.cap
Is .cap a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.cap 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.
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?
A short real word with many meanings (hats, slang, market cap), but no group needs it, so most use will be cheap or novelty registrations.
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. .cap’s closest 2012 strings hold .box 3K, .bar 45K and .tab 5.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .box, held 2,752 names, June 2026. .bar held 44,834; .tab held 5. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet as .cap: a short, everyday English noun with several unrelated senses and no single owning industry, so the registry is selling brevity and semantic flex to a broad open pool rather than serving one identifiable trade.
A three-letter common word whose two live readings (hospitality and the legal bar) split it across unrelated buyer pools the way 'cap' splits across headwear, capital/market-cap finance, and limit/quota usage, with the bet being that at least one community adopts it as primary identity.
Another short multi-meaning noun (bill, browser tab, pull-tab) sold on shortness plus ambiguity, where no community's core identity is natively 'tab' and the registry must manufacture an anchor use case, the same structural problem .cap faces.
streetwear and headwear brands, meme-culture and slang-driven projects, plus finance sites playing on 'market cap' and word-hack registrants (re.cap, hub.cap)
What a .cap domain is
.cap is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .cap domain extension real yet?
.cap 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 .cap domain?
You can’t yet. A .cap 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 .cap was .box, delegated on 11 November 2016.
Is .cap a real TLD?
Not yet. .cap is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .cap is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- XYZ Registry · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T20815 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-34 XL2625T-T39552 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-34”ICANN
“.cap · Culture · “Championing capitalism’s future.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49). The string is a short, common English word with several live meanings: headwear, the slang sense of 'cap' as a lie ('no cap'), financial market capitalization, and caps/limits, plus the applicant's stated capitalism framing. That polysemy generates registration volume and word-hack appeal (re.cap, hub.cap, market.cap) but works against a coherent identity: no single buyer group would treat .cap as its natural home, and the slang meaning 'lie' is an actively negative connotation for a serious primary identity. By analogy (flagged as analogy), slang- and single-word culture TLDs such as .lol, .wtf, and .fyi have tended to produce price-driven or novelty registration bases with thin aftermarkets and few flagship primary identities; .cap looks similar but with a weaker meme anchor than those. It is not in the band below (10-29) because the word is genuinely short, memorable, and supports commerce use (headwear, finance-adjacent branding) beyond pure joke value, so some sustained low-level demand over the next 5 years is plausible. It is not in the band above (50-69) because no category shows signs of adopting .cap as an explainable default; every use case needs a pitch, and the applicant is a high-volume portfolio filer rather than a community anchor, which per the verified facts suggests broad speculative positioning rather than category-specific adoption investment. Main market uncertainty: whether the 'no cap' slang current in youth culture converts into any real branded usage, or stays a registration-day novelty.