.collective
Is .collective a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.collective is contested: 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are XYZ Registry, Identity Digital and Radix. Link Freedom Group named .collective as a backup string for its .super 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 three already run TLDs, 37.19M names between them. Three run one of .collective's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .community, Identity Digital .group and Identity Digital .team.
Will names sell?
A warm word for groups and co-ops, but most will still explain the address; expect steady small demand, not a standard.
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. .collective’s closest 2012 strings hold .community 27K, .group 127K and .team 67K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .community, held 26,945 names, June 2026. .group held 127,061; .team held 67,162. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a soft collective-noun for a self-organized body of people, sold as the primary identity of the group itself rather than of a company or a topic.
Same bet: an entity-form noun that a set of people or businesses adopts as its own name suffix, monetizing the desire to look like one organization made of many.
Same bet of a collective noun standing in for a company name, but skews toward sports squads and internal work units rather than the co-owned creative or member-run organization .collective implies.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .collective included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- XYZ Registry × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × Radix
- Link Freedom Group × Radix
artist collectives, worker co-ops, creative studios, community groups, and web3/DAO projects that brand around shared ownership and want the group idea in the name itself
What a .collective domain is
.collective is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .collective domain extension real yet?
.collective 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 .collective domain?
You can’t yet. A .collective 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 .collective was .community, delegated on 27 January 2014.
Is .collective a real TLD?
Not yet. .collective is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .collective is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
“PTL2645T-T10388 · Pirin Tablet, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-44 RTIS2674T-T63817 · Radix Technologies Inc SEZC · primary · contention set 2026-44 XL2625T-T71228 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-44”ICANN
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
LFGL2683T-T40173 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .super · Deactivated PTL2645T-T10388 · Pirin Tablet, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-44 RTIS2674T-T63817 · Radix Technologies Inc SEZC · primary · contention set 2026-44 XL2625T-T71228 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-44
“Radix has applied for these TLDs; we do not own or operate them today.”Radix
“.collective · Lifestyle · “Strength in numbers.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49 (usable but limited). The string is a real, positively-coded English word with a clear semantic fit for co-ops, artist groups, unions, mutual-aid orgs, and DAO-style projects, so genuine primary-identity registrations are plausible over the next 5 years. But it is a long string (ten letters right of the dot), the buyer pool is diffuse and mostly low-budget, and by analogy with descriptive community-flavored TLDs such as .community, .group, and .team (analogy, exact volumes unknown), such strings tend to see modest registration bases, heavy defensive/hobby use, and thin aftermarkets rather than category-standard status. It is not in the 50-69 band because there is no single major vertical where a .collective address is the expected default that sustains resale demand; it is above the 10-29 band because the word carries real brand warmth and identity-fit for its buyers, so registrations are more than vanity or event-driven. Applicant context: the string was announced by Link Freedom Group, which filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round, categorized as Lifestyle with the tagline 'Strength in numbers.'; a large-portfolio applicant suggests broad-availability retail positioning rather than a restricted community registry, which is neutral-to-mildly-positive for volume but does not by itself create category-standard demand. Main market uncertainty: whether the co-op/DAO/creator-collective wave produces enough well-funded projects that choose a descriptive TLD as primary identity, versus defaulting to .com, .xyz, or .org as similar groups often have (analogy).