.folio
Is .folio a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.folio is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 8 October 2026. It is Starlight (Namecheap).
A tidy word for portfolio sites that creatives may like, but most will still default to mainstream domains, so expect niche use.
creatives building portfolio sites — designers, photographers, illustrators, writers — plus a smaller tail of fintech and investing products that lean on the "portfolio" sense
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: the string names the *kind of site* being published rather than an industry, so the buyer is an individual creator putting their personal identity on the format word itself (name.blog / name.folio), which only works if people accept a site-type label as a permanent address.
Also a generic web-object noun (and literally what 'folio' means — a leaf/page) sold as an everyman personal-presence container, but its bet is mass-market and format-neutral where .folio narrows to people who have work to show.
A showcase-container noun with the same dual literal/metaphoric play — real venues plus anyone displaying a body of work — but it leans more toward established businesses than the individual freelancer identity .folio is aimed at.
What a .folio domain is
.folio is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .folio domain extension real yet?
.folio 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 .folio domain?
You can’t yet. A .folio 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 .folio was .blog, delegated on 18 May 2016.
Is .folio a real TLD?
Not yet. .folio is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .folio is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Starlight (Namecheap) · noteDomain Name Wire
- Starlight (Namecheap) · first recordedICANN
“CEI2660T-T30004 · Capella Exploration, Inc. · primary”ICANN
“For us, moving into the registry side is a natural extension of what we have been building.”Domain Name Wire
- I place .folio in the 30-49 usable-but-limited band, at 40. The string reads naturally before the dot (name.folio) and maps to a genuine, recurring need — personal and creative portfolio sites — and the applicant, Starlight Registry (established by Namecheap, a large registrar, per the verified facts), gives it real retail distribution, which supports registration volume over the next 5 years. It is not in the 50-69 band because, by analogy with creative-niche TLDs like .design, .art, and .studio, even well-marketed semantic strings in this space have tended toward modest niche adoption rather than primary-identity defaults: creatives largely stay on .com, .me, or platform subdomains, and portfolio sites are typically personal, low-budget properties that produce a thin aftermarket. It is not in the 10-29 band because the word is a real dictionary term with a clear use case and registrar-backed channel, not a joke or event-driven string; analogy suggests steady, price-sensitive registration demand rather than a fad. Main market uncertainty: whether any major portfolio-builder or creative platform adopts .folio as a default or promoted identity for its users, which is the difference between commodity volume and a genuine category niche.