Nine companies filed half of the 2026 TLD round
- 1Identity Digitalregistry216
- 2Link Freedom Groupregistry158
- 3XYZregistry139
- 4GoDaddy Registryregistry77
- 5Intercapregistry71
- 6Radixregistry46
- 7ShortDotregistry40
- 8Starlight (Namecheap)registrar or host40
- 9Googlebig tech39
ICANN published 1,614 applications for 986 strings (the word after the dot) on 7 October 2026. They were filed under 480 legal names by 402 companies. Identity Digital alone used 28 of them. Applicants that told ICANN they run a registry or a registrar, or are affiliated with one, filed 71%.
Counted by legal name instead, the nine largest filed 619 applications (38%). Link Freedom Group Ltd leads that count with 158. Identity Digital's largest legal name, Toddler Logic, LLC, filed 19.
Replacement period · 8 to 21 October
Which contests →Switching to backups could end as many as 82 contests. In 81, no applicant has a usable backup.
An applicant may switch to its backup string once, and only if no other applicant named that string (Applicant Guidebook 5.1). 287 of the 891 applications in contests have such a backup. But some applicants named one backup in several applications, or named a string they already applied for, and two applications for one string make a new contest (5.2). So at most 251 can switch without starting a new contest. If they do, as many as 82 of the 263 contests are left with one applicant or none.
- 8 Oct
- 21 Oct
- 17 Nov
- 27 Nov
- 16 Mar 2027
- H1 2027
The round in seven findings
- 263strings are contested. Their contests hold 891 of the 1,614 applications, 55%. In 2012 it was 39%.
- 77contests have both Identity Digital and XYZ in them. 243 of the 263 contests include a company that already runs a registry.
- 59strings have closest 2012 bets with a median of 100,000 domains or more in May 2026. For 323, the median is under 10,000 or the bets are no longer live.
- 3.4applications per AI word, against 1.9 for the average non-brand string. .agent has 13.
- 4,225domains: what the median live, non-brand 2012-round TLD held in May 2026. Two in three hold under 10,000.
- 61brand applications came from Japanese companies, second only to the United States with 151.
- 33%of applications were filed under a legal name that does not name the company behind it.
263 contests, and private deals are banned
263 of the 986 strings have two or more applications. ICANN calls each one a contention set. We call it a contest.
The 2012 round had 234 contests. 16 went to an ICANN auction, which raised $240.6 million. 217 were resolved without an ICANN auction, and one is still open.
This round bans resolving a contest in private (Applicant Guidebook 5.2.3). A contest that does not end another way goes to an ICANN auction, where the winner pays the second-highest bid (5.6.3).
Each square is one contest
2012
2026
Registries against registries
243 of the 263 contests include a company that already runs a registry. In 91, every applicant does. The pairs that meet most often:
How big could these TLDs get?
For every string in this round, our AI picked up to three strings from the 2012 round that made the most similar bet, without being told what happened to them. Those are its closest 2012 bets. Below is how many domains they held in May 2026, from ICANN's monthly registry reports for May 2026.
This is a comparison, not a forecast. Each 2012 TLD is named and links to its numbers.
AI words drew 3.4 applications each
We picked 20 strings about AI. They drew 68 applications: 3.4 per string, against 1.9 for the average non-brand string. 13 of the 20 are contested.
Identity Digital applied for 12 of them. Link Freedom Group, OpenAI and Radix applied for 7 each.
Google, Meta and OpenAI each applied for .agent as a generic string, not a brand. If one of them wins it, it cannot keep .agent for itself and its affiliates: the Applicant Guidebook bans closed generics (3.1.7).
| String | Applications | AI score |
|---|---|---|
| .agent | 13 | 63/100 |
| .robot | 9 | 34/100 |
| .agi | 7 | 44/100 |
| .asi | 5 | 24/100 |
| .mcp | 5 | 58/100 |
| .robotics | 5 | 42/100 |
| .gpt | 3 | 38/100 |
| .intelligence | 3 | 37/100 |
| .model | 3 | 50/100 |
| .agentic | 2 | 34/100 |
| .agnt | 2 | 31/100 |
| .agt | 2 | 22/100 |
| .llm | 2 | 38/100 |
| .agentid | 1 | 24/100 |
| .aiglasses | 1 | 18/100 |
| .compute | 1 | 39/100 |
| .evals | 1 | 24/100 |
| .prompt | 1 | 32/100 |
| .robotaxi | 1 | 24/100 |
| .superintelligence | 1 | 22/100 |
What most 2012 TLDs became
773 TLDs from the 2012 round are live, are not brands and reported a figure for May 2026. The median holds 4,225 domains. 249 hold under 1,000. The ten largest hold 61.5% of the domains across all 773.
2012-round TLDs by domains held, May 2026
- Under 1,000249
- 1,000 to 9,999median260
- 10,000 to 99,999211
- 100,000 to 999,99944
- 1 million or more9
Dot-brands
108 of the 436 brand TLDs that launched from the 2012 round have since been retired. The median live one holds 7 domains.
New words
967 of the 986 strings in this round were never applied for in 2012.
Japan is second in brand applications
333 applications are for brand TLDs. 219 companies applied for nothing but brands. In the company table below, 23 of them are listed by what they do instead, such as ByteDance (big tech).
Japanese companies filed 61, second only to the United States with 151. German companies filed 6; in 2012, by our count, they filed 31.
Brand applications by country, 2026
- United States151 · 2012: 203
- Japan61 · 2012: 46
- China18 · 2012: 14
- France9 · 2012: 26
- Sweden9 · 2012: 7
- Spain8 · 2012: 7
- United Kingdom8 · 2012: 19
- Singapore8 · 2012: 6
- Germany6 · 2012: 31
Where applicants are based
| Region | Applications | Companies |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 864 | 148 |
| Europe | 506 | 99 |
| Asia-Pacific | 217 | 141 |
| Africa | 16 | 7 |
| Latin America and the Caribbean | 11 | 8 |
Every company in the round
402 companies, largest first. Each links to its page: its applications, the legal names it filed under and the strings it is on.
The companies in this round already run the TLDs that hold 86% of all new-gTLD domains: 48.2 million of 56.0 million in April 2026. That is the newest month in our table of registry families; the other domain counts on this page are for May 2026.
539 applications (33%) were filed under a legal name that does not name the company. The largest: Registry Services, LLC (GoDaddy Registry, 77), Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google, 39), Toddler Logic, LLC (Identity Digital, 19).
How we counted
Every figure on this page comes from one snapshot: ICANN's application list as downloaded at 18:07 UTC on 7 October 2026, our grouping of legal names into companies, and the sources below. The replacement-period box near the top is the exception: it updates live. The rest changes when we publish a new snapshot.
- Company
- The business behind an application. We grouped ICANN's 480 legal names into 402 companies using what the applicants told ICANN in their applications. Each company's page quotes the answer behind each grouping.
- Contest
- A string with two or more applications. ICANN calls it a contention set. Our contests match ICANN's published contention sets one for one.
- Usable backup
- Each application could name one backup string to switch to in the replacement period. A usable backup is one ICANN lists as active: no other applicant named it as a primary or a backup (Applicant Guidebook 5.1). Only an application with one can switch. Two applications on one string are a contest (5.2), so where one applicant named the same backup in several applications, or named a string it already applies for, fewer contests can end than the count of usable backups suggests. Our figures allow for that.
- Kind of company
- Registry: already runs one or more TLDs. Registrar or host: sells domains or hosting. Big tech: a large technology company; Google counts as big tech although it runs TLDs. Crypto: a blockchain or crypto company. New portfolio: a company that does not run TLDs today and applied for several. We assigned these kinds by hand for every company with three or more applications that are not all brands, and for some others whose ICANN flags would misdescribe them, such as large technology companies that applied only for brands. The rest we sorted by ICANN's flags: brand if every application is for a brand; community, geo or supported if ICANN flags any of its applications as community, geographic or applicant support; otherwise other.
- A legal name that does not name the company
- A legal name with no distinctive word of the company's name and not its initials. Registry Services, LLC (GoDaddy Registry) counts. A name like XYZ.COM LLC (XYZ) or Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) does not.
- Closest 2012 bets
- For each string, our AI picked up to three strings from the 2012 round that made the most similar bet, choosing from the whole 2012 list without being told what became of any of them. Each string page shows them with the reasons.
- Domains held
- Registered domains at the end of May 2026, from the registries' monthly reports to ICANN, as shown on our Stats pages.
Sources
- ICANN, 2026 round statistics
- ICANN, 2026 round applications and contention sets
- ICANN, Applicant Guidebook V3-2026.10.07
- ICANN, 2026 round milestones (29 September 2026)
- ICANN, 2012 round program statistics
- ICANN, 2012 round auction proceeds
- Namedesk Stats: domains held per TLD, from ICANN monthly registry reports
- How the AI score works