.npc
Is .npc a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.npc is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Link Freedom Group.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Link Freedom Group filed 158 applications across the round.
Will names sell?
A gaming and meme term with a real AI-character angle, but mostly joke-friendly; few serious brands would make it their main address.
Last round the AI scored the 2012 strings blind to their fate. Strings it scored 60 or more hold a median 27,168 names today; those under 30, a median of 30. .npc’s closest 2012 strings hold .bot 23K, .meme 6K and .lol 1.13M.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .bot, held 23,099 names, June 2026. .meme held 5,806; .lol held 1,126,763. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a short, unowned generic noun for a non-human software actor, sold to developers and studios wanting to hang a synthetic agent's identity on the category word itself.
Same bet on internet-native subculture vocabulary as an identity layer — a word the online crowd already applies to itself, with value accruing to whoever owns the word rather than to any incumbent in the space.
Same bet on a three-letter online-slang acronym that reads as a word to insiders and as noise to everyone else, and only works if that subculture will wear its own shorthand as a primary address.
game studios, AI-agent and virtual-character projects, streamers, and meme-culture registrants who want a short, in-joke identity; secondarily indie devs building NPC tooling or bots
What a .npc domain is
.npc is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .npc domain extension real yet?
.npc 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 .npc domain?
You can’t yet. A .npc 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 .npc was .bot, delegated on 5 December 2015.
Is .npc a real TLD?
Not yet. .npc is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .npc is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T46584 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary”ICANN
“.npc · AI & Tech · “For the background heroes.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: usable but limited. 'NPC' is instantly legible to the gaming and internet-culture audience, and the AI angle is genuine: AI-driven game characters and autonomous agents are an active build area over the next 5 years, so some projects (character engines, agent personas, bots) could plausibly use a .npc address as an on-theme identity. But the string carries a strong pejorative meme sense (calling someone an NPC is an insult), which undercuts its use as a serious primary identity, and most demand looks event-driven or joke registrations at low price points. It is not in the band above (strong niche) because sustained primary-identity demand is speculative rather than demonstrated; the natural gaming default by analogy is a different, established gaming-identity TLD, and .npc would be explaining itself against that incumbent. It is not in the band below (vanity/joke) because the AI-character and game-tooling use case is a real, growing category where the string is descriptive rather than purely comedic, giving it more than shallow event demand. Main market uncertainty: whether AI NPC / agent-persona products adopt themed namespaces for agent identities at all, or default to conventional TLDs and platform-native handles, which would leave .npc almost entirely to meme registrations.