.valid
Is .valid a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .valid in its own right, as of 8 October 2026. Identity Digital named .valid as the backup string of two of its applications: .file and .factory.
A clever adjective for verification and identity tools, but few serious projects would make .valid their main address.
verification, identity-proofing, credential-checking and data-validation startups, plus hobbyists wanting a wordplay address like is.valid or proof.valid
Nobody has applied for .valid in its own right.
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 bare English assurance adjective whose whole value is the claim it makes about whatever sits in front of it, sold to verification, identity and trust-mark businesses rather than to any topical industry.
Same bet: a short, open, positive-attribute adjective that functions as a badge rather than a category, so the registry has to convince buyers that an assertion-as-domain reads as credible proof instead of marketing.
Same bet one part of speech over — an abstract assurance word aimed at credentialing and verification identities — but it carries a hard-wired financial/fiduciary second meaning that narrows its buyer pool in a way a pure adjective does not.
What a .valid domain is
.valid is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. Nobody has applied for .valid in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .valid domain extension real yet?
.valid is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .valid domain?
You can’t yet. A .valid 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 .valid was .secure, delegated on 10 August 2016.
Is .valid a real TLD?
Not yet. .valid is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .valid as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
“PB2674T-T51491 · Paws Button, LLC · replacement string of .factory PB2674T-T67329 · Paws Button, LLC · replacement string of .file”ICANN
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/narrow). The string 'valid' is a plain English adjective with a thin but real semantic hook: validation, verification, identity proofing, KYC, data-quality tooling, and wordplay hacks (is.valid, proof.valid). By analogy (flagged as analogy), adjective gTLDs such as .cool, .best and .top have tended to see either low-volume vanity use or promotion-driven volume on price rather than primary-identity adoption; descriptor strings closer to a service category (.legal, .cloud) fared better because the word names what the business is, whereas 'valid' names a property rather than a business. It is not in the 30-49 band because there is no obvious volume driver or buyer segment large enough to produce sustained registrations beyond a small set of verification-tool vendors, and the aftermarket for a property-adjective is expected to be close to nil. It is not in the 1-9 band because the hook is genuine: a verification or credentials product could plausibly use proof.valid or id.valid as a memorable secondary address, and a few would use it as primary. On the record, the sole application is a replacement string from Identity Digital (Paws Button, LLC), a standard application with no contention recorded; as a portfolio operator, that applicant's channel reach makes broad registrar availability likely, which supports adoption likelihood but does not raise the ceiling of demand. Registration figures for analogous adjective TLDs are unknown within the verified block, so this is qualitative. Main market uncertainty over the next 5 years: whether the identity-verification and AI-content-provenance sector grows into a recognisable category that wants a shared namespace, which could lift .valid toward the usable-but-limited band.