.src
Is .src a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.src is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Stichting NLnet and CORE Association.
Developers will get the 'source' pun instantly, but most serious projects will still choose .dev, .io or .org as their main address.
open-source maintainers and developer-tool teams who want a short address that says "the source code lives here", plus individual developers using it for project and portfolio pages
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 as .src: a four-letter piece of engineering-environment shorthand (src/, prod/) that is invisible jargon to the general public, so its value rests entirely on developers and tooling vendors agreeing to put infrastructure identity on a namespace only they can read.
The sibling term from the identical vocabulary — an abbreviation whose buyer is the engineer or the platform courting engineers, working only if a technical audience adopts a TLD as a professional habitat rather than a marketing word.
Another short repository-folder noun that sits next to src/ in every project and would be registered by the same code-hosting and developer-platform buyers, but it is a plain English word with mainstream meaning, so it carries far less of .src's insider-token risk.
What a .src domain is
.src is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .src domain extension real yet?
.src 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 .src domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .src name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .src was .prod, delegated on 29 August 2014.
Is .src a real TLD?
Not yet. .src is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .src is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
“CA2682T-T18182 · CORE Association · primary · contention set 2026-220 SN2610T-T87824 · Stichting NLnet · primary · contention set 2026-220”ICANN
“CA2682T-T18182 · CORE Association · replacement string of .src · Deactivated HS2699T-T37790 · Heir Superiority, LLC · primary IRI2679T-T97493 · Intercap Registry Inc. · replacement string of .brain · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T12896 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .btc · Deactivated RTIS2674T-T18686 · Radix Technologies Inc SEZC · replacement string of .neo · Deactivated XL2625T-T65446 · XYZ.COM LLC · replacement string of .hvac · Deactivated”ICANN
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49), at the upper end. The string is short, typeable and carries an unambiguous meaning for one audience: 'src' is the conventional name for a source-code directory, so a developer reads project.src as 'this project's source' with no explanation needed. The verified record shows two confirmed applicants in a contention set, one of them a community application from Stichting NLnet, an organisation associated with funding open-source and internet-commons work; a community designation suggests the namespace could be positioned around open-source projects, which would sharpen the brand signal but also narrow volume (inference from the application type, not from a published policy). Why not the band above (strong niche, 50-69): by analogy, developer-oriented TLDs that reached genuine primary-identity use (.dev, .io) did so with either a major platform operator behind them or years of startup-culture momentum, and open-source projects already have strong defaults in .org and .dev; a new project choosing .src as its main identity over those would be the exception in the next 5 years, and the aftermarket would be thin because the meaning is tied to a single use (hosting source) rather than a company identity. Why not the band below (vanity/narrow, 10-29): unlike joke or event-driven strings, .src has a daily-use semantic hook for a large, global, technically literate buyer group, so demand should be sustained rather than spiky, and some projects would plausibly use it for canonical repository or download pages. Analogous outcomes flagged as analogy: .codes, .software and .engineer, which also spoke to developers but without platform backing, settled into low-volume, price-driven registration with little aftermarket; .src's shorter string and stronger semantic fit should place it above those but below .dev. Main market uncertainty: whether developers perceive .src as a primary identity for a project or merely as a redirect-style companion to an existing .org/.dev address, which decides whether it earns category-standard behaviour or stays a secondary registration.