.mod
Is .mod a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.mod is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 8 October 2026. They are Starlight (Namecheap) and Modtopia.
Catchy for game mods and modular products, but most modding lives on big platforms, so few projects would make it their main address.
game modders, modding-tool and mod-hosting projects, plus makers of modular/customizable products and community moderation services looking for a short thematic address
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 short hobbyist-practice abbreviation a maker subculture already uses about itself, sold to enthusiasts and their communities rather than to businesses, so it only works if the culture's self-identifier is worth a primary address.
Same bet at a different scale: a short generic noun naming the software artifact its registrants produce, where the buyer is the individual maker publishing a build, not a company claiming a category.
Same bet of buying a scene's own vernacular word as an ownerless identity namespace, riding entirely on whether members of the culture will re-home their primary identity onto the culture's name.
What a .mod domain is
.mod is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .mod domain extension real yet?
.mod 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 .mod domain?
You can’t yet. A .mod 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 .mod was .diy, delegated on 25 August 2016.
Is .mod a real TLD?
Not yet. .mod is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .mod 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
- Starlight (Namecheap) · first recordedICANN
- Modtopia · first recordedICANN
“M2548-T44588 · Modtopia LLC · primary · contention set 2026-156 MEI2699T-T97630 · Mirfak Exploration, Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-156”ICANN
“For us, moving into the registry side is a natural extension of what we have been building.”Domain Name Wire
- Band 30-49 (usable but limited): the string is short and semantically rich — game modding, modular design, moderation — but the core audience (modders) overwhelmingly publishes on centralized platforms rather than standalone sites, so primary-identity adoption should be thin; registration volume is unknown since the TLD is not yet in market. It is not in the 50-69 band because, by analogy with gaming-adjacent gTLDs like .game and .games, which saw modest registration bases and weak aftermarkets despite an enormous gaming industry, there is no visible pattern of serious gaming projects adopting a themed gTLD as default identity (analogy). It is not in the 10-29 band because the string carries multiple genuine commercial meanings beyond a single joke or event, giving it broader-than-vanity utility, and the applicant is a registry venture of a major registrar with distribution reach, which plausibly supports steady low-cost registration flow (adoption inference only). Main market uncertainty: whether mod creators and modding platforms ever shift toward owning independent web identities rather than platform pages over the next 5 years.