List of Government Websites
National portals, ministries, tax offices, courts, city councils, public agencies and legal information sites. Here is how many government domains we track and what each row in the list contains.
How many government websites are there?
Of over 120 million categorized domains, 1,707,141 carry the Government & Legal category. That is about 1.7% of all domains, and 4.1% of the 300,000 most popular ones.
Citizens visit government sites for tasks they cannot skip: taxes, benefits, IDs and permits. Businesses add customs, registries and procurement portals to that list.
Broad list: 1,707,141
Every domain where government or legal content is part of the site, from ministries to legal guides.
Strict list: 1,539,238
Domains where government or legal content is the main subject. Most government sites do one job, so the strict list is close to the broad one.
Political: 648,425
Parties, campaigns and political organisations carry their own category, kept apart from public bodies.
Military: 74,207
Defence and military sites have a separate category, so you can include or exclude them.
Government and legal in one category: the category covers public bodies and legal content together, because both deal with laws and rights. The IAB tiers separate them: public bodies mostly carry Government Business, law firms carry the Legal Services Industry tier.
Top 10 government websites
The most visited government websites in our data, ranked by popularity among real users. National all-in-one portals lead, because they bundle hundreds of services behind one address.
What the top 10 shows
- Five of ten are national portals that replaced many older agency sites.
- Tax, pensions, veterans and ID services make up the rest.
- Three use the US .gov ending, one uses .com, and the rest use country government endings.
Just outside the top 10
- Weather and meteorology agencies
- Social security and pension funds in Europe
- Labour, employment and student aid agencies
- Transport authorities and vehicle registries
Government websites by country
Of the 12,393 popular government and legal domains, 9,119 have a country assigned. Government sites almost always serve one country, so this share is much higher than for news or shopping.
India and Brazil rank high
Both countries run large digital public services, from ID and tax to employment and land records, with many separate state and federal sites.
Federal states add sites
Countries with states or regions, such as the US, India, Brazil and Germany, have a site for each level of government.
Local government is the long tail
City and county sites are many but each serves a small audience. Most sit outside the popular 300,000.
Country pages such as Brazil domains, India domains and United States domains show how government compares with other subjects in each market.
Government domains by ending
Domain endings are a strong signal for government sites, but not a complete one. These are the endings with the most Government & Legal domains in the full database.
| Ending | Government & Legal domains | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| .br | 65,032 | Brazil, including federal, state and city sites |
| .tr | 6,860 | Turkey, central and local government |
| .ro | 6,826 | Romania, including many local councils |
| .gov | 6,672 | US government bodies; 8,521 .gov domains in total |
| .cl | 6,170 | Chile, ministries and municipalities |
| .law | 6,110 | Law firms and legal services |
| .ua and .id | 5,314 each | Ukraine and Indonesia |
| .legal | 4,909 | Legal services and information |
| .il | 3,935 | Israel |
| .th | 3,419 | Thailand |
The .gov ending is managed for US government organizations only, from federal agencies to counties, cities and school districts. In the full database, 78% of .gov domains carry Government & Legal; the next most common categories on .gov are community, political and education sites.
Endings such as .mil (87 domains) and .int (159) are tiny. For the full picture of endings, see the top-level domains list.
Government subcategories in the IAB Content Taxonomy
IAB version 3 has no Tier 1 called government. Public bodies are described through business, finance and politics tiers. These are the subjects that appear most among popular Government & Legal domains.
| IAB v3 subject | Popular domains | Typical sites |
|---|---|---|
| Business and Finance > Business > Government Business | 5,941 | Ministries, agencies, portals, registries |
| Business and Finance > Industries > Legal Services Industry | 700 | Law firms, legal databases, court information |
| Personal Finance > Financial Assistance > Government Support and Welfare | 244 | Benefits, pensions and welfare services |
| Business and Finance > Business > Business Utilities | 238 | Company registries, permits, e-invoicing |
| Careers > Job Search | 233 | Public employment services, civil service jobs |
| Politics > Civic affairs | 166 | Councils, civic information, public notices |
| Travel > Travel Type > Rail Travel | 140 | State rail operators and transit authorities |
| Business and Finance > Industries > Healthcare Industry | 126 | Public health services and agencies |
Politics across the full database
242,461
Political Issues & policy: think tanks, advocacy and policy analysis.
143,004
Civic affairs: civic information, councils and community bodies.
135,739
Elections: election offices, candidates and voting information.
75,796
Financial Assistance: grants, benefits and aid, much of it public.
See the taxonomy page for the full tree. If you need government sites mapped to industry codes, read SIC and NAICS codes by website.
Popularity bands of government websites
Government traffic is concentrated in a few national portals, then spreads across thousands of agency and local sites.
| Global popularity band | Popular government domains | Typical sites |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1,000 | 15 | National portals, tax and ID agencies of large countries |
| 1,001 to 5,000 | 69 | Social security, postal, weather and benefits agencies |
| 5,001 to 10,000 | 89 | Employment, health and transport authorities |
| 10,001 to 50,000 | 842 | Ministries, state governments, courts |
| 50,001 to 100,000 | 1,026 | Regional agencies, large cities, registries |
| 100,001 to 500,000 | 8,124 | Local authorities, specialised agencies, legal sites |
| 500,001 to 1,000,000 | 2,228 | Small agencies and municipalities |
The pattern is steeper than in most categories. Only 15 government domains reach the global top 1,000, yet they are often the first stop for citizens, because countries keep moving services into one front door.
Behind each portal sit dozens of agencies with their own domains, and the full list keeps them all.
The country popularity band matters more here than the global one. A regional tax office can be one of the most visited sites in its country while ranking low worldwide.
Which government services draw the most visits
Popular government sites cluster around a handful of services that nearly every citizen or business needs. Knowing these clusters helps you decide which agencies matter most in a market.
Tax and revenue
Income tax, sales tax and e-invoicing portals. Traffic peaks around filing deadlines.
Identity and documents
National ID, passports and digital document wallets, often used as log-in for other services.
Benefits and pensions
Social security, pensions, family benefits and veterans' services, used every month.
Jobs and labour
Public employment services and civil service recruitment, very popular in India and Europe.
Weather and alerts
National weather services and civil warning systems, visited daily by millions.
Transport
Rail, transit, vehicle registration and driving licence services.
Public health
Health services, insurance funds and public health agencies.
Courts and law
Court records, official journals, legal databases and company registries.
In most countries, the list of top government sites reads like a calendar of civic life: tax season, school enrolment, benefit payments and elections each bring their own peak.
Questions buyers ask about government lists
Before buying, teams usually want clarity on a few points.
Councils with a website are categorized like any other domain. Very small bodies that only use a page on a regional portal have no domain of their own.
The list works at domain level. National portals that host many agencies under one domain appear once.
No. It is our categorization of public websites by content, not a register kept by any government.
Use popularity bands, civic affairs tiers and domain patterns together. Most local sites sit in lower bands.
Who buys a list of government websites, and why
Government lists serve sellers, defenders and researchers. Each group cares about a different part of the list.
Govtech and public sector sales
Map every agency and council in a territory, then rank them by reach. See lead generation and sales intelligence.
Anti-phishing and fraud teams
Fake tax refund and benefit sites copy real government portals. A trusted list of real ones makes look-alikes easier to flag. See malware and phishing protection.
Network security teams
Companies and schools keep government sites open even under strict policies, because staff need them for tax and compliance. See enterprise network security.
Advertisers and adtech
Most government sites carry no ads, and many brands avoid political content. Government and political lists help clean supply and exclusion lists.
Legal tech
Find law firms, court information and legal databases through the legal tiers. See legal services domains.
Researchers and policy analysts
Measure digital government by country, compare portals and track how services move online. See market research intelligence.
Threat intelligence tip: combine the government list with new domain registrations. A new domain that uses words from a real portal name, but is not in the government list, is worth a second look. More in cybersecurity threat intelligence.
Columns included in the government list
Each government domain comes with all database fields, one row per domain, as CSV, Parquet or JSON. The example values are real rows.
| Field | gov.uk | irs.gov |
|---|---|---|
| IAB v2 Tier 1 to 4 | Business and Finance > Business > Government Business | Business and Finance > Business > Government Business |
| IAB v3 Tier 1 to 4 | Business and Finance > Business > Government Business | Business and Finance > Business > Government Business |
| Web filtering categories | Government & Legal | Government & Legal |
| Audience personas | Typical visitor profiles | Typical visitor profiles |
| Country | Not assigned | United States |
| Global popularity band | Top 1,000 | 1,001 to 5,000 |
| Country popularity band | Not assigned | Top 1,000 in its country |
Note how both rows carry the same IAB tiers. For government lists, the web filtering category and the domain ending do most of the work, and the IAB tiers mainly help you separate public bodies from legal services and civic groups.
Some large portals have no country assigned in the data, even when the ending makes the country clear. Combine the country field with the domain ending to catch them. Check any site in the domain checker.
How to build a clean government list
Government data has its own traps: unofficial look-alikes, private services that sound public, and legal sites that are not public bodies. These steps handle them.
Keep domains where Government & Legal is the main subject.
Use the Government Business tier for public bodies and Legal Services for law firms.
Combine the country field with endings such as gov.uk, gov.br or gob.mx.
Private sites that help with forms or exam results carry careers or business tiers. Remove them if you need official bodies only.
Political parties and campaigns are a separate category. Include them only when your use case needs them.
Use country popularity bands to find the agencies citizens actually use.
Typical government list
- National and state portals
- Tax, pension and ID agencies
- Courts and registries
- City and county councils
- Public health and transport authorities
Usually filtered out
- Law firms, unless you sell legal tech
- Political parties and campaigns
- Private exam result and form-help sites
- Parked domains of retired agencies
Keeping a government list current
Governments merge agencies, rename ministries after elections and move services into national portals. Old domains often redirect for a while and then expire.
New domains every day
About 300,000 newly registered domains are categorized each day, including new agency sites and look-alikes.
Second and third checks
New domains are checked again after a week and a month, which catches sites that launch empty.
Monthly refresh
All other domains are refreshed monthly, so retired agency domains drop out once they change or expire.
Parked domains flagged
Expired government domains that turn into parked pages move to the Parked / For-Sale category.
Read more on coverage and freshness, or see how the database maps sites to sectors on website to industry.
Government website list FAQ
How many government websites are there?
Our database of over 120 million categorized domains contains 1,707,141 domains with the Government & Legal category. For 1,539,238 of them, government or legal content is the main subject.
What are the most visited government websites?
Ranked by popularity among real users, leading government websites include gov.uk, gov.br, gob.mx, uidai.gov.in, turkiye.gov.tr, irs.gov, usps.com, va.gov, argentina.gob.ar and ssa.gov.
Does the list only contain .gov domains?
No. The .gov ending is reserved for US government organizations and holds 8,521 domains in our data. Most of the world's government sites use country endings, and many local authorities use ordinary domains.
Are law firms included in the government list?
The category is Government & Legal, so it includes legal information sites and legal services as well as public bodies. The IAB tiers let you separate them.
Who buys lists of government websites?
Govtech and public sector sales teams, security teams that fight government impersonation, advertisers managing exclusions, legal tech firms and researchers who study digital government.
Can I get local government sites only?
Yes. Combine the strict list with the country field and lower popularity bands. Civic affairs tiers also help find councils and local bodies.
Can I use the list to allow government sites on a work network?
Yes. Many companies keep the Government & Legal category open under strict policies, so staff can reach tax, customs and compliance portals. The list makes that rule easy to apply and audit.
How do I get the full list of government websites?
The full list is part of the licensed database. See the pricing page for database sizes and licence options.
Get the full list of government websites
All 1.7 million government and legal domains with IAB tiers, country, popularity bands and the lookup API, as CSV, Parquet or JSON.
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