Is .ca trustee/proxy service actually allowed? (11.Viewing)

I got approached by someone overseas asking if I could hold a .ca domain for them as a "trustee", so it works in a way that they'd pay me to be listed as the WHOIS registrant while they run the show.

I turned it down, but curious if anyone here has looked into this closely.

From what I can tell, CIRA explicitly bans this under Section 4.1(g) of the Registrant Agreement; you can't register or hold a domain on behalf of a third party, for money or otherwise, unless they independently qualify under the Canadian Presence Requirements or are an actual affiliate of yours (think parent/subsidiary, not just a paid contract). A pure payment-for-service arrangement with no real ownership or governance relationship doesn't cut it.

https://www.cira.ca/uploads/2025/08/Registrant-Agreement-Version-2.3-August-1-2025.pdf



And the consequences may be domain cancellation, up to a 3-year ban on new .ca registrations, and potential termination of your registrant agreement altogether. A shell company existing only to hold a domain on their behalf probably won't survive an RIV audit either.

Anyone dealt with similar requests? Am I reading the policy right?

Sorry @MapleDots ! I should have posted it under the "CIRA & Legal" gategory!

Welcome aboard, it's a great opening post.

One could argue that in the spirit of WHOIS one should technically not even be able to obscure ones registration data but the spam from India and Bangladesh is so massive that without privacy it's almost unbearable.

I talked about that here a bit: Registered a .US and wow... just wow...

I know it's a bit different from your question but the whole Whois thing is a mixed bag at best.

PS. I remember there is a service that does what you are asking, we talked about it years back and I'll hunt for it.

MapleDots said:

PS. I remember there is a service that does what you are asking, we talked about it years back and I'll hunt for it.

Click to expand...

According to CIRA this type of service can't exist. A while back Peter Maxymych of emall.ca fame has explored this in detail has he wanted to open up the .CA resale market for his domains. He hired law-firms to explore ways to do this. The last venue he explored was using a Trust setup, but I remember him saying that when CIRA caught wind of those plans, they changed their rules.

Most foreign SEO domainers I know hold their domains in a Canadian Corporation.