest — an actual business under the name, descriptive use, a long-standing project — a UDRP complaint will usually fail, and filing one anyway carries a specific risk: a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, a panel’s on-the-record declaration that your complaint was brought in bad faith. RDNH findings are rare — on the order of 1% of decisions — and carry no fine, but they’re public and they follow your brand around.

In those cases, a negotiated purchase isn’t the consolation prize; it’s the only route — and even in winnable cases it’s often cheaper once filing fees, counsel time, and months of waiting are counted honestly. The full playbook — finding a contact through the redacted WHOIS, using brokers, escrow, setting a walk-away number — is in how to buy a taken domain. One soft caution: approach deliberately. A direct offer can signal how much you want the name, and written statements have a way of resurfacing if a dispute follows later.

And if your case is strong, escalation usually starts with a measured letter through the registrar’s relay rather than a filing. It’s worth knowing how that lands on the other side of the table — what to do when you receive a cease-and-desist over your domain is that letter from the recipient’s chair, and reading it will make yours better.

So which option do you pick?

Match the route to the facts, not the frustration. Clear cybersquatting and rights that predate theirs: UDRP, about two months and USD 1,500 in filing fees. Real, provable damage in the US: ACPA. A .eu name: the ADR route, currently discounted. Any other country-code domain: that registry’s own process, which may be cheaper than a UDRP, may be limited to a transfer, and — if it’s a .de — may not exist at all. A registrant who was simply there first, or a name you hold no rights in: negotiate, or let it go. For anything with real money or a launched brand on the line, an hour with a domain attorney before you file is the cheapest insurance in this entire article.

And sometimes the honest answer is that the name isn’t worth the fight. If you’re still early enough to sidestep the whole dispute, Domain Yoga generates around 250 availability-checked, brandability-ranked name ideas in seconds — plenty of which nobody has registered yet.