.lan
Is .lan a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.lan is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Identity Digital.
Short tech word, but many private networks already use .lan internally, which limits it to gaming and IT niches.
gaming communities and LAN-party organizers, networking and IT-services vendors, and Chinese-language buyers for whom "lan" is a common pinyin syllable (orchid, blue, a surname)
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 as .lan: a piece of internal-infrastructure vocabulary that organizations already use inside their own private networks, sold as a public namespace whose existing meaning is "inward-facing, not the public internet" — so the registry's customer is an IT/network operator, not a brand seeking an identity.
Also a plain technical-default word that routers and local networks already resolve on their own, so the bet depends on converting a string people type privately into one they will pay to be reached at publicly; it differs in that .home has a real consumer-category meaning on top, while .lan is purely network jargon.
The closest same-subject generic — a networking category word aimed at the same infrastructure-minded buyer — but it is the human-readable noun a business can put on a public identity, where .lan is a three-letter operator abbreviation nobody brands with.
What a .lan domain is
.lan is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .lan domain extension real yet?
.lan 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 .lan domain?
You can’t yet. A .lan name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens.
Is .lan a real TLD?
Not yet. .lan is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .lan is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49), at its floor. The string is three letters, memorable, and carries a clear tech meaning (local area network) plus a gaming connotation (LAN party) and a Chinese pinyin reading, so some registrations should happen on price and novelty. It is not in the band above because no major category treats .lan as a primary identity: by analogy (flagged) with other short tech-word TLDs such as .net-adjacent strings and gaming-flavoured strings like .lol or .fun, demand tends to be event-driven or defensive rather than sustained brand use, and the aftermarket for such strings has generally been thin. It is not in the band below because the word is real, short, and has an identifiable buyer set in networking vendors and gaming communities, and Chinese-market pinyin strings have by analogy (flagged) attracted volume registrations on price. The specific drag on end-use utility is that .lan is widely used informally as a private, unrouted suffix on home and office networks; a public .lan site may be unreachable or confusingly resolved on networks that answer .lan locally, which undercuts its value as a serious primary identity. The record shows one standard application from Identity Digital (Coffee Danger, LLC), status confirmed, with no category tag and a contention count of 1; no pricing, volume, or launch-plan facts are recorded. Main market uncertainty: whether informal private-network use of .lan materially degrades reachability for public sites, and whether Chinese pinyin demand converts into sustained renewals rather than one-off speculation.