.cart
Is .cart a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.cart is contested: 4 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Identity Digital, Intercap, GoDaddy Registry and Link Freedom Group. XYZ Registry named .cart as a backup string for its .mag application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Aruba named .cart as a backup string for its .pec 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
Three of the four already run TLDs, 22.03M names between them. One runs one of .cart's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .shopping. Link Freedom Group runs none.
Will names sell?
A niche e-commerce word: useful for checkout links and cart-software tools, but few businesses would make .cart their main web address.
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. .cart’s closest 2012 strings hold .shop 4.72M, .store 2.34M and .shopping 8K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .shop, held 4,716,233 names, June 2026. .store held 2,335,965; .shopping held 8,388. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet exactly: a short generic commerce noun sold to any merchant as the place their primary storefront identity lives, working only if sellers will move their checkout-facing brand off .com.
Another plain-English retail-venue noun aimed at the identical buyer — anyone selling goods online — with the same dependence on registrar-scale volume rather than a defined community or single registrant.
Same generic e-commerce category play for the same merchant buyer, but it names the shopper's activity rather than the seller's storefront or checkout instrument, so it leans slightly more consumer/marketplace than .cart.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .cart included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × GoDaddy Registry
- Link Freedom Group × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Intercap
e-commerce software vendors (cart, checkout, and cart-recovery tools), merchants wanting short checkout or cart redirect links, and commerce-keyword domain investors
What a .cart domain is
.cart is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 4 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .cart domain extension real yet?
.cart 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 .cart domain?
You can’t yet. A .cart 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 .cart was .shop, delegated on 23 May 2016.
Is .cart a real TLD?
Not yet. .cart is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .cart is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- XYZ Registry · first recordedICANN
- Aruba · now deactivated backupICANN
- Aruba · now abandonedICANN
- 3 applicants · 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
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
IRI2679T-T44455 · Intercap Registry Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-35 LFGL2683T-T28734 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-35 NA2631T-T13154 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-35 PB2674T-T38544 · Paws Button, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-35
The source’s 6 linesHide the lines
APEC2611T-T91457 · Aruba PEC S.P.A. · replacement string of .pec · Deactivated IRI2679T-T44455 · Intercap Registry Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-35 LFGL2683T-T28734 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-35 NA2631T-T13154 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-35 PB2674T-T38544 · Paws Button, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-35 XL2625T-T30125 · XYZ.COM LLC · replacement string of .mag · Deactivated
“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.
“.cart · Commerce · “Ready when you are to check out.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The word 'cart' names a page state or feature inside a store, not a business identity, so its natural role is functional (checkout redirects, cart-recovery links, cart-platform branding) rather than primary identity. It is not in the 50-69 band because, by analogy with broader commerce strings such as .shop and .store (analogy, not measured data), even those wider terms needed price promotion to drive volume and produced genuine primary-identity use only in a minority of registrations; a narrower feature-word like .cart should see less of that, not more. It is not in the 10-29 band because e-commerce is a large, durable market over the next 5 years, the string is short and unambiguous in that context, and there is a plausible utility niche in branded checkout/cart links for merchants and cart SaaS vendors, which is more than vanity or event-driven demand. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, positions the string under Commerce with the tagline 'Ready when you are to check out.', consistent with this functional-commerce framing; as part of a portfolio of more than 300 filed strings, per-string marketing attention is an open question, which I use only as an adoption-likelihood input, not a quality judgment. Main market uncertainty: whether any meaningful cohort treats a cart/checkout URL as something worth branding on its own domain, versus keeping checkout on the store's existing domain for trust and conversion reasons, a behavior that could leave .cart with thin, price-driven registrations.