.eu is the two-letter alpha code country code top-level domain name (ccTLD) of the European Union. It's introduced and implemented in 1999.
The European ccTLD is managed and operated by EURid, a non-profit organization founded by three national registry operators: DNS Belgium, Istituto di Informatica e Telematica and Stiftelsen för Internetinfrastruktur (IIS), and Registro .it; under the authority of the European Commission.
Only persons, organizations, and businesses based in the European Union can register a .eu domain name.
EURid implemented a four-month Sunrise Period for the .eu ccTLD on a first-come, first-serve basis. The first registration phase, which began on 7 December 2005 was to facilitate applications by registrants with prior rights on potential domain names. The second phase of the sunrise period began on 7 February 2006 and it was for company, trade, and personal names. The registry reached 245,000 domain name registrations with sunrise applications.
In June 2006 .eu registrations reached around 3 million.
.EU domain extension ranks #14 among all domain extensions, and #8 among all country-code extensions (ccTLDs). Currently, there are 3.3 Million registered .eu domain names. EURid vzw/asbl is the registry of .eu extension.
The most popular .eu domain name is torrentz2.eu. Its worldwide rank is 1099.