ICANN has determined that a change to the EPP extensions requirements in the ongoing round of the Registry Service Provider Evaluation Program (“RSP Evaluation Program”) is required. If you are pending to clear technical screening for a Main or PROXY RSP application, please review this message carefully, as it contains important information relevant to your application. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions that you may have.
As part of the upcoming change, Main and PROXY RSP applicants will not be required to register every Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) extension they intend to use in the IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry (RFC 7451). However, Main and PROXY RSP applicants will continue to be required to disclose all EPP extensions they intend to use and provide documentation through the RSP portal for any extension that is not registered in the IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry.
The proposed change applies to questions PROXY 4.10, PROXY 4.11, MAIN 5.10, and MAIN 5.11 of the RSP Handbook.
1. Why has ICANN determined this change is required?
The current RSP Handbook requires Main and PROXY RSP applicants to register all of the EPP extensions they intend to use in the IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry in accordance with RFC 7451.
In response to a request referred by the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council to the Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (“SPIRT”), ICANN determined that a Main or PROXY RSP who does not wish to register an EPP extension in the IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry may provide the EPP extension documentation directly to ICANN through the RSP portal. ICANN and SPIRT collaborated in developing a solution to implement the change.
More information on this issue and ICANN’s engagement with SPIRT can be found here.
2. What should Main and PROXY RSP applicants do now?
Submit your Main and PROXY RSP applications by the deadline, 12 August 2026.
2.1 For Main and PROXY RSP applicants that will use only EPP extensions registered with IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry:
Main and PROXY RSP applicants may continue to answer “Yes” to questions MAIN 5.11 or PROXY 4.11 and provide complete responses to questions MAIN 5.10 or PROXY 4.10.
Their Main and PROXY RSP applications will continue through the existing evaluation process.
2.2 For Main and PROXY RSP applicants that intend to use one or more EPP extensions not registered with IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry:
Main and PROXY RSP applicants may answer “No” to MAIN 5.11 or PROXY 4.11. Answering “No” will not, by itself, cause the evaluation of their applications to fail.
Main and PROXY RSP applicants answering “No” to MAIN 5.11 or PROXY 4.11 should still submit their applications by 12 August 2026.
3. What happens if a Main or PROXY RSP applicant answers “No” to questions MAIN 5.11 or PROXY 4.11?
The following questions will temporarily not be evaluated:
- MAIN 5.10 and MAIN 5.11, for a Main RSP applicant that answers “No” to MAIN 5.11; or
- PROXY 4.10 and PROXY 4.11, for a PROXY RSP applicant that answers “No” to PROXY 4.11.
Technical screening evaluation for Main and PROXY RSP applications will continue for all other unaffected portions of the applications and relevant Clarifying Questions (if required) may continue to be issued.
Once the Main or PROXY RSP applicant passes technical screening evaluation for all unaffected questions, it will be included in the publicly available List of Evaluated RSPs. As part of that inclusion, there will be a note indicating that completion of technical screening evaluation is pending for MAIN 5.10, MAIN 5.11, PROXY 4.10, and PROXY 4.11 until the permanent changes are implemented (as described in question 4).
The Main and PROXY RSPs will become selectable in the TLD Application Management System (TAMS) after both technical screening and technical testing are cleared, consistent with the current process.
4. What permanent changes will be implemented?
ICANN is in the planning phase for implementing the following permanent changes to the RSP Evaluation Program documentation, system, and business processes.
With respect to the affected questions in the RSP Handbook, ICANN plans to:
- remove questions MAIN 5.11 and PROXY 4.11;
- revise MAIN 5.10 and PROXY 4.10 to:
- remove attestation requirements; and
- require uploading documentation for any EPP extension that is not registered in the IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry.
Preliminary proposed revisions to questions MAIN 5.10 and PROXY 4.10 are set out below:
Provide a list of all EPP extensions to be used. For EPP extensions not registered in the IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry pursuant to RFC 7451 (“Extension Registry for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol”) or its successors, please upload documentation in Internet-Draft format following the guidelines in RFC 3735.
- The answer to this question will be published.
- Answer format: free text of no more than 4,000 characters.
- This answer may include attachments in PNG, JPG, or PDF format.
Corresponding changes will also be made to the RSP Portal, the RSP Application Publication System, Registry System Testing 2.0, and the evaluation criteria.
ICANN plans to provide a more precise estimate for completing these permanent changes after the gTLD evaluation fee payment deadline.
All RSP Evaluation Program participants will be notified once the implementation of permanent changes are completed.
Note: While awaiting for the permanent changes to be implemented, RSP applicants may use the OT&E Environment of RST 2.0 to test their systems and prepare for technical testing.
5. What will Main and PROXY RSP applicants that answered “No” to questions MAIN 5.11 or PROXY 4.11 need to do after the permanent changes are implemented?
Once the implementation of permanent changes are completed, Main and PROXY RSP applicants whose technical screening evaluation is pending for questions MAIN 5.10, MAIN 5.11, PROXY 4.10, and PROXY 4.11 (see question 3 above) will need to upload documentation for any EPP extension not registered in the IANA Extensions for the EPP Registry through the RSP portal. The EPP extensions documentation to be uploaded through the RSP portal must use Internet-Draft format following the guidelines in RFC 3735.
Once the required information has been submitted, the technical screening evaluation of the affected questions will resume.
6. What does this mean for evaluated Main and PROXY RSPs?
The status of evaluated Main and PROXY RSP will not be affected, and no action is required related to this change at this time.