.lift
Is .lift a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.lift is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 8 October 2026. It is Starlight (Namecheap). GoDaddy Registry named .lift as a backup string for its .gym application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
A catchy verb for gyms, marketers, and elevator firms, but few serious projects would make .lift their main address.
fitness and lifting brands, growth-marketing and SaaS startups wanting an upbeat verb, and vertical-transport or ski-industry companies picking up a descriptive brandable
Named on the ICANN gTLD application list, 7 October 2026 as a replacement (backup) string of the applicant's .gym application, shown as deactivated: another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup
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 one-syllable everyday English motion verb with no owner and several unrelated senses (fitness, operating a business, motion), sold as an open brandable canvas where the value comes from short second-level phrases rather than from any one industry claiming it.
Same dual-nature bet as .lift — a plain verb that is simultaneously the working vocabulary of a physical trade (construction / vertical transport) and an aspirational metaphor, so the registry must decide whether it is selling to an installer trade or to motivational branding.
Also a short generic verb straddling a literal mobility meaning and a figurative momentum meaning, with the same weakness: no community owns it, so uptake depends entirely on marketing the string as a phrase-maker rather than on an existing constituency migrating its identity.
What a .lift domain is
.lift is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Brand. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .lift domain extension real yet?
.lift 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 .lift domain?
You can’t yet. A .lift 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 .lift was .run, delegated on 7 May 2015.
Is .lift a real TLD?
Not yet. .lift is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .lift is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Starlight (Namecheap) · noteDomain Name Wire
- GoDaddy Registry · first recordedICANN
- Starlight (Namecheap) · first recordedICANN
“HEI2661T-T42197 · Hadar Exploration, Inc · primary NA2631T-T80022 · Registry Services, LLC · replacement string of .gym · Deactivated”ICANN
“For us, moving into the registry side is a natural extension of what we have been building.”Domain Name Wire
- Placed in the 30-49 band (usable but limited): .lift is a genuine English verb with several commercial meanings — weightlifting culture, elevators/vertical transport, marketing 'lift', ski lifts — plus domain-hack appeal (dead.lift, fork.lift), so registrations at volume are plausible, and the applicant being a registry venture of a large registrar suggests strong retail distribution. It is not in the 50-69 band because, by analogy with other verb/fitness strings such as .fit and .run, demand for verb TLDs has tended to be price-driven and diffuse rather than sustained primary-identity use in one community (flagged as analogy); no single category treats .lift as a default. It is above the 10-29 band because the word's multiple real commercial meanings and brandable-suffix potential give it more than event-driven vanity demand. Main market uncertainty: whether the lifting/fitness community adopts .lift as an identity marker for gyms and creators, or stays on .com and incumbent fitness TLDs, which would decide if this is a real niche or a discount-volume string.