.gym
Is .gym a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.gym is contested: 5 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are GoDaddy Registry, Squarespace, CamConnecting, Identity Digital and ShortDot. XYZ Registry named .gym as a backup string for its .collective application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Intercap named .gym as a backup string for its .fam application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Aruba named .gym as a backup string for its .rem application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Link Freedom Group named .gym as a backup string for its .commerce application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Four of the five already run TLDs, 26.64M names between them. Two run one of .gym's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .fitness and GoDaddy Registry .yoga. Squarespace runs none.
Will names sell?
A short, obvious label for fitness businesses, but most gyms default to .com and social pages, so it stays a nice-to-have, not a standard.
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. .gym’s closest 2012 strings hold .fitness 14K, .spa 2K and .yoga 34K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .fitness, held 14,229 names, June 2026. .spa held 1,830; .yoga held 33,745. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet exactly: a short generic noun for the physical-training industry that independent operators, chains, and trainers would hang their primary identity on, working only if a fragmented small-business sector adopts a category suffix instead of .com.
Also a place-of-business noun — the venue itself, not the activity — sold to thousands of small owner-operated local premises whose identity is the facility, which is structurally the same wager as a facility word like gym.
A wellness-practice noun aimed at studios and instructors in the same fragmented, community-flavored fitness market, though it names a discipline rather than a physical venue, so the identity sits with the practice as much as the business.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .gym included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × GoDaddy Registry
- Link Freedom Group × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Intercap
local gyms, boutique fitness studios, personal trainers, and fitness brands or apps that want a keyword-obvious address for a location page or campaign
What a .gym domain is
.gym is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 5 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .gym domain extension real yet?
.gym 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 .gym domain?
You can’t yet. A .gym 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 .gym was .fitness, delegated on 23 April 2014.
Is .gym a real TLD?
Not yet. .gym is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .gym is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- XYZ Registry · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now deactivated backupICANN
- Intercap · first recordedICANN
- Aruba · now deactivated backupICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- Aruba · now abandonedICANN
- 4 applicants · first recordedICANN
- ShortDot · now confirmedICANN
- ShortDot · now announced
- Aruba · first recordedDomain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann), quoting Aruba S.p.A.
- ShortDot · first recordedShortDot (Ireland) Limited
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
The source’s 9 linesHide the lines
AM2619T-T42943 · Acid Medal, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-104 APEC2611T-T77002 · Aruba PEC S.P.A. · replacement string of .rem · Deactivated CCS2640T-T59535 · Cam Connecting SARL · primary · contention set 2026-104 IRI2679T-T94602 · Intercap Registry Inc. · replacement string of .fam · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T68329 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .commerce · Deactivated NA2626T-T24726 · ShortDot (Ireland) Limited · primary · contention set 2026-104 NA2631T-T80022 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-104 SRL2616T-T74615 · Squarespace Registry LLC · primary · contention set 2026-104 XL2625T-T71228 · XYZ.COM LLC · replacement string of .collective · Deactivated
The source’s 5 linesHide the lines
AM2619T-T42943 · Acid Medal, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-104 CCS2640T-T59535 · Cam Connecting SARL · primary · contention set 2026-104 NA2626T-T24726 · ShortDot (Ireland) Limited · primary · contention set 2026-104 NA2631T-T80022 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-104 SRL2616T-T74615 · Squarespace Registry LLC · primary · contention set 2026-104
“Aruba S.p.A., which operates the .cloud top level domain, is expanding its domain portfolio. The company told Domain Name Wire that it applied for 39 top level domains in this year's new TLD round. That number includes replacement strings. [...] The company applied for the following strings as primary or replacement: aid, all, ask, beta, bit, bnb, cart, ciao, daily, demo, easy, fix, gaming, gen, genius, gym, happy, hello, hola, human, kit, lab, mars, max, moon, omg, pec, pop, rem, roma, sign, sito, super, tag, tex, vps, yes, zen, zzz”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann), quoting Aruba S.p.A.
“ShortDot (Ireland) Limited has submitted 40 applications to ICANN's 2026 New gTLD Program. The 80 strings shown include applied-for and designated replacement strings across ShortDot's 40 ICANN applications, presented without revealing their status or pairing.”ShortDot (Ireland) Limited
“.gym · Lifestyle · “Where movement begins.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string is a real dictionary word naming a large, evergreen industry, and the buyer is easy to picture: a gym or studio that wants name.gym as a clean vanity or campaign address. But by analogy (flagged as analogy) with existing fitness-adjacent TLDs such as .fitness and .fit, descriptive fitness strings have tended to sell on price and serve as secondary or promotional addresses rather than primary identities; gym operators are overwhelmingly local SMBs whose discovery runs through maps listings, social profiles, and booking platforms, which weakens the pull of any new TLD as a primary identity. That keeps it out of the 50-69 band: over the next 5 years I do not expect sustained primary-identity adoption at the level a strong niche requires, and the aftermarket for fitness-keyword domains under new TLDs has, by analogy, been thin. It sits above the 10-29 band because demand is not event-driven or joke-driven: the industry is large, the word is universally understood across many languages, and steady volume registrations at accessible prices are plausible, with genuine if modest end-use. Applicant facts, stated neutrally: the string is announced in the ICANN 2026 round by Link Freedom Group, which filed more than 300 strings and published its catalog before Reveal Day, listing .gym under 'Lifestyle' with the tagline 'Where movement begins.'; a large-portfolio applicant suggests a volume-registry go-to-market rather than a single-vertical push, which fits the price-driven adoption pattern. Pricing, registration counts, and renewal rates for analogous TLDs are unknown to me under the rules here, so I reason qualitatively. Main market uncertainty: whether fitness SMBs, a famously channel-dependent buyer group, will treat a descriptive TLD as identity infrastructure at all, or continue routing brand presence through platforms and .com.