.lacquer
Is .lacquer a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody is chasing .lacquer, as of 7 October 2026. One applicant claimed it and is out. We keep the entry on the record either way.
- Journey To The West
A pretty craft word few businesses need in a web address; expect novelty use by artisans and beauty brands, not serious identities.
lacquerware artisans and craft studios, nail-polish and beauty brands playing on "nail lacquer", plus coatings and finishing suppliers wanting a descriptive address
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round. Their catalog line: “Ancient lustrous finish, prized for centuries.”
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 as .lacquer: a single narrow product noun whose only natural registrants are the makers, distributors and installers of that one product, so the zone lives or dies on a small trade adopting a vertical namespace rather than on broad consumer demand.
Like lacquer, it is a material noun that doubles as a trade — the buyer is a fabricator, supplier or finishing shop putting its shopfront identity on the substance it works with, betting a craft/supply vertical will self-organize under its own material word.
Also a substance noun rather than a category or company, but its pull is largely evocative/aesthetic rather than a working trade's own vocabulary, so the registrant base is far vaguer than lacquer's coatings-and-finishing crowd.
What a .lacquer domain is
.lacquer is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. Nobody is chasing .lacquer today. The applicants that claimed it are out.
Is the .lacquer domain extension real yet?
.lacquer is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .lacquer domain?
You can’t yet. A .lacquer 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 .lacquer was .tires, delegated on 18 December 2014.
Is .lacquer a real TLD?
Not yet. .lacquer is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant claimed .lacquer and is no longer in it. We keep the entry, and every entry on this page links to its source.
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“.lacquer · Craft & Art · “Ancient lustrous finish, prized for centuries.””Journey To The West Corporation
- I place .lacquer in the 10-29 vanity/narrow band, at the lower-middle of it. It is above the 1-9 band because a real if tiny market exists: 'lacquer' is a genuine dictionary word with live commercial meaning in beauty (nail lacquer), lacquerware craft, and industrial coatings, so some primary-identity use by small studios and product lines is plausible over the next 5 years. It does not reach the 30-49 band because, by analogy with other narrow single-craft dictionary TLDs, such strings tend to see thin registration volume, weak brand recognition among buyers, and little to no aftermarket, and the serious brands in adjacent industries (cosmetics, paints) already anchor identities on mainstream endings — that is analogy, not measured data; comparable registration figures are unknown. Broader arts-oriented TLDs have, by analogy, achieved only niche adoption despite covering a much wider category than a single finish/material word, which caps how far a subset word like this can go. The applicant is a portfolio applicant (published 323 submitted strings per the facts block), which I treat neutrally as context for how much dedicated category marketing any single string may receive. My main market uncertainty: whether the beauty industry treats 'lacquer' as a brandable suffix (e.g., a notable nail or cosmetics brand adopting name.lacquer), which is the one demand pocket that could push it toward the top of the band.