.gateway
Is .gateway a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .gateway in its own right, as of 7 October 2026. Innovation Service Limited named .gateway as the replacement string of its .vpn application.
A descriptive tech word that fits a few infrastructure and payments brands, but most buyers will see it as an add-on, not a home.
infrastructure, API, networking and payments companies whose product is literally a gateway, plus churches, campuses and civic projects that already trade under the word
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: a single abstract noun meaning "point of connection or passage" that belongs to no industry, so its value rests entirely on many unrelated registrants wanting a connection metaphor as their primary identity.
Same bet: a short generic connection word whose appeal is metaphorical plus faintly technical, needing broad cross-sector adoption rather than one defined trade to sustain it.
Same family of bet, a generic infrastructure noun sold to anyone who connects or intermediates, but it names a concrete thing an entity can be rather than a metaphor for an entry point, so its buyer pool is more clearly bounded.
What a .gateway domain is
.gateway is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Infrastructure. Nobody has applied for .gateway in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .gateway domain extension real yet?
.gateway 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 .gateway domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .gateway name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .gateway was .nexus, delegated on 15 September 2014.
Is .gateway a real TLD?
Not yet. .gateway is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .gateway as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Innovation Service Limited · first recordedICANN
“ISL2626T-T66950 · Innovation Service Limited · replacement string of .vpn”ICANN
“AT2680T-T24214 · Arctic Tan, LLC · primary ISL2626T-T43193 · Innovation Service Limited · replacement string of .faq · Deactivated”ICANN
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49), at the bottom of the band. The string is a real, widely used English word with a clear technical meaning (API gateway, network gateway, payment gateway) and a secondary use as a place or organisation name, so registrations will happen and a minority will be genuine primary identities. It is not in the strong-niche band (50-69) because the word is a descriptor rather than a category people identify with: a company that builds a gateway product usually brands on its own name and would treat name.gateway as a redirect or product sub-site, not its main address, and I expect the aftermarket to be thin. It is not in the vanity band (10-29) because, by analogy to descriptor TLDs such as .network, .systems and .solutions (analogy, not data), descriptive tech strings tend to accumulate a steady base of small-business and developer registrations and some real sites rather than event-driven spikes. Record context, stated neutrally: the string is recorded as a replacement string for a .vpn application by Innovation Service Limited, with no contention and no category tag on the record; that implies a single-operator open TLD, which I treat as neutral for adoption. Figures such as expected registration volumes or comparable-TLD counts are unknown. Main market uncertainty: whether the word functions as a product category with identifiable buyers (API and payment gateway vendors adopting it as a signal) or purely as a descriptor that sells mainly on promotional pricing; the former would lift it toward the middle of the band, the latter would hold it near the floor.