.human
Is .human a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.human is contested: 4 applicants have said publicly that they applied to run it, as of 19 September 2026. They are Internet Land & Cattle, Human Centered Holdings, Aruba and Link Freedom Group.
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.
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.
In LFG's published list of 300+ strings submitted before the ICANN window closed on 2026-08-12. Their catalog tagline: “For every human story.”
Aruba S.p.A. told Domain Name Wire it applied for 39 strings in the 2026 round 'as primary or replacement', listing .human among them without saying which strings are primary. The claim is the applicant's own, post-filing, relayed by the publication. Founder ruling 2026-09-09: recorded as announced. Already on the record from another applicant, so this adds to the contention set.
Human Centered Holdings LLC states on its own site that it has applied to ICANN for .human ('ICANN status: Applied'; 'Human Centered Holdings has applied to steward .human if ICANN awards it') and embeds an ICANN applicant-portal status screen showing the application submitted 06-Aug-2026 and paid. The page carries no publication date and has no Wayback capture, so the announcement is dated to the day the claim was observed (founder-provided link, 2026-09-12). Third applicant on .human alongside Link Freedom Group and Aruba.
Internet Land & Cattle states on its own site that it applied to operate .human in ICANN's 2026 round, alongside .agent and .robot. The page carries no date; recorded on 2026-09-19, the day the founder surfaced it. Fourth applicant on .human after Link Freedom Group, Aruba and Human Centered Holdings.
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: 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.
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, filed under Culture. 4 applicants have said publicly that they applied for .human.
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. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .human name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .human was .life, delegated on .
Is .human a real TLD?
Not yet. .human is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant said publicly that it applied for .human in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round. Every claim on this page links to its source.
- 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
“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
“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: 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.