.human
Is .human a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.human is contested: 6 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Automattic, Hostinger UAB, Identity Digital, Internet Land & Cattle, Human Centered Holdings and Aruba. XYZ Registry named .human as a backup string for its .den application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Brian Harbin named .human as a backup string for its .grit application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Human-Centered Computing Foundation named .human as a backup string for its .self application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Link Freedom Group named .human as a backup string for its .find 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
Three of the six already run TLDs, 15.74M names between them. Two run one of .human's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .life and Identity Digital .organic. Hostinger UAB, Human Centered Holdings and Internet Land & Cattle run none.
Will names sell?
A timely badge for the human-vs-AI moment, but it reads as a statement, not a serious business address; expect novelty demand over durable use.
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. .human’s closest 2012 strings hold .life 474K, .organic 2K and .earth 42K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .life, held 474,179 names, June 2026. .organic held 1,774; .earth held 41,706. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: an abstract universal noun naming a condition everyone shares rather than a market segment, so it has no natural registrant class and must be sold on meaning and sentiment to whoever will pay.
Same bet in provenance terms: a word whose value is as an authenticity mark defined against a cheaper mass-produced alternative, which only works if buyers accept the label as a real claim about how the thing was made.
Same bet at maximum scope: a collective-belonging noun with idealistic, cause-flavored positioning that draws NGOs and manifestos but gives no business a reason to put its primary identity there.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .human included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- Link Freedom Group × XYZ Registry
- Link Freedom Group × Aruba
- Identity Digital × Automattic
individuals, creators, and proof-of-personhood or human-made-content projects who want an identity that signals 'a real person made this' in an AI-saturated web; secondarily artists and personal-brand sites.
What a .human domain is
.human is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. 6 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .human domain extension real yet?
.human 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 .human domain?
You can’t yet. A .human 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 .human was .life, delegated on 15 May 2014.
Is .human a real TLD?
Not yet. .human is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .human is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Brian Harbin · note
- 2 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now deactivated backupICANN
- Human-Centered Computing Foundation · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- 3 applicants · first recordedICANN
- 3 applicants · now confirmedICANN
- Internet Land & Cattle · first recordedInternet Land & Cattle (ilc.llc), the applicant's own site
- Human Centered Holdings · first recordedHuman Centered Holdings
- Aruba · first recordedDomain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann), quoting Aruba S.p.A.
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
The source’s 6 linesHide the lines
APEC2611T-T18932 · Aruba PEC S.P.A. · primary · contention set 2026-111 FT2631T-T52999 · Ferry Tale, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-111 HCHL2612T-T20694 · Human Centered Holdings LLC · primary · contention set 2026-111 HU2684T-T34403 · Hostinger UAB · primary · contention set 2026-111 ILCL2673T-T24855 · Internet Land & Cattle LLC · primary · contention set 2026-111 KKWT2621T-T12029 · Knock Knock WHOIS There, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-111
The source’s 10 linesHide the lines
APEC2611T-T18932 · Aruba PEC S.P.A. · primary · contention set 2026-111 FT2631T-T52999 · Ferry Tale, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-111 HCF2553-T67700 · Human-Centered Computing Foundation · replacement string of .self · Deactivated HCHL2612T-T20694 · Human Centered Holdings LLC · primary · contention set 2026-111 HU2684T-T34403 · Hostinger UAB · primary · contention set 2026-111 ILCL2673T-T24855 · Internet Land & Cattle LLC · primary · contention set 2026-111 KKWT2621T-T12029 · Knock Knock WHOIS There, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-111 LFGL2683T-T22952 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .find · Deactivated SI2641T-T80401 · Strategizes.com, Inc. · replacement string of .grit · Deactivated XL2625T-T86066 · XYZ.COM LLC · replacement string of .den · Deactivated
“Internet Land & Cattle applied to operate the .human, .agent and .robot top-level domains in ICANN's 2026 round.”Internet Land & Cattle (ilc.llc), the applicant's own site
“.human is a proposed new generic top-level domain (gTLD), also called a domain extension or top-level domain string. It is applied for through ICANN and is meant to be an internet address for people: distinct from .com (commerce), .org (institutions), and .ai (agents). Human Centered Holdings has applied to steward .human if ICANN awards it.”Human Centered Holdings
“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.
“.human · Lifestyle · “For every human story.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49). The string has real cultural resonance right now: as AI-generated content floods the web, 'human' carries a legible authenticity signal, and names like verified.human or made-by.human parse naturally as statements. But a noun-suffix identity play is a hard sell as a primary identity for serious projects; by analogy (flagged as analogy), personal-identity TLDs such as .me achieved genuine but modest primary-identity use, while broad lifestyle strings like .life and .live filled out largely on volume and price with weak brand signal and thin aftermarkets, and .human sits closer to the latter with a narrower semantic lane. It is not in the band above (strong niche, 50-69) because there is no evidenced sustained demand category where .human is a default; the human-verification/human-made niche is emergent and may consolidate on badges, platform labels, or certification marks rather than a namespace. It is not in the band below (vanity/joke, 10-29) because the authenticity angle gives it a plausible, more-than-joke use case for personal sites and human-made-content projects over the next 5 years, and the applicant context is neutral: Link Freedom Group filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and lists this string under category 'Lifestyle' with the tagline 'For every human story.', consistent with a broad consumer positioning rather than a verification-infrastructure one. Registration volume, pricing, and aftermarket figures are unknown. Main market uncertainty: whether AI-authenticity labeling coalesces into a domain-based convention at all, or is captured by in-platform verification, which would leave .human as decorative vanity inventory.