.backup
Is .backup a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.backup is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Intercap.
A descriptive keyword for backup and recovery services; useful for product pages, rarely a company's main address.
backup, storage and disaster-recovery vendors wanting a keyword address, plus individuals labelling a fallback or mirror site
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 exactly: a generic single-purpose IT-utility noun whose primary registrants would be the service providers selling that utility, betting that the function word outranks their own brand as an address.
Also a narrow, single-function protective computing product category rather than a market or an identity, so it depends on the same thing — that vendors of one utility will relocate their primary identity onto the utility's name.
A generic infrastructure-service noun aimed at the same buyer class of IT service providers, though it names a broader, more established service line than a single feature like backup.
What a .backup domain is
.backup is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .backup domain extension real yet?
.backup 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 .backup domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .backup name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .backup was .storage, delegated on 18 December 2015.
Is .backup a real TLD?
Not yet. .backup is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .backup is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Intercap · first recordedICANN
“EDI2665T-T28371 · Endpoint Domains, Inc. · primary IRI2679T-T96997 · Intercap Registry Inc. · replacement string of .wiz · Deactivated NA2626T-T63059 · ShortDot (Ireland) Limited · replacement string of .ask · Deactivated XL2625T-T48604 · XYZ.COM LLC · replacement string of .con · Deactivated”ICANN
- Band chosen: 30-49 (usable but limited), at its low edge. The string is a real product-category word with commercial search intent, so registrations by backup, storage and recovery vendors are plausible at volume or on price, which keeps it above the vanity band; it also has a secondary vanity use (a fallback or mirror site), which is shallow but real. It is not in the 50-69 band because, by analogy with earlier descriptive infrastructure strings such as .storage and .host (analogy), vendors in this space have tended to keep brand identities on established namespaces and use the descriptive TLD for landing pages or redirects rather than as primary identity, and the aftermarket for such strings has been thin. .cloud is the more successful analogue (analogy), but .backup is narrower and more functional in meaning. The verified facts show a single confirmed applicant, Intercap Registry Inc., with .pdf recorded as its replacement string; no launch-model or pricing facts are recorded, so adoption pace is unknown. Main market uncertainty: whether any backup or cloud-storage provider adopts the TLD for customer-facing subdomains or a product line, which would create organic use beyond defensive and keyword registrations.