French Accented Characters in .CA Domain Names: Rules, Punycode and Email

Can a .CA Domain Name Contain French Accents?

Yes. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) allows 16 French accented letters and ligatures in .CA domain names. These are called internationalized domain names, or IDNs. You don't need to strip the accents out of a French word simply because it's going into a web address.

Take a fictional Montréal café called Café du Nord. In French, the accent belongs in the name. I'd want its website address to respect that spelling, but I'd also want customers who type without accents to reach the right place. Registering the accented version can help with the first part. How you handle the other spelling is a separate decision.

I've linked each figure to its original source. They're three different measurements, not three estimates of how many people in Québec use accented domains or email addresses.

When Did Canada Start Allowing French Accents in .CA Domains?

The idea took shape in 2012. CIRA consulted domain owners and registrars, then published its plan for French-language .CA names in June 2012. The goal was straightforward: people should be able to register Canadian web addresses with the spelling they use in French.

Public registration arrived in January 2013. CIRA's January 14, 2013 launch announcement confirmed that French-accented .CA names were available to register. You'll sometimes see 2012 given as the introduction year on CIRA's information pages. I think it's clearer to separate the 2012 policy work from the 2013 public launch.

For a French-speaking business in Québec, that change meant a name like café.ca could be registered with its proper accent rather than forcing the unaccented spelling. The same policy also brought in rules for reserving equivalent versions of a domain, which is where things get interesting.

Complete List of 16 French Characters Allowed in .CA Domains

CIRA's list is shorter than the full range of accented letters you might see in French or other European languages. I've put all 16 in the table below, with an everyday French example for each one. The examples are words only; I'm not suggesting that matching .CA domains are available to register.

Use Copy to place a character on your clipboard.

Not every accented letter will work. Characters such as ñ, ö, ä and á are not on CIRA's approved list. You can still use ordinary a–z letters, digits and hyphens, but a hyphen cannot start or end the name. The domain label also has to meet the two-to-63-character limit after Punycode encoding. That's an easy detail to miss if your chosen name has several accented letters.

I would check the final spelling against CIRA's General Registration Rules before buying it. One other detail: capitalization does not give you a separate domain. CAFÉ.ca and café.ca refer to the same name.

How Punycode Converts a French Domain into a DNS Address

This is the technical part that sounds more complicated than it needs to be. You can type façon.ca into a compatible browser, but the domain system also uses an ASCII version that contains no accented letters. The readable version is the U-label. The encoded version is the A-label, produced using Punycode. Depending on the browser and its security checks, you may see either version in the address bar.

You can check façon.ca against the example in CIRA's own IDN guide. Likewise, café.ca becomes xn--caf-dma.ca. I want to stress that the readable and encoded spellings are the same domain. Punycode doesn't create a second registration or reserve another name.

Where it becomes useful is when you're setting up hosting. A DNS editor, email service or SSL certificate form may ask for the xn-- version even though visitors use the accented address. I prefer converting the name first instead of trying to work out the encoding by hand.

Accented and Unaccented .CA Domains: CIRA's Reserved-Variant Rules

Here's a .CA rule I think more business owners should know about. When you register a domain, CIRA reserves its eligible accented and unaccented spellings for you as an administrative bundle. Someone else cannot simply register an equivalent spelling in that bundle. You don't have to buy every version to keep that reservation.

CIRA uses its own name to show how quickly these versions multiply. Its published example lists 18 name forms associated with cira.ca, including cirâ.ca, cîra.ca and çira.ca. I wouldn't try to register every variation. I'd secure the spellings customers are most likely to type or recognize.

What if you transfer the domain to another registrar?

This is where the bundle rules can catch someone off guard. If you've registered both cafe.ca and café.ca, you can't move just one of them to a different registrar. CIRA requires every registered variant in the bundle to transfer together, with a separate transfer request for each domain. The transfers remain pending until the full group has moved. If that doesn't happen within five days, CIRA says the transfer will be cancelled.

My advice is to make a list of the variants you've actually registered before changing registrars. Reserved but unregistered spellings don't need individual transfer requests. And remember, accented domains still have to meet CIRA's Canadian Presence Requirements.

Should a Quebec Business Use an Accented .CA Domain?

If I were setting up a French-language business website in Québec, I'd want the domain to look right on a sign, on a business card and in search results. But I'd also think about the customer typing it into a form or saying it over the phone. Here's where I see the benefits and the trade-offs.

For an established business already using an unaccented domain, I would usually keep the familiar address working and consider registering the accented spelling as a redirect. A new business might prefer the accented version from day one. Either way, I'd test both with real users and avoid assuming that accents, on their own, offer an SEO boost.

How Many French-Accented .CA Domains Are Registered?

I looked for a Canadian figure showing how many registered .CA names actually contain French accents. I couldn't find a published count that separates them from ordinary .CA domains. CIRA's FY2026 annual report puts the total at 3,539,550 .CA domains under management, but it doesn't identify how many of those are accented names. I don't want to turn that overall number into an IDN estimate.

France does publish a comparable type of figure. Its registry operator, Afnic, counted 32,584 internationalized .FR names (around 0.8%) at the end of 2025 in The .FR in 2025. It's interesting context, but it's still a French registry statistic. I wouldn't use it to estimate how many accented .CA domains exist in Québec.

There's another wrinkle: registering a domain doesn't tell us whether anyone uses it for a website or email. Until CIRA publishes an accented-domain breakdown, I think it's better to be clear about what we know and what we don't.

Are French Accented Email Addresses Common in Quebec?

This is a question I wanted to answer with a Québec-specific number. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a representative public survey showing how many people or businesses here actually use accented email addresses. French accents are common in names and branding, but that doesn't mean people put those accents into their email addresses. I wouldn't guess at a percentage.

What I can explain is why some accented addresses work more reliably than others. The part after the @ sign is not the same technical problem as the part before it. Here are three examples:

What does the research show about compatibility?

ICANN's 2026 Universal Acceptance evaluations found EAI support on about 29% of the mail-server infrastructure it surveyed, compared with about 20% in 2022. That's progress, but there's a big limitation: the survey covers servers associated with generic top-level domains. It does not measure Québec addresses, .CA mailboxes, or how many people actually use accented email names. Microsoft's EAI documentation also distinguishes between accepting an internationalized address and offering internationalized mailboxes.

For a business contact address, I'd lean toward something widely supported like elise@cafe.ca, at least until the accented option has been tested thoroughly. You can still show the proper name, Élise Tremblay, in the sender display name and on the contact page. The email address itself doesn't have to carry every accent to look professional in French.

.CA or .QUEBEC for a French-Language Domain?

If you're building a French-language website, you might also be choosing between .ca and .quebec. They aren't interchangeable. CIRA runs .CA and applies Canadian Presence Requirements. PointQuébec operates .QUEBEC under its own rules, including a connection or reasonable interest in the Québec community.

PointQuébec's registration policy allows the same 16 French characters, but it has its own registration conditions. I wouldn't assume the .CA reserved-variant rules carry over to .QUEBEC just because both extensions accept accents.

I'd choose based on the audience and the name people already know. .ca points to a Canadian identity; .quebec can make the local connection more explicit. Neither tells you where the site is hosted or who owns the hosting company. That's worth checking separately.

A Practical Checklist Before Launching an Accented .CA Domain

1. Check the exact spelling and approved characters. A French word may contain a letter outside CIRA's permitted IDN set. Also confirm length after Punycode conversion.
2. Check availability through a CIRA-certified registrar. Verify the administrative bundle, not only the one spelling displayed in a domain search.
3. Decide on one main URL. If both accented and unaccented versions are registered, configure the alternate to redirect permanently to the primary address where appropriate.
4. Configure DNS, HTTPS and redirects for every active variant. A reserved variant is not a running website. Check its TLS certificate and that redirects retain the correct destination paths.
5. Test website forms and business email. Make sure systems recognize the Unicode and Punycode spellings without mangling the address.
6. Keep ownership and renewals under control. Use the correct registrant, keep related variants with the same registrar, and document renewal and transfer procedures.

Once you've chosen a domain, you'll also need somewhere to host the website. If Canadian ownership matters to you, I've put together a directory of Canadian owned web hosting companies on HostScout.ca, with research into the businesses, their facilities and network records. Registering a .CA domain and choosing a Canadian-owned host are two different things.

Convert French Accents into Punycode with HostScout

If you've got a name in mind, try it in my French Accent & Punycode Converter. You can work out the xn-- spelling before putting the domain into a registrar, DNS panel or hosting account. That saves a little frustration when a system doesn't accept the accented version directly.

As an example, façon.ca converts to xn--faon-1oa.ca. The conversion is only the first step. You'll still need to check registration availability with a CIRA-certified registrar.

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