.skills
Is .skills a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.skills is not contested. One applicant has said publicly that it applied to run it, and nobody else has, as of 15 August 2026. It is BestTLD Pty Ltd.
A readable web address for learning platforms and AI tool makers, but most serious projects would treat it as a side name, not their main one.
edtech and workforce-training platforms, creator-economy course sellers, and AI companies naming agent-skill marketplaces or per-skill microsites (e.g. design.skills-style addresses); secondary interest from HR-tech and certification services.
One of 10 strings the .best registry announced it is applying for in the ICANN 2026 round, in its AI cluster (example use shown at announcement: design.skills).
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: an unowned plural generic noun in the learning economy whose second level is filled by the subject or provider (python.courses / python.skills), sold to training platforms, marketplaces and instructors rather than to any incumbent brand.
Same category, same buyer, same precondition — a generic capability-development noun that only pays off if independent trainers and corporate L&D teams put their primary identity on it instead of .com.
Also monetizes human competence as an identity claim rather than a product or a company, but it is a singular self-designation for one consultant where .skills is a plural catalog word better suited to directories and marketplaces.
What a .skills domain is
.skills is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. One applicant has said publicly that it applied for .skills.
Is the .skills domain extension real yet?
.skills 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 .skills domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .skills name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .skills was .courses, delegated on .
Is .skills a real TLD?
Not yet. .skills is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant said publicly that it applied for .skills in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round. Every claim on this page links to its source.
- BestTLD Pty Ltd · first recordedDNForum
“Cyril Frémont, CEO at web.best and .Best, has publicly revealed 10 proposed top-level domain applications for ICANN's 2026 new gTLD round.”DNForum
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string is a common, plural English keyword with clear semantic fit for education, workforce development, and the emerging AI-agent-skills vocabulary, and the announced positioning (AI cluster, design.skills example) plays to a real naming pattern of subject.skills addresses. It is not in the 50-69 band because keyword TLDs of this shape have, by analogy, rarely produced sustained primary-identity adoption: registrations tend to be defensive, promotional, or price-driven, and an education or AI company choosing a .skills address as its primary brand would still need to explain the choice; there is no verified demand evidence for this string. It is not in the 10-29 band because the word is broadly useful rather than a joke or event-driven vanity string: it supports meaningful left-of-dot combinations across many verticals, which by analogy with other readable-keyword TLDs supports steady volume registrations and some genuine end use. Applicant facts, stated neutrally: the applicant operates .best (IANA-delegated 2014, stated live since 2018) with CentralNic as technical backend, which suggests the namespace would be run on established infrastructure; this informs adoption plumbing, not demand. Main market uncertainty: whether the AI-agent 'skills' naming convention hardens into a durable namespace need over the next 5 years or fades as a vocabulary fad, leaving the TLD to compete as a generic edtech keyword against entrenched .com/.ai habits.