.pass
Is .pass a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.pass is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group. GoDaddy Registry named .pass as a backup string for its .key application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
A tidy word for tickets, memberships and logins, but most projects would treat a .pass address as a side label, not their main name.
ticketing platforms, membership and subscription products, event and travel-pass services, and passkey or access-management tools looking for a short product-shaped domain hack.
In LFG's published list of 300+ strings submitted before the ICANN window closed on 2026-08-12. Their catalog tagline: “Your entry to what’s next.”
Named on the ICANN gTLD application list, 7 October 2026 as a replacement (backup) string of the applicant's .key application, shown as deactivated: another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup
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 shape: a short, everyday English verb-noun naming one step in a transaction flow, owned by no community and no incumbent, sold open to whichever access/payment service providers want to brand their function rather than their company on it.
Same job — a namespace for admission credentials sold to event, venue, and membership operators — but staked on a plural category noun that only means ticketing, where the target is a polysemous word covering access, membership, and credentials at once.
Also a generic trust/access word betting that credential and identity services will put primary identity on the property they promise, but it reads as an adjective-style assurance claim rather than the concrete object a holder carries.
What a .pass domain is
.pass is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .pass domain extension real yet?
.pass 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 .pass domain?
You can’t yet. A .pass 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 .pass was .pay, delegated on 10 August 2016.
Is .pass a real TLD?
Not yet. .pass is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .pass is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- GoDaddy Registry · first recordedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“ASL2693T-T87566 · Agador Slip, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-179 LFGL2683T-T80522 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-179 NA2631T-T58531 · Registry Services, LLC · replacement string of .key · Deactivated”ICANN
“ASL2693T-T87566 · Agador Slip, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-179 LFGL2683T-T80522 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-179”ICANN
“.pass · Lifestyle · “Your entry to what’s next.””Link Freedom Group
- Band: usable but limited (30-49). The string is a real, globally understood English noun with several live meanings: an access pass (tickets, transit, ski, season and membership passes), a password or passkey in authentication, and a passing grade or sports pass. That gives it genuine end-use surface, mostly as a semantic suffix (city.pass, summit.pass, dev.pass) for access and membership products, which is why it sits above the vanity band: some serious products plausibly adopt it as a product-line domain. It does not reach the strong-niche band because, by analogy with other single-noun access or event strings such as .tickets, .vip and .club, demand for this shape of TLD has tended to be shallow and secondary; those TLDs saw registrations but few businesses made them a primary identity, and 'pass' reads as a feature name rather than a brand root (flagged: inference from analogy, no figures asserted). The security-adjacent meaning cuts both ways: it fits passkey and credential products, but login- or account-themed names on a .pass domain could carry phishing associations that make cautious brands avoid it (analogy to how security teams treat lookalike login domains). The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the 2026 round and lists this one under Lifestyle with the tagline 'Your entry to what's next.'; a broad-portfolio operator suggests generic-market positioning rather than a cultivated vertical community, which is stated neutrally and mildly caps expected category-standard adoption. Main market uncertainty over the next 5 years: whether the digital-wallet and ticketing wave (mobile passes, event NFT-style passes, passkey rollouts) produces platforms that want a dedicated namespace, or whether those products keep living on their parent brands' existing domains, leaving .pass as low-volume defensive and hobby registrations.