.consultants
Is .consultants a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.consultants is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are XYZ and Identity Digital.
A plain occupational label that works for a consultant's site, but the plural form reads like a directory and carries little brand weight.
independent consultants, small advisory firms and lead-generation directories wanting a descriptive address when the matching .com is taken
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.
Same bet exactly: an unowned generic advisory-services word sold to independent practitioners and small professional firms who would hang their whole identity on it, with no community, brand, or geography to anchor demand.
The identical structural bet — a plural, licence-free profession noun whose buyer is the individual practitioner or boutique practice, and whose success depends on professionals abandoning a .com firm name for an occupational label.
Also a plural practitioner noun bought as a primary identity by one-person-to-small-firm service providers, but the trade-services buyer is more local and lead-gen driven than the advisory buyer, so the economics differ in kind.
What a .consultants domain is
.consultants is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Commerce. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .consultants domain extension real yet?
.consultants 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 .consultants domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .consultants name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .consultants was .consulting, delegated on 1 April 2014.
Is .consultants a real TLD?
Not yet. .consultants is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .consultants is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
“FCL2632T-T31379 · Fore Course, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-50 XL2625T-T91094 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-50”ICANN
“SS2654T-T57273 · Hair Apparent, LLC · primary XL2625T-T76256 · XYZ.COM LLC · replacement string of .expo · Deactivated”ICANN
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string names a large, real occupational group, and independent consultants are a plausible population of small-business registrants who will take a descriptive name on price when the .com they want is gone, so the TLD is not in the 10-29 vanity band. It is not in the 50-69 band because the plural form signals a listing or directory rather than a single firm's identity, the string is long to type and say, and by analogy with other occupational and plural-profession strings from earlier rounds (flagged as analogy), uptake tends to be price-driven, renewal-sensitive and thin on the aftermarket, with few serious firms choosing it as primary identity without a reason. A singular or activity-form sibling string (.consulting-type) competes for the same buyer and, by analogy, tends to win the identity use case. The record shows two confirmed applicants in contention set 2026-50 (Fore Course, LLC and XYZ.COM LLC), which indicates registry interest but says nothing about end-user demand. It is unknown on this record whether this string, or a near-identical one, was delegated in a prior round; if it was, the existing registration base and renewal pattern would be the real evidence, and the main market uncertainty is exactly that: whether consultants treat such an address as a credible primary identity or only as a cheap redirect.