.stay
Is .stay a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.stay is contested: 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Identity Digital, GoDaddy Registry and Oinkadot. Link Freedom Group named .stay as a backup string for its .omg application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Two of the three already run TLDs, 22.02M names between them. One runs one of .stay's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .rentals. Oinkadot runs none.
Will names sell?
A friendly word for hotels and rentals, but travel businesses already have addresses; expect niche use, not a hospitality standard.
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. .stay’s closest 2012 strings hold .room 2 and .rentals 13K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .room, held 2 names, June 2026. .rentals held 13,440. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
- .hotel
Same bet: a plain generic lodging noun that any accommodation provider could put its primary identity on, sold as the industry's home namespace rather than one company's brand.
Same bet in form and risk: a short, everyday common noun whose lodging meaning is only one of several, so it depends on the hospitality sector claiming the word before generic-usage buyers dilute it.
Same buyer and same category-noun logic — short-term accommodation operators branding on the sector's own word — though it is a broader services noun that reaches beyond lodging into cars and equipment.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group face each other in 68 contests this round, .stay included.
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × GoDaddy Registry
- Link Freedom Group × GoDaddy Registry
- Identity Digital × Oinkadot
- Link Freedom Group × Oinkadot
boutique hotels, vacation-rental and short-term-stay operators, extended-stay and co-living brands, plus travel-adjacent startups wanting a warm, memorable hospitality address
What a .stay domain is
.stay is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .stay domain extension real yet?
.stay 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 .stay domain?
You can’t yet. A .stay name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens.
Is .stay a real TLD?
Not yet. .stay is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .stay is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now deactivated backupICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- 2 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Oinkadot · now confirmedICANN
- Oinkadot · first recordedDomain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“NA2631T-T44830 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-223 OI2692T-T14416 · Oinkadot Inc · primary · contention set 2026-223 PTL2645T-T89578 · Pirin Tablet, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-223”ICANN
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
LFGL2683T-T62422 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .omg · Deactivated NA2631T-T44830 · Registry Services, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-223 OI2692T-T14416 · Oinkadot Inc · primary · contention set 2026-223 PTL2645T-T89578 · Pirin Tablet, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-223
“A new partnership has applied for 25 top level domain names in this year's ICANN TLD expansion round.”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
“.stay · Lifestyle · “Make yourself at home.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49 (usable but limited). The string is a clean, common English verb-noun with an obvious hospitality meaning, which puts it above the 10-29 vanity band: a rental operator or boutique hotel could plausibly use name.stay as a real primary identity, and phrases like 'my.stay' or 'book.stay' read naturally. It does not reach the 50-69 strong-niche band because there is no known sustained demand for hospitality-word gTLDs as primary identities: by analogy (flagged as such), travel- and lodging-themed strings such as .travel, .hotel, .rentals and .vacations have generally seen thin uptake and weak aftermarkets, with serious hospitality brands defaulting to .com and much of the short-stay economy living inside booking platforms rather than on their own domains. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and lists this one under 'Lifestyle' with the tagline 'Make yourself at home.', suggesting a broad portfolio play rather than a hospitality-industry coalition, which by analogy tends to mean open registration on price rather than category-led adoption. My main market uncertainty: whether independent short-stay and boutique lodging operators treat their own domain as a primary identity at all over the next 5 years, or continue to anchor their presence on aggregator platforms, which would cap .stay at defensive and vanity registrations.