2025-12-18 nz registrar news in December 2025: New agreements, holiday support hours, and more
Kia ora!
Welcome to the .nz registrar update. You are receiving it because you are subscribed to the .nz registry updates.
In today’s email:
New registrar agreements
Holiday support hours and change freeze reminder
IRS 9.6 release reminder
Happy holiday season
Important dates
13 December 2025 - 7 January 2025: change freeze
19 December 2025 - 5 January 2025: InternetNZ office closedown
10-24 February 2026: IRS 9.6 OTE testing window
1 March 2026: IRS 9.6 release into production
17 March 2026: signed registrar agreements are due
New registrar agreements rollout
Last month, InternetNZ and DNC announced a rollout of updated registrar agreements. The new agreements, summaries of key changes and change notices were sent to each registrar on 11 December 2025. Please refer to our Product Documentation website for detailed information about the agreements rollout.
If you have any questions or need further clarification, please contact the .nz Product Support team at registry@internetnz.net.nzfor the Connection Agreement, or the DNC team at registrar@dnc.org.nzfor the Authorisation Agreement.
Change freeze over the holidays
Our change freeze window for the holiday period this year is from 13 December 2025 to 7 January 2026. During this time, there will be no registry product releases or unplanned changes to our product infrastructure. Engineers will be on-call to address operational and security incidents with the existing infrastructure, should they arise. The change freeze thaws on 7 January, and we’ll be back to business as usual.
Holiday period registry support
Our .nz support team will be available all regular business days over the Christmas and New Year period via email at registry@internetnz.net.nz and phone at (+64) 4 931-6970 from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. NZDT. Our call centre will cover after-hours and public holidays for emergency technical support at (+64) 4 496-4697.
Please refer to our website for detailed after-hours support information. Public holidays (NZDT):
25 December 2025
26 December 2025
1 January 2026
2 January 2026
IRS 9.6 release reminder
We are preparing for the next IRS release:
10 February 2026: 9.6 release into OTE/testing
10-24 February 2026: registrar testing window
1 March 2026: 9.6 release into Production. The IRS release 9.6 change log will be available on the InternetNZ Product Documentation website before it is released to OTE.
Happy holidays!
Last but not least - thank you for your support in 2025! It’s been a great pleasure growing .nz with you, and we’re looking forward to more good things for .nz in 2026.
This holiday season, we decided to gift native Aotearoa New Zealand trees to all our registrars through Trees That Count, an environmental charity dedicated to supporting native forest restoration. You’ll receive your e-card this week, and Trees That Count will plant the trees on your behalf.
Kind regards | Ngā mihi,
.nz team at InternetNZ