.mil

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.mil

Introduced 1985

TLD type Sponsored top-level domain

Status Active

Registry Defense Information Systems Agency

Sponsor DoD Network Information Center

Intended use Military entities

Actual use Agencies, services and divisions of the United States Department of Defense

Registration restrictions Tightly restricted to eligible agencies

Structure Divisions of particular services usually have third and higher level subdomains, such as within army.mil for United States Army sites.

Documents RFC 920; RFC 1591

Dispute policies None

Website nic.mil

.mil (military) is the sponsored top-level domain for the United States Department of Defense and its subsidiary organizations. It was one of the first top-level domains, created in January 1985.

The United States is the only country that has a top-level domain for its military. Other countries often use second-level domains for this purpose, e.g., .mod.uk for the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence.

Although the United States military has its own top-level domain, it still uses .com domains for some of its recruitment sites, such as goarmy.com. Also, the military uses .edu domains for its service academies: the United States Military Academy, United States Coast Guard Academy, United States Naval Academy, and the United States Air Force Academy can all be reached using either an .edu or a .mil domain. The official athletic program sites of the three academies that are members of NCAA Division I (Army, Navy, Air Force) use .com domains.

The Department of Defense is, however, also using some "vanity domains" within .mil in recent times, such as americasupportsyou.mil and norad.mil.