.bnb
Is .bnb a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.bnb is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are XYZ Registry and Link Freedom Group. Nano Labs named .bnb as a backup string for its .agent application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Aruba named .bnb as a backup string for its .hello 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
One of the two already run TLDs, 11.96M names between them. Link Freedom Group runs none.
Will names sell?
Catchy for bed-and-breakfast and short-stay sites, but the abbreviation leans on a famous rental brand and most hosts live on platforms.
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.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .amex, held 10 names, June 2026. .aws held 127; .bbva held 14. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a three-letter colloquial abbreviation of one well-known company that carries no dictionary meaning of its own, so the namespace is worth exactly what the parent brand's recognition is worth and nobody outside that brand's orbit would put their primary identity on it.
Same bet in ecosystem form: an initialism for a platform/product rather than the corporate parent, wagering that an installed base of developers and partners adopts the platform owner's namespace as their own identity layer instead of staying on neutral ground.
Same bet on the financial side: an opaque institutional acronym run as a controlled namespace for a regulated money business, where the string's job is trust-signalling and anti-impersonation for one operator's customers rather than attracting open registrations.
Where they meet elsewhere
XYZ Registry and Link Freedom Group face each other in 49 contests this round, .bnb included.
- Link Freedom Group × XYZ Registry
- Link Freedom Group × Aruba
- XYZ Registry × Aruba
independent bed-and-breakfast owners, boutique guesthouses, and short-term-rental hosts building direct-booking sites; secondarily, crypto projects drawn to the string's overlap with a major cryptocurrency ticker
What a .bnb domain is
.bnb 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 .bnb domain extension real yet?
.bnb 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 .bnb domain?
You can’t yet. A .bnb 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 .bnb was .amex, delegated on 8 August 2016.
Is .bnb a real TLD?
Not yet. .bnb is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .bnb is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Nano Labs · first recordedICANN
- Aruba · now deactivated backupICANN
- Aruba · now abandonedICANN
- XYZ Registry · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Aruba · first recordedDomain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann), quoting Aruba S.p.A.
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T71220 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-28 XL2625T-T80284 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-28”ICANN
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
APEC2611T-T61164 · Aruba PEC S.P.A. · replacement string of .hello · Deactivated ITL2677T-T74240 · Ipollo Tech Ltd · replacement string of .agent · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T71220 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-28 XL2625T-T80284 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-28
“Aruba S.p.A., which operates the .cloud top level domain, is expanding its domain portfolio. The company told Domain Name Wire that it applied for 39 top level domains in this year's new TLD round. That number includes replacement strings. [...] The company applied for the following strings as primary or replacement: aid, all, ask, beta, bit, bnb, cart, ciao, daily, demo, easy, fix, gaming, gen, genius, gym, happy, hello, hola, human, kit, lab, mars, max, moon, omg, pec, pop, rem, roma, sign, sito, super, tag, tex, vps, yes, zen, zzz”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann), quoting Aruba S.p.A.
“.bnb · Lifestyle · “Wake up somewhere new, every time.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49), at 40. Not the band above (strong niche, 50-69) because the natural buyer, the small independent host, mostly acquires guests through large booking platforms rather than a primary-identity website, so genuine primary-identity use is likely thin over the next 5 years, and the string's strong association with a globally known short-term-rental brand plus a well-known cryptocurrency ticker makes serious projects wary of building a durable identity on it. Not the band below (vanity/joke, 10-29) because the hospitality meaning is instantly legible, the string is short and pronounceable, and direct-booking sites for boutique stays are a real, ongoing use case that should produce steady low-volume registrations. Main market uncertainty: how much of short-stay hospitality shifts to owner-operated direct-booking websites versus staying platform-mediated over the next 5 years; a strong direct-booking movement would materially lift end-use demand.