.reels
Is .reels a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.reels is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Meta.
A brand-type bid for a short-video word; useful to its owner, but a weak primary identity for anyone else and little resale value.
the applicant's own products and campaigns first; if ever opened, short-video creators, editors and clip-sharing projects wanting a video-flavoured 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: take the colloquial word for a video format that one dominant platform put into everyone's mouth and rent it as identity space to video creators and hosts, so the value rides on slang currency rather than on a formal category term.
Same bet shape — an informal plural noun naming a unit of media content, sold to the people who make and host that content — but it is a clean generic with no platform provenance behind its meaning.
Same buyer and same media-identity job, but it is the whole medium as a category noun rather than a named short-form format, so it bets on a durable dictionary word instead of a current format name.
What a .reels domain is
.reels 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 .reels domain extension real yet?
.reels 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 .reels domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .reels name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .reels was .tube, delegated on 11 January 2016.
Is .reels a real TLD?
Not yet. .reels is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .reels is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Meta · first recordedICANN
“MRHL2653T-T26601 · Meta Registry Holdings LLC · primary”ICANN
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/narrow). The record shows a single application, by Meta (Meta Registry Holdings LLC), filed under ICANN's brand application type, with no category tag. The string itself is a dictionary word with several meanings (short-form video clips, film reels, highlight reels, fishing reels), and it matches the name of a short-video product associated with the applicant. Assuming delegation and general availability, the realistic buyer pool outside the owner is short-video creators and clip-sharing projects, but the string's strong product association makes it awkward as an independent primary identity: a third party on a .reels address reads as affiliated with that product, which limits serious standalone use and keeps any aftermarket thin. By analogy (flagged as analogy), brand-type TLDs from large technology companies in the prior round have mostly been used for the owner's own properties and redirects, with little or no third-party registration and effectively no resale market; where a word-like brand string is involved, the brand association has tended to dominate the generic reading. Not in the 30-49 band because even if opened, volume registration on a word this tightly tied to one product is unlikely, and the brand signal it carries belongs to the owner rather than the registrant. Not in the 1-9 band because the word has genuine cultural currency in video, is short and memorable, and the owner could put it to real end-use for its own services and creator programmes, so there is a market, just a narrow and owner-centred one. Main market uncertainty: whether the operator ever offers registrations to creators or the public at all, versus running it purely as an internal namespace; the record gives no indication either way, and the score assumes a narrow, owner-dominated use.