.format
Is .format a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .format in its own right, as of 7 October 2026. Identity Digital named .format as the replacement string of its .ext application.
A dictionary word that reads as a suffix for file-conversion and design tools, but too abstract to become a serious primary identity.
developer-tool and file-conversion services, design and typography studios, and media or publishing projects that want a "name.format" address
No applications recorded for this TLD yet.
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 as .format: a bare abstract technical mass noun that no profession or trade names itself after, so the registry is selling phrase-completion and jargon flavour to the whole digital economy rather than identity to a defined community.
Also an open registry wagered on a piece of digital-industry process vocabulary — a thing you do to material, not a business you are — so demand depends on the word reading as a label on a tool or output rather than on anyone's primary identity.
Like .format it is a generic structural noun for a unit of published material whose value comes entirely from the word to its left completing a phrase, with no owning industry and no registrant for whom it is the obvious home.
What a .format domain is
.format is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. Nobody has applied for .format in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .format domain extension real yet?
.format 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 .format domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .format name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .format was .data, delegated on 20 December 2016.
Is .format a real TLD?
Not yet. .format is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .format as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
“TT2652T-T36282 · Toddler Logic, LLC · replacement string of .ext”ICANN
“TT2652T-T49229 · Toddler Logic, LLC · replacement string of .wear TT2652T-T78768 · Toddler Logic, LLC · replacement string of .all”ICANN
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/joke/narrow). The string is a common English word with a few real semantic hooks: file formats and conversion tools (a 'pdf.format' or 'video.format' style address), design, layout and typography services, and media or publishing formats. Those hooks are real but thin; 'format' is an abstract noun that does not name a category of business the way .design, .studio or .tools do, so a serious project would need to explain the choice rather than have the suffix explain itself. By analogy (flagged as analogy), abstract-noun generics from the 2012 round such as .digital, .solutions or .systems registered at volume largely on price and defensive demand, with weak aftermarket and little primary-identity use; .format is narrower than any of those, so I place it below the 30-49 band rather than in it. It is not in the 1-9 band because a dictionary word with a developer-tools and design-services reading has a realistic, if small, pool of buyers and some hack-style name potential. The record shows this string as a replacement for a primary .ext application by Toddler Logic, LLC; that pairing suggests a file-extension or developer-utility positioning, which is consistent with the audience above, and the contention count on the record is 0. Main market uncertainty: whether a developer-tooling or file-conversion operator ever adopts a .format address as a flagship product identity and makes the pattern recognisable, versus the string remaining a low-volume generic with no anchor use.