Can I sell a .eu domain to a registrant outside the European Union?

Question

I would like to sell my domain, which is a .eu domain.

The Wikipedia page states that .eu domains may only be registered by residents of member states of the European Union.

For that reason, I wonder if it would make sense to offer my domain for sale at websites directed at the US markets (sedo.com, ebay.com, etc), since the buyer would, at least technically speaking, not register the domain, only 'acquire' (read: buy secondhand) it.

Answer 1

The key point is that once you've sold the domain, you would need to transfer "the ownership" or more accurately "the registration" to the new owner, who would need to be an EU resident or organisation.

When you take ownership of a domain name, regardless of who you bought it from, you then need to register the ownership with ICANN or an accredited registrar (in this case EURid).

See the "Trades & Transfers of .eu Domains" page - as this trade will need to be mediated by an accredited .eu registrar, you'll need to find one who is willing to neglect to check that the new registrant is an EU organisation/resident (presumably opening themselves up to losing their accreditation).

Answer 2

You could use any of those sites, so long as you make clear in the advert that the purchaser has to be an EU resident then you should be fine.