Last week, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed an agreement handing over sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius. This move carries more than just political significance and could have major implications for the domain industry. Currently, the Chagos Archipelago is designated as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), the name under which it was included in the list of countries and territories by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and assigned its two-letter country code .IO along with a country-code top-level domain (ccTLD).
Chagos Islands were separated from Mauritius, then a British colony, in the mid-1960s. Over subsequent years, the indigenous population was deported, and the largest island, Diego Garcia, became home to a joint US-UK military base, which has strategic importance and remains operational to this day. Furthermore, the new agreement stipulates that Diego Garcia will remain under UK lease for 99 years, with Mauritius receiving approximately GBP 100 million annually.
Sovereignty over the rest of the archipelago will fully revert to Mauritius, effectively marking the end of the BIOT era. The term “British Indian Ocean Territory” is, in fact, never mentioned in the UK-Mauritius treaty. Instead, Mauritius is granted control over all commercial activities in Chagos, including digital services, and representation rights at the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU). As reported by Domain Incite, this suggests the BIOT designation will soon be phased out.
Mauritius now faces a choice: fully integrate the archipelago into its national territory or retain it as a separate entity under a different name with a new two-letter ISO code. Regardless of the chosen scenario, the .IO domain is likely doomed to be removed from the DNS root zone within 5 to 10 years. The only way to preserve .IO would require Mauritius to officially rename the archipelago while adopting the .IO code. Many within the domain industry hope that it will choose the latter option as .IO reportedly boasts over 1 million registrations and is quite popular among tech firms.
Notably, .IO’s registry operator Identity Digital recently took over management of Mauritius’s ccTLD (.MU). This way it is more likely to reach common ground with Mauritian authorities.
