Bahrain's .bh and .البحرين Join the IANA RDAP Registry
IANA has added Bahrain's ASCII and Arabic-script country-code domains to its DNS bootstrap registry, allowing RDAP clients to discover the registry's service through the standard bootstrap process.
Update details
- Change
- Added to the IANA bootstrap registry
- Effective date
- September 28, 2026
- Affected resources
.bh, .xn--mgbcpq6gpa1a- RDAP endpoint
https://rdap.bhregistry.bh/rdap/- Browser access
- Simple browser GET supportedChecked September 29, 2026 · HTTP 200
IANA’s RDAP bootstrap registry now includes Bahrain’s .bh country-code top-level domain and its Arabic-script internationalized counterpart, .البحرين.
The registry entry maps both labels to the official RDAP base URL, https://rdap.bhregistry.bh/rdap/.
In the machine-readable bootstrap file, .البحرين appears in its ASCII-compatible form, xn--mgbcpq6gpa1a. RDAP clients use that encoded label when matching a domain against the registry.
What changed
The IANA DNS bootstrap file published on September 28, 2026 includes a service record for:
| Display form | Bootstrap label |
|---|---|
.bh |
bh |
.البحرين |
xn--mgbcpq6gpa1a |
Neither label appeared in IANA’s previous snapshot published on September 16. The new record means standards-compliant clients can now find Bahrain’s RDAP service without a separately maintained endpoint list.
What it means for RDAPLookup
Bahrain’s .bh moves from Independently discovered to IANA-listed in the State of RDAP dataset. Its Arabic-script counterpart, .البحرين, moves from Not IANA-listed to IANA-listed. RDAPLookup’s separately maintained .bh fallback has been removed because standard IANA discovery now supplies the authoritative route.
Before the IANA listing, RDAPLookup classified .bh as independently discovered based on a successful September 8, 2026 test of https://rdap.centralnic.com/bh/. That endpoint was supplemental evidence rather than an IANA bootstrap mapping. Its removal from the active fallback dataset does not imply that it stopped working; clients can now use the official https://rdap.bhregistry.bh/rdap/ mapping instead.
An IANA listing establishes the official discovery route. It does not, by itself, guarantee continuous availability, complete registration data, browser cross-origin access or full protocol conformance.
At the time of testing on September 29, 2026, the endpoint supported the simple cross-origin GET used by RDAPLookup. A browser-compatible request for bahrain.bh returned HTTP 200 with an RDAP domain response. This is a point-in-time observation and does not establish support for every preflighted request or guarantee future availability.
For more detail on how clients turn a TLD label into an authoritative query URL, read How to Find the RDAP Server for a Domain.