How to register a .sch.ng domain
.sch.ng is reserved for Nigerian primary and secondary schools, and NiRA holds every new one until your registration and approval documents clear. The requirements, a sample letter, and the wait explained.
DAN updated September 22, 2026 8 min read 
A .sch.ng address tells a parent, at a glance, that they are on the school’s real website and not on something a stranger put up. That is the whole value of a restricted extension, and it is also why you cannot simply buy one and point it at a server the same afternoon.
NiRA registers every .sch.ng name on hold. The name is reserved for you as soon as you pay, and it starts resolving once NiRA has seen documents showing that the school is real and approved to operate.
Here is what they ask for, and what the wait actually looks like.
Who can register a .sch.ng domain
Nigerian schools below tertiary level: nursery, primary and secondary schools, and other institutions that teach without awarding degrees.
A tutorial centre, a lesson programme or an education startup is not a school for this purpose. Those register a .com.ng or a .ng name, which goes live immediately and costs less.
What NiRA asks for
Three things, and the third one is a letter you write yourself.
Proof the school is registered. Your Corporate Affairs Commission certificate, your business name registration, or your partnership documents, depending on how the school is constituted. A government school sends the instrument or circular that established it.
Proof the school is approved to operate. The approval or accreditation issued by the body that regulates schools where you are, which in practice is usually your state ministry of education.
A letter from the head of the school. On the school’s letterhead, signed, naming the domain you want and carrying the contact details NiRA needs.
The letter has to carry:
An administrative contact: name, role, school email address, phone number.
A technical contact: the same for whoever manages the website. If that is an outside supplier, say so and give their details.
The nameservers the domain should use.
A letter you can copy
Copy this onto the school’s letterhead, fill in the highlighted parts, and have the head of the school sign it. Upload the signed copy and we submit it for you, so no postal address is needed.
Registering .sch.ng on ZevCloud
Buying the name and clearing the paperwork are two separate things, and they happen in that order. You pay first, which reserves the name at the registry, and then you prove you are entitled to it.
Search for the name in the dashboard. A .sch.ng result carries a "Documents required" badge and a link to this guide, so the condition is on screen before you add it to the cart.
Check out and pay in naira, the same as any other domain.
We register the name with NiRA straight away. It comes back on hold, and the domain shows as Awaiting your document in your Domains list.
Open the domain and go to Requirements. Upload your registration certificate, your approval document and the signed letter. A PDF, a Word file or a clear photo all work, up to 15 MB each.
We check the documents are legible and complete, forward them to NiRA, and mark each one as it moves.
Nothing about the domain is lost while you wait. The name is registered and nobody else can take it. What is missing is resolution: DNS does not answer until the hold lifts.
What happens after you upload
Every restricted domain gets a thread on its Requirements page, and it is the only place you need to watch. When we forward your documents, that goes in the thread. If NiRA comes back with a question, we put their words in the thread rather than paraphrasing them. You reply in the same place and attach whatever is needed.
Both sides get an email when the other writes, so nobody has to sit refreshing a page. When NiRA clears the domain we activate it, you get an email saying so, and your DNS starts answering.
When it clears, the page keeps everything rather than emptying itself. That turns out to matter later: the filed nameservers are the thing any future change is measured against, and a year from now nobody remembers what was in the letter.
Nameservers and DNS while the domain is held
This is the part that catches people out, so it is worth reading before you write the letter rather than after.
The nameservers on a .sch.ng domain come from the document you filed. NiRA records what you asked for, which means the nameserver form on the domain page is closed to you: editing it would put our record out of step with theirs, and on a held domain the change would not take at the registry anyway. Changing nameservers later means filing another letter, which you send through the same Requirements page and we apply for you.
That leaves two outcomes, and you pick which one you get when you write the letter.
The letter names our nameservers. DNS records are yours to manage from the moment the domain is created. You can build the whole zone out while the application is still with NiRA, so the site answers the second the hold lifts instead of starting from an empty zone that day.
The letter names someone else’s. DNS lives wherever those nameservers point, and records are managed there. Nothing on our side can write into a zone we are not authoritative for.
How long it takes
A complete application usually clears in about a week. An incomplete one takes as long as it takes you to notice what was missing, which is the real reason these run long.
We do not set that pace and we will not pretend to. NiRA reviews the documents on their own schedule, and busy periods run slower. What we can do is make sure nothing is waiting on us: documents go on to NiRA once we have looked at them, and anything that comes back lands in your thread the same day.
Things that slow a school application down
The name on the CAC certificate does not match the name on the letterhead. If the school trades under a shorter name, say so in the letter rather than leaving NiRA to guess.
The approval document is from the wrong state, or has lapsed.
The letter is signed by a teacher rather than the head of the school.
The domain requested is a nickname nobody can tie to the documents. Keep it close to the registered name.
A photograph of the letter that is too dark or too angled to read.
None of these are hard to get right. They are just easier to get right the first time than to discover a week later.
The other restricted .ng extensions
NiRA holds more than one extension behind paperwork, and the requirements are not interchangeable. If you landed here from a search and this is not your extension, these are the other two.
Start the registration
Search for the name in the ZevCloud dashboard. You will see the .sch.ng price in naira, the documents notice, and a link back to this page at checkout. If you want to read about how we handle domains in general first, the domains product page covers it.
If you are not sure your institution qualifies, send the question through the thread on any domain you already hold, or ask before you buy. Telling you that you are not eligible costs us a sale and saves you a refund, and we would rather do that than take money for a name that will sit on hold forever.
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