.commerce
Is .commerce a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.commerce is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Intercap and Link Freedom Group.
Who is applying, and what they run today
One of the two already run TLDs, 11K names between them. Link Freedom Group runs none.
Will names sell?
A clear label for online selling, but shorter established endings like .shop and .store already own this space, leaving it a backup choice.
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. .commerce’s closest 2012 strings hold .trade 25K and .business 38K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .trade, held 24,960 names, June 2026. .business held 37,863. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: an abstract dictionary noun for the act of buying and selling, sold as an all-purpose commercial namespace where no single registrant has a stronger claim than any other, so it lives or dies on generic-word demand rather than on any defined constituency.
Same bet: a maximally broad activity/category noun that describes what nearly every registrant does but identifies none of them, meaning it must win on sheer breadth and keyword resonance instead of on anyone putting their primary identity on it.
- .ecom
Same buyer (merchants selling online) and same sector-noun job, but it is a clipped trade-jargon coinage aimed at a narrower online-selling niche rather than a full abstract noun covering all commercial activity.
e-commerce startups, marketplace builders, and B2B trade platforms wanting a descriptive web address; secondarily agencies and SaaS vendors selling commerce tooling who could not get the .com they wanted.
What a .commerce domain is
.commerce is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .commerce domain extension real yet?
.commerce 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 .commerce domain?
You can’t yet. A .commerce 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 .commerce was .trade, delegated on 19 March 2014.
Is .commerce a real TLD?
Not yet. .commerce is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .commerce is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Intercap · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“IRI2679T-T80405 · Intercap Registry Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-45 LFGL2683T-T68329 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-45”ICANN
“.commerce · Commerce · “Where deals and ideas meet.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string is a real dictionary word with an unambiguous meaning, so registrations at volume are plausible for e-commerce projects priced out of .com. It is not in the 50-69 band because the category it describes is already served by shorter, earlier retail-themed endings (by analogy, .shop and .store absorbed most primary-identity demand in this space, and even they remain secondary to .com for serious retailers), and at nine characters .commerce is the longest and most formal of the set, which weakens memorability and brand signal; sustained primary-identity demand is unknown and, by analogy to other long descriptive generics like .shopping or .marketing, likely thin. It is not in the 10-29 band because the word is globally understood, maps to a large durable industry, and could plausibly serve as a working identity for B2B trade platforms and commerce-infrastructure vendors over the next 5 years, which is more than vanity or event-driven demand. Aftermarket value would likely concentrate in a handful of premium generics (by analogy to how one-word matches on other business generics trade), with a shallow tail. My main market uncertainty: whether commerce-platform and payments companies treat a descriptive suffix as credible for primary identity at all, or whether the category has consolidated so fully around .com and .shop-style short endings that .commerce is relegated to redirects and defensive registrations.