.lounge
Is .lounge a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.lounge is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Identity Digital. XYZ named .lounge as a backup string for its .ass application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
A pleasant venue word that fits bars, clubs and hangout communities, but few serious projects would pick it over a mainstream ending.
hospitality venues (cocktail, hookah, airport and members' lounges), gaming and community hangout spaces, and leisure or wellness brands wanting a relaxed "come in" address
Named on the ICANN gTLD application list, 7 October 2026 as a replacement (backup) string of the applicant's .ass 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 generic hospitality-venue noun whose registrants are thousands of individual independent drinking/eating establishments each putting its own venue name in front of it, with no single owner able to claim the word.
Same bet at the same scale: a loose, informal venue-type word that works only if small local hospitality operators choose to brand a site on their venue category rather than on a .com.
Same bet shape — a small-premises service-venue noun that doubles as an aspirational vibe word (nail/beauty 'lounge') — but it names a tighter, more regulated trade category than .lounge's fuzzy any-nice-room usage.
What a .lounge domain is
.lounge is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Commerce. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .lounge domain extension real yet?
.lounge 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 .lounge domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .lounge name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .lounge was .bar, delegated on 27 February 2014.
Is .lounge a real TLD?
Not yet. .lounge is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .lounge is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/narrow), at the top of it. .lounge is a generic English venue word with a clear but narrow meaning: a physical hospitality space, or by extension an online hangout. Real-world demand is plausible for hookah and cocktail lounges, airport-lounge services, members' clubs and gaming or community 'lounge' hubs, but these buyers are a thin slice of the hospitality market and most would default to a mainstream ending or a broader venue string. By analogy (flagged as analogy), comparable hospitality-venue strings such as .bar, .pub and .cafe have remained small, price-sensitive namespaces rather than category standards, and .lounge is a narrower word than any of them; the broader 'hangout' sense overlaps with community-style strings but is shallower. It is not in the 30-49 band because registrations are unlikely to arrive at volume except on promotional pricing and genuine primary-identity use should be rare rather than routine; it is not in the 1-9 band because a real, if small, buyer group exists and the word reads naturally as an address. On the record the confirmed applicant is Identity Digital (Velvet Taupe, LLC) with contention count 1; the XYZ application is deactivated. By analogy, a large portfolio operator typically brings wide registrar distribution, which supports availability but does not by itself create demand. Main market uncertainty: whether hospitality and leisure venues will treat .lounge as a credible venue identity (as some do with venue words) or as a novelty, and whether online community spaces adopt it as a hangout address at all.