The 2026 new TLD round, explained
The first application window for new top-level domains since 2012 closed in August and ICANN published the list in October. How the round works, and when names on the new TLDs could go on sale.
ICANN published the list on 7 October 2026: 1,614 applications for 986 strings. What it showed, company by company, is in Reveal Day 2026: what ICANN’s new gTLD list showed. This article, first published 30 August 2026, explains how the round works.
What happened
ICANN accepted applications for new top-level domains between 30 April and 12 August 2026. It was the first chance anyone had had to apply since 2012, and there probably won't be another for years. Applying isn't cheap: the evaluation fee alone is $227,000 per application, before lawyers, consultants, or a backend provider see a dime.
ICANN kept the list sealed until Reveal Day, 7 October at 18:00 UTC, then published it all at once. Before that, everything known came from applicants that announced their own plans; since then, the record follows ICANN's list, and claims the list did not hold are marked abandoned.
How the round works
Companies, registries, communities and brands filed applications to run new TLDs, at $227,000 apiece in evaluation fees. The list of who filed for what stayed sealed until 7 October.
ICANN published every applied-for string and applicant at once: on 7 October, 1,614 applications for 986 strings. The real contention sets came out, and every announcement made beforehand was confirmed or not.
ICANN checks the string (confusingly similar to an existing TLD? a protected term?), the applicant (background screening, financials), and the operations plan. One change from 2012: applicants have to use a registry service provider ICANN has already vetted, which should clear the biggest bottleneck from last time.
Third parties can formally object on legal rights, community, or public interest grounds. This is where trademark holders and communities get their shot at an application before it goes any further.
When more than one applicant wants the same string, the ways out this round are public ones: an applicant switches to its backup string or withdraws, a community applicant wins priority through Community Priority Evaluation, or the whole set goes to an ICANN auction. That's a big change from 2012, when most sets were settled privately. This time ICANN prohibits private resolution outright: no private auctions, no settlement agreements, no joint ventures, no paying a rival to withdraw. Applicants for the same string aren't even allowed to discuss it from Reveal Day until their set resolves.
The winner signs a registry agreement with ICANN, and the technical setup gets tested before anything goes live.
The TLD is added to the DNS root and becomes real. After that the registry runs sunrise for trademark holders, then early access, then general availability, on its own schedule.
A caveat on timing: ICANN publishes a process, not a schedule. The best guide is what actually happened last time, and last time was slow. Of the 1,235 strings the 2012 round delegated, not one made it into the root within a year of the window closing. The median took 2.9 years. The slowest, .kids, took 9.8. Map that pace onto this round's calendar and it looks like this.
What 2012 teaches
The 2012 round drew 1,930 applications covering 1,408 unique strings. ICANN revealed the list in June 2012, the first new TLDs went live in October 2013, and 484 were in the root by the end of 2014.
The big money showed up in contention. When several applicants wanted the same string, they either worked it out privately or went to auction, and the auctions set the highest prices ever paid for a TLD: .web sold for $135 million in July 2016.
In 2012, applicants who lost a private auction shared the winning bid. This round, ICANN prohibits private auctions, settlements, joint ventures and payment for withdrawing. If no one switches to a backup string, withdraws or wins community priority, the set goes to an ICANN auction, and nobody is paid to withdraw.
Why this round is different
New TLDs got off to a rough start. Registrations grew quickly to about a fifth of .com's size by 2016, then went sideways for eight years. A lot of that early volume was penny promotions that never renewed.
That changed around 2023. New gTLDs held 56 million registrations in April 2026, a third of .com's count, and the recent growth comes from extensions people actually use: .shop, .store, .online. This round opens with new gTLDs at a third of .com's registrations, their highest share on record as of April 2026.
It's also the first round of the AI era. Names on these TLDs will be typed by people and recommended by chatbots, and how AI reads a string is now part of what the string is worth. That's what our record tries to measure: one AI score per string, from the same fixed rubric, so every TLD gets judged on the same terms.
After Reveal Day
The sealed list replaced the announced one on 7 October. What it showed, company by company and contest by contest, is in the Reveal Day recap, and the living version is the overview. The next dates: the replacement period, 8 to 21 October, when an applicant may switch to its backup string; String Confirmation Day on 17 November, when objections open; the last day to withdraw for a 65% refund on 27 November; objections close on 16 March 2027; the prioritization draw in the first half of 2027.
Every application is source-linked, every score is versioned, and corrections go in a public changelog.