.artist
Is .artist a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.artist is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Identity Digital. Intercap named .artist as a backup string for its .creator application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Link Freedom Group named .artist as a backup string for its .mark application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Two of the 3 are tied to a registry that runs TLDs today. Identity Digital, Link Freedom Group and Intercap filed 445 applications between them across the round.
Will names sell?
A natural address for individual creators, but shorter art-themed options and platform profiles keep demand niche and price-driven.
Last round the AI scored the 2012 strings blind to their fate. Strings it scored 60 or more hold a median 27,168 names today; those under 30, a median of 30. .artist’s closest 2012 strings hold .actor 4K and .author 2.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .actor, held 3,612 names, June 2026. .author held 2. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a creative-profession noun sold to individual practitioners who would hang their personal identity on it, with success depending on enough working creatives paying to self-declare rather than on any institution certifying the label.
Same bet: a self-applied creator-identity noun with no gatekeeper, monetized one portfolio site at a time, where the risk is that the label is aspirational for far more people than will pay to hold it.
- .architect
Also a profession noun bought by individual practitioners and small studios for primary identity, but it is a licensed title with a defensible credential, so the buyer pool is narrower and better qualified than the open-to-all creative label.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group face each other in 68 contests this round, .artist included.
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × Intercap
- Link Freedom Group × Intercap
individual visual artists, musicians, and performers building a personal portfolio site, plus galleries, collectives, and agencies representing them
What a .artist domain is
.artist is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .artist domain extension real yet?
.artist 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 .artist domain?
You can’t yet. A .artist 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 .artist was .actor, delegated on 26 February 2014.
Is .artist a real TLD?
Not yet. .artist is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .artist is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now deactivated backupICANN
- Intercap · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“IRI2679T-T86683 · Intercap Registry Inc. · replacement string of .creator · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T39556 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .mark · Deactivated MH2645T-T78893 · Mystic Hammer, LLC · primary”ICANN
“.artist · Culture · “Where creators belong.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49 (usable but limited). The string is a clear, universally understood identity word with a genuinely large global buyer group, and a name.artist pattern reads naturally as a personal portfolio address. But the creative-namespace slot is already contested by shorter established strings aimed at the same buyers (by analogy, generic creative TLDs such as .art and .design have achieved real but modest adoption, largely on price and portfolio use rather than as unexplained defaults, an inference from analogy since I may not assert their figures here). .artist is longer than its closest incumbent analog, is a common noun rather than a brandable category label, and its buyers are individuals who are price-sensitive, churn-prone, and increasingly anchor identity on platform handles rather than domains. That points to volume-and-price registrations, weak resale premium, and a thin aftermarket. It is not in the 50-69 band because there is no sign of sustained primary-identity demand specific to this string, and the closest incumbent analog would likely absorb most serious creative-identity buyers, leaving .artist to explain itself against a shorter sibling. It is not in the 10-29 band because the word is a real, permanent occupational identity with a large addressable population and a natural firstname.artist use pattern, so demand should be steady rather than event-driven or joke-grade. Applicant facts are neutral context only: the applicant filed a very large portfolio of strings in the 2026 round, which suggests a portfolio-registry go-to-market rather than a single-string community push; that makes deep vertical marketing to artists less certain but does not change what the string itself can support. Main market uncertainty: whether individual creators in the next 5 years treat any domain as their primary identity at all, versus platform and social handles; if domain-based creator identity strengthens, this string performs at the top of its band, and if it keeps eroding, near the bottom.