How to register a .com.gh domain in Ghana: cost and steps

Ghana's country code, .gh, dates from 1995. IANA, which keeps the root list of internet domains, still names Network Computer Systems Limited of East Legon as the .gh manager, with registration services at nic.gh, in a record last updated in December 2023. The registry lists three official registrars: Ghana Dot Com, NITA for .gov.gh and the Ghana Armed Forces for .mil.gh.

Control of .gh is in dispute. The government's Ghana Domain Name Registry (GDNR) says it will run .gh once the domain is delegated to it, and in January 2026 the Minister for Communications said the state must own it, in remarks reported by GBC. A draft Ghana Domain Name Registry Bill would require every business with an official website to hold an active .gh domain within six months.

That bill is not law. Its public consultation closed in November 2025, and at the time of writing (October 2026) it does not appear on Parliament's list of bills. The ministry has also said it is talking to the Registrar of Companies about giving new businesses a .com.gh name when they register; so far that is a plan with no date. Register under the system that works today.

A .com.gh tells visitors and search engines that you are a Ghanaian business. Google's guidance says country-code domains give users and search engines a strong signal that a site is meant for a certain country, and lists the trade-offs: they can cost more, and some come with strict requirements.

A .com costs less and has no Ghana paperwork rules. At the time of writing, Ghanaian hosts list a .com at GHS 190 to 260 for the first year, against GHS 590.65 a year for a .com.gh at Ghana Dot Com. If you have your ORC papers and the budget, a .com.gh ties your name to Ghana. If not, start with a .com in your business's name and add the .com.gh later, pointing both at the same site.

The registry's policy sets three conditions. The registrant and the admin contact must be legal entities registered in Ghana, the admin contact or its legal representative must live in Ghana, and you must supply valid company registration documents. The policy makes one exception, .idi.gh, a level for individuals, which asks for national identification instead.

Names follow simple rules: the letters a to z, the numbers 0 to 9 and hyphens only, with no accented characters, and no names of one or two characters except by auction. Place names such as accra.com.gh need official authorisation.

The policy lists eight second levels: .com.gh for commercial entities, .org.gh, .net.gh, .biz.gh and .idi.gh, plus closed levels for schools (.edu.gh), government (.gov.gh) and the military (.mil.gh) that need membership of those communities. Ghana Dot Com's online form offers .com.gh, .org.gh, .edu.gh and .biz.gh. Names straight under .gh, such as yourshop.gh, are not on sale: Gandi, a European registrar, says the registry has suspended them.

Ghana Dot Com charges GHS 590.65 a year for registration and renewal at the time of writing, and says registering for several years may bring a discount. Names can be registered for 1 to 10 years. The registry itself publishes no price list, and Ghana Dot Com does not say whether its price includes VAT.

Resellers charge more, and none of them is on the registry's list of registrars. Budget for the renewal, the price you pay every year after the first: on a .com, it is higher than the first-year price at some hosts.

Neither the registry nor Ghana Dot Com publishes a turnaround time, and 101domain, an overseas reseller, quotes two weeks, so start well before your launch date. The steps with Ghana Dot Com at the time of writing (October 2026):

The registry's policy says that when your application succeeds, you become the registrant. Make sure that is your business, with your own email address on the admin contact, not a developer's or an agency's. Fixing the owner later costs money: Gandi charges £318 for an owner change, and 101domain US$32 for an ownership update.

.gh records are public. Lookups we ran in October 2026 on .gh names, including nic.gh and ghana.com.gh, showed the registrant, admin and technical contacts' names, emails and phone numbers in plain text. Use a business email and a business phone for every contact.

Renew on time. Under the registry's current life-cycle rules, an expired name enters a 60-day renewal grace period, the first 30 days without penalty and then suspended. A 28-day redemption period with a restoration fee follows, then up to 14 days pending delete, after which anyone can register the name. A name also cannot move to another registrar unless it has been renewed. Put the renewal date in two calendars.

Shopify does not sell .gh domains, so you buy the .com.gh from the registrar and connect it. Shopify's manual connection points the A record at 23.227.38.65, the AAAA record at 2620:0127:f00f:5:: and the www CNAME record at shops.myshopify.com, and Shopify says the domain can take up to 48 hours to go live. You keep paying for and renewing the domain at your registrar.

For WordPress or WooCommerce, your host gives you the nameservers to use, so ask for them before you fill in Ghana Dot Com's form. Our guide 'How much does an online store cost in Ghana?' compares hosting and domain costs, and 'Shopify vs WooCommerce in Ghana' helps you pick a platform.

Maxme's Store Launch puts your store live on your own domain, registered in your business's name, as part of a GHS 5,000 (about US$430) WooCommerce or GHS 6,000 (about US$517) Shopify build, one-off and excluding VAT; see our pricing page. If you already have a site, Maxme's free Ads & Store Audit reviews it and sends a short video on WhatsApp within 2 working days, with the three fixes that matter most.