.gear
Is .gear a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.gear is contested: 4 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are GoDaddy Registry, XYZ Registry, Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Three of the four already run TLDs, 33.97M names between them. Three run one of .gear's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .equipment, Identity Digital .supplies and Identity Digital .tools. Link Freedom Group runs none.
Will names sell?
A niche label for equipment sellers and enthusiast brands; fine for a gear shop, but rarely a serious company's main web address.
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. .gear’s closest 2012 strings hold .equipment 5K, .tools 30K and .supplies 3K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .equipment, held 4,944 names, June 2026. .tools held 30,491; .supplies held 3,151. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Near-synonym generic category noun making the identical bet: an open, unrestricted retail/commerce zone where sellers and makers of physical kit put their primary identity, with no community, brand, or credential to define or defend it.
Same bet structure — a short, plain-English noun for things people use, sold broadly to retailers, manufacturers, and enthusiast sites — though it skews more trade/utility than the consumer-lifestyle tilt that gives 'gear' its appeal.
Another undifferentiated goods-category noun whose whole thesis is that merchants will pay to sit in a self-describing commerce namespace, but its B2B procurement flavor draws a slightly different registrant than gear's enthusiast-retail crowd.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .gear included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × GoDaddy Registry
- XYZ Registry × Link Freedom Group
- Link Freedom Group × GoDaddy Registry
outdoor, sports, gaming, and photography equipment retailers, enthusiast media sites, and product brands that literally sell gear and want a keyword-flavored storefront address
What a .gear domain is
.gear is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 4 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .gear domain extension real yet?
.gear 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 .gear domain?
You can’t yet. A .gear 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 .gear was .equipment, delegated on 6 November 2013.
Is .gear a real TLD?
Not yet. .gear is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .gear is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- 3 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
CD2694T-T92594 · Coffee Danger, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-92 LFGL2683T-T38790 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-92 NA2631T-T42060 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-92 XL2625T-T41689 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-92
“.gear · Infra · “Ready for anything, anytime.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. 'Gear' is a genuinely common commercial word spanning outdoor, sports, gaming, photo, and tactical equipment, so registrations at volume are plausible over the next 5 years, and a gear retailer can use name.gear without embarrassment. It is not in the 50-69 band because, by analogy (flagged as analogy) with other equipment- and retail-descriptor TLDs, such strings have tended to attract SEO-flavored and secondary-site registrations rather than sustained primary-identity use, and serious equipment brands have overwhelmingly kept their identity on legacy namespaces; the aftermarket for descriptor TLDs of this type has generally been thin. It is not in the 10-29 band because the word is broad, positive, and category-spanning rather than a joke or event-driven vanity term; real merchants plausibly buy and use it for storefronts and campaign sites. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and lists this string under 'Infra' with the tagline 'Ready for anything, anytime.'; a large-portfolio applicant profile is stated neutrally here and mainly suggests the string will be one of many marketed together rather than a single flagship push, which tempers expectations for concentrated category marketing. Main market uncertainty: whether any recognizable equipment or gaming-hardware brand adopts a .gear domain as a primary identity, which would pull it toward category-standard territory, versus the string settling into low-price, redirect-and-microsite usage.