.change
Is .change a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.change is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Identity Digital. Link Freedom Group named .change as a backup string for its .tea 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 2 is tied to a registry that runs TLDs today. Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group filed 374 applications between them across the round.
Will names sell?
A warm, cause-flavored word that suits campaigns and coaching brands, but few serious projects would make it their main 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. .change’s closest 2012 strings hold .gives 4K, .green 9K and .love 69K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .gives, held 4,222 names, June 2026. .green held 9,228; .love held 68,867. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: an abstract cause-verb with no defined registrant class, sold on aspiration to nonprofits, campaigns and purpose-marketing brands that want a word signalling impact rather than describing what they are.
Also a values word rather than a category noun, whose buyer is anyone wanting to claim a movement identity, so it depends entirely on purpose-branding budgets treating a suffix as a credential.
The same ownerless-abstraction bet that only works as phrase completion, monetized on sentiment and premium keyword sales rather than on a population that already calls itself by the word.
nonprofit and advocacy campaigns, social-impact and sustainability startups, coaching and self-improvement brands, and occasional fintech plays on the money sense of the word
What a .change domain is
.change 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 .change domain extension real yet?
.change 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 .change domain?
You can’t yet. A .change 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 .change was .gives, delegated on 4 June 2014.
Is .change a real TLD?
Not yet. .change is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .change 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
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T71849 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .tea · Deactivated TCL2632T-T95864 · Tidal Case, LLC · primary”ICANN
“.change · Commerce · “Change is always possible.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string is a common, positive English verb-noun with real semantic breadth: social change, personal transformation, and the money sense of change, so registrations at volume are plausible among mission-toned projects, which keeps it above the 10-29 vanity band where demand is shallow and event-driven. It stays below the 50-69 strong-niche band because no single buyer group treats a .change address as a natural primary identity: advocacy organizations lean heavily toward legacy nonprofit namespaces (analogy: the entrenched default of .org for causes), and the strongest brand association with the word in the cause space belongs to an established petition platform, which crowds the semantic territory rather than validating the TLD. By analogy, broad aspirational dictionary TLDs such as .life, .world, and .today achieved volume registrations but weak brand signal and thin aftermarkets over their lifetimes, and .change reads as a narrower slice of that same pattern. Applicant facts are neutral context: the string is announced by Link Freedom Group, which filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and published its catalog entry for this string under category Commerce with the tagline "Change is always possible."; a large-portfolio applicant suggests a volume-oriented rollout rather than a single-category anchor strategy, which fits the usable-but-limited profile. Registration volumes, pricing, and aftermarket comps for the analog TLDs are unknown and reasoned only qualitatively. Main market uncertainty: whether cause-driven organizations are willing to adopt any new namespace as a primary identity at all, or whether .change ends up as defensive and redirect registrations behind entrenched nonprofit defaults.