.cnc
Is .cnc a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody is chasing .cnc, as of 7 October 2026. One applicant claimed it and is out. We keep the entry on the record either way.
- Journey To The West
A niche label for machine shops; the industry knows the term, but few shops would make it their main web address.
CNC machining shops, machine-tool and tooling vendors, and on-demand manufacturing platforms that want an industry-flagged address for a service line or campaign
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round. Their catalog line: “Precision cutting, guided entirely by code.”
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.
Both bet that an insider trade acronym — meaningless to the public, unambiguous to practitioners — can carry the primary identity of a narrow professional vertical, so the registry is selling credibility inside a small closed community rather than reach.
Same bet that an unowned three-letter trade designation is the natural namespace for thousands of small owner-operated firms who already describe themselves by that acronym, with the registry's value resting on the string reading as a qualification badge.
Also an acronym that is the de facto category name for a specialized commercial niche, but the registrant pool is a few hundred institutional entities rather than a long tail of small operators, so the volume assumption underneath the bet is different.
What a .cnc domain is
.cnc is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. Nobody is chasing .cnc today. The applicants that claimed it are out.
Is the .cnc domain extension real yet?
.cnc is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .cnc domain?
You can’t yet. A .cnc 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 .cnc was .cfd, delegated on 13 March 2015.
Is .cnc a real TLD?
Not yet. .cnc is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant claimed .cnc and is no longer in it. We keep the entry, and every entry on this page links to its source.
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“.cnc · Energy & Mobility · “Precision cutting, guided entirely by code.””Journey To The West Corporation
- CNC (computer numerical control) is the everyday name of a large global machining industry, so the string has genuine semantic fit for a real, sizable buyer group — that keeps it out of the 1-9 band. But by analogy with existing trade-vertical TLDs (.plumbing, .contractors, .industries, .machines), industrial-services strings have historically seen thin registration bases, weak brand signal outside the trade, and almost no aftermarket; machine shops overwhelmingly anchor identity on .com or their ccTLD, which is why I place it in the 10-29 band rather than 30-49 (no realistic path to volume registrations or price-driven demand, and primary-identity use would be rare). The applicant is a Beijing-based portfolio applicant with 323 submitted strings (per the facts block); whether dedicated vertical marketing follows is unknown. Main market uncertainty: whether manufacturing SMEs — especially in China, where much of the CNC industry sits — would adopt an ASCII industry TLD at all given .com/.cn habits; that judgment is by analogy, not from adoption figures.