.chef
Is .chef a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.chef is contested: 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are XYZ Registry, Squarespace and GoDaddy Registry.
A memorable personal-brand address for cooks and caterers, but a niche most will still explain next to a .com.
independent and personal chefs, caterers, cooking creators and culinary schools who want a profession-first personal brand rather than a restaurant-first one
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a singular, unlicensed occupational noun sold as a personal professional identity to individual practitioners in a craft/creative trade, where value depends on practitioners choosing to brand themselves by their vocation rather than their own name.
Same bet: a narrow singular trade noun whose buyer is the independent practitioner or small owner-operated shop, betting that a modest, well-defined occupational population will pay for a self-describing address.
Same shape — singular profession noun carrying a practitioner's primary identity — but the bet leans on a credentialed, title-protected profession with institutional gatekeeping, whereas anyone can call themselves a chef.
What a .chef domain is
.chef is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .chef domain extension real yet?
.chef is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .chef domain?
You can’t yet. A .chef name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .chef was .actor, delegated on 26 February 2014.
Is .chef a real TLD?
Not yet. .chef is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .chef is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
“NA2631T-T95860 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-39 SRL2616T-T62801 · Squarespace Registry LLC · primary · contention set 2026-39 XL2625T-T58660 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-39”ICANN
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. .chef is a clean, universally understood vocational string with an obvious personal-brand use (name.chef), and three confirmed applicants in ICANN contention set 2026-39 (Registry Services, LLC; Squarespace Registry LLC; XYZ.COM LLC) signal that several operators see commercial value in the string. It is not in the 50-69 band because, by analogy with vocational and food-adjacent TLDs from the earlier round (.photography, .lawyer, .dentist, .cooking, .recipes, .kitchen, .restaurant, .cafe), profession strings have tended to register at modest volume, rarely become the primary identity for established professionals (who identify through a restaurant, employer or social handle), and have thin aftermarkets — all analogy, no figures asserted. It is not in the 10-29 band because the buyer group is a real, durable profession with strong personal-brand incentives (private chefs, caterers, cooking creators), the string reads naturally as an identity rather than a joke, and demand is not tied to a single event. Specific registration counts, prices and outcomes for the analogous TLDs are unknown here. Main market uncertainty: whether chefs adopt a profession-based address as primary identity at all, versus restaurant-brand or platform handles — a channel-and-habit question, not a string-quality one.