.ch WHOIS Lookup
.ch is the country-code extension of Switzerland, administered by SWITCH. The registry does not answer WHOIS queries, and this page explains why.
- 1.494 extensions
- IANA 1601 ICANN accredited
- 2 protocols — RDAP and WHOIS
Your IP address 216.73.216.31
.ch WHOIS Lookup: The Answer Policy of SWITCH
.ch is Switzerland's country code extension, delegated into the root zone on 20 May 1987 and operated by SWITCH, the country's education and research network. The IANA record lists a WHOIS server, yet in our measurement on 12 August 2026 that server returned no registration data at all. The entire reply was one line: requests from this client are not permitted, with the registry's own web interface given as the address for queries.
The consequence is clear: on port 43 you cannot read a creation date, a holder, a registrar or a name server for .ch, because no field comes back. IANA's RDAP bootstrap registry defines no endpoint for .ch either. Registration data for this extension is therefore closed on both standard machine-readable channels. The refusal does not mean the server is down; the server is running and turns the request away deliberately.
Two things never close. First, the DNS records of an address are public: the DNS tab on the result screen shows name servers, A and MX records without asking the registry at all. Second, the DS record in the root was present in our measurement, so the .ch zone is signed with DNSSEC. To compare neighbouring markets, the .at WHOIS lookup and .de WHOIS lookup pages show what the measurement returned there.
About the .ch extension
- Extension
- .ch
- WHOIS server
- whois.nic.ch
- RDAP endpoint
- This extension has no RDAP endpoint in the IANA bootstrap registry.
- Registry
- SWITCH — the Swiss education and research network
- Delegated
- 20 May 1987
- Measured result
- 12 August 2026: a one-line refusal, zero registration fields
- RDAP
- IANA's bootstrap registry defines no endpoint for .ch
- Still open
- DNS records and the DS record in the root can be read independently
WHOIS FAQ
Why does a .ch WHOIS lookup return no registration data?
Because the registry does not open port 43 queries to general clients. In our 12 August 2026 measurement the server answered with a single line: requests from this client are not permitted, and its own web interface was named as the address for queries. Not one registration field was present in the reply. This is not a connection error or a temporary outage but a standing access decision.
Does a refusal mean the .ch name is available?
It does not, and the distinction matters. The server says nothing about whether the name is registered; it only says it will not answer the request. Tools that fail to separate the two can present a registered .ch address as free. If you need certainty about the state of a .ch name, the registry's own web interface — named in the refusal itself — is the only reliable source.
Can .ch registration data be queried over RDAP?
No. IANA's RDAP bootstrap registry defines no endpoint for .ch, which our measurement confirmed. Since 28 January 2025 RDAP has been the definitive source of registration data for generic extensions, but country code extensions sit outside that arrangement and each country decides for itself. So .ch registration data stays closed to automated access on both the WHOIS and the RDAP side.
How can the registration data of a .ch address be reached?
The refusal answers that question itself: it names the registry's own web-based interface as the address for queries. The data is not secret, then — its channel is limited, and access runs through a browser as a human user. For automated systems the practical consequence is direct: building a pipeline that harvests registration data for .ch addresses does not fit the extension's access rules.
With WHOIS closed, what can still be learned about a .ch address?
Everything on the technical side, because DNS is public. The DNS tab on the result screen resolves and displays the name server records, the A and AAAA addresses, and the MX and TXT records without asking the registry. That tells you where an address is hosted, who carries its mail and whether DNSSEC is switched on. What it cannot tell you is the identity of the holder.
Is the .ch zone signed with DNSSEC?
It is. A DS record for .ch is present in the root zone, and we verified it in the 12 August 2026 measurement. That is a fact about the extension and holds regardless of WHOIS access; a signed zone does not make the addresses under it signed. The DNSSEC status of an individual address can be seen through a DNS query, which the DNS tab on the result screen performs.