Non-EU vendorDomain Name RegistrarsHeadquarters: GB

123-reg: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

123-reg is a British domain registrar and web hosting company. It offers domain registration and transfers, web hosting, managed WordPress hosting, virtual private servers, website and online store builders, business email, Microsoft 365 and SSL certificates. Customers order the services online through the UK website.

The legal entity is 123 Reg Ltd. Since GoDaddy, a US company, acquired its former parent Host Europe Group in 2017, 123-reg has been part of the GoDaddy group, so US ownership and US legal exposure are relevant. The privacy notice states that personal data is held on the company's own systems and with service providers, including Amazon Web Services, and that it may be transferred to the United States. The location of the data centres is not stated. For a European organisation, the US parent company and the unspecified hosting location are the main points to clarify before use.

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Sovereignty score

32 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (GB)
Data residency SOV-30
No hosting in Europe (OTHER)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-340
Key management with a non-European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-630
Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 10, 2026

Headquarters	GB (OTHER)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent company	USVerified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Yes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	NoVendor-stated
Category	Domain Name Registrars
Type	Product
Website	123-reg.co.uk ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to 123-reg

The European alternatives to 123-reg come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

35 European Domain Name Registrars vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with 123-reg

123-reg is headquartered in GB, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor. The ultimate owner is based in US. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

123-reg hosts data outside the EU (OTHER). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

123-reg is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs 123-reg together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to 123-reg?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to 123-reg include 101domain, Afnic and Aruba Domains. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to 123-reg?

Our list of EU alternatives to 123-reg is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is 123-reg GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

123-reg is headquartered in GB (OTHER) and hosts data in OTHER. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 10, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Domain Name Registrars

Domain Name Registrars: Companies that register and manage internet domain names. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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