.heal
Is .heal a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.heal is contested: 2 applicants have said publicly that they applied to run it, as of 9 September 2026. They are ShortDot and Link Freedom Group.
A feel-good web ending for wellness and recovery brands; nice for a name, but most serious health projects will pick a safer address.
wellness startups, therapy and recovery services, holistic practitioners, and health-adjacent consumer brands wanting an emotive verb-style name
In LFG's published list of 300+ strings submitted before the ICANN window closed on 2026-08-12. Their catalog tagline: “Heal, recover, thrive.”
One of the 80 strings ShortDot published for the ICANN 2026 round. ShortDot states it has submitted 40 applications, but publishes the 80 strings without revealing which 40 are applications and which 40 are designated replacements. The submission claim is therefore applicant-level, not string-level: nothing in the source says ShortDot applied for THIS string. Catalogued, not announced.
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 short, ungated English word for the process of getting better, sold as primary identity to treatment centers, therapists and recovery programs whose credibility comes from the outcome word rather than any registry-enforced credential.
Same bet in shape — a warm generic caregiving verb-noun that any practitioner, facility or campaign can adopt as its whole identity — but its buyer pool spreads well past medicine into services and causes, where .heal stays tethered to health outcomes.
Chases the same buyer pool from the same vertical, but it is the category label a directory registry sells while .heal is the action/outcome word bought for emotional resonance, so the pitch and the registrant mix differ even where the market overlaps.
What a .heal domain is
.heal is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Other. 2 applicants have said publicly that they applied for .heal.
Is the .heal domain extension real yet?
.heal 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 .heal domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .heal name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .heal was .rehab, delegated on .
Is .heal a real TLD?
Not yet. .heal is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant said publicly that it applied for .heal in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round. Every claim on this page links to its source.
- ShortDot · now announced
- ShortDot · first recordedShortDot (Ireland) Limited
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“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
“.heal · Lifestyle · “Heal, recover, thrive.””Link Freedom Group
“The company just disclosed its 40 applications and 40 replacement strings.”Domain Name Wire
“LFG voluntarily published its full list of submissions ahead of ICANN’s official Reveal Day.”PR Newswire (Link Freedom Group)
“Top level domain registry Link Freedom Group (LFG) has disclosed more than 300 strings submitted as part of the ICANN new top level domain name program.”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
- Band chosen: 30-49 (usable but limited). The health and wellness vertical is large and durable, and .heal is a short, emotionally positive English verb that composes naturally into brandable names (e.g. a clinic or app using a name.heal construction as its identity). But by analogy with existing health-adjacent TLDs, verb and lifestyle strings in this space have tended to produce modest registration bases driven by defensive and hobbyist buys rather than primary-identity adoption, and the noun-form .health analog occupies the category-standard position .heal would need to displace; that inference is from analogy, since specific volumes are unknown. Regulated and trust-sensitive health buyers also skew conservative in naming, which dampens primary-identity use for a soft verb string. It is not in the 50-69 band because there is no evidence of sustained demand or a real aftermarket for this specific string, and its best-fit buyers have credible incumbent alternatives; it is not in the 10-29 band because the underlying wellness market is genuinely large, the string is a common positive word rather than a joke or event-driven term, and some serious consumer wellness brands plausibly would use it as a primary identity. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and lists this string under a 'Lifestyle' category with the tagline 'Heal, recover, thrive.'; a large-portfolio applicant is stated neutrally here and mainly implies portfolio-style marketing rather than deep single-category channel investment, which tempers expected adoption push. Main market uncertainty: whether emotive verb TLDs can win primary-identity use among wellness brands against the entrenched noun-form and legacy alternatives, or whether they remain secondary/redirect names.