.stock
Is .stock a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.stock is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group.
Who is applying, and what they run today
One of the two already run TLDs, 14.80M names between them. Three run one of .stock's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .forex, Identity Digital .markets and Identity Digital .trading. Link Freedom Group runs none.
Will names sell?
A clear money-and-inventory word, but brokers and shops tend to stick with familiar domains, so expect niche use rather than a 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. .stock’s closest 2012 strings hold .forex 1K, .markets 7K and .trading 5K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .forex, held 1,350 names, June 2026. .markets held 6,510; .trading held 5,391. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a short single-word generic naming one retail-investable asset class, sold to brokerages, platforms and educators who would put their primary identity on the instrument they deal in.
Same bet one slot over: an open dictionary-word financial-category noun whose value depends on the whole finance industry accepting the word as a credible home, not on any single firm owning it.
Same buyer pool and same category-noun economics, but it names the activity rather than the instrument, so it functions as a descriptor a brand appends rather than a category a business stands on alone.
fintech startups, retail-trading and market-data products, plus e-commerce and inventory-management tools playing on the 'in stock' meaning; secondarily brands registering defensively
What a .stock domain is
.stock is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .stock domain extension real yet?
.stock 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 .stock domain?
You can’t yet. A .stock 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 .stock was .forex, delegated on 12 March 2015.
Is .stock a real TLD?
Not yet. .stock is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .stock is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“FCL2632T-T83921 · Fore Course, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-224 LFGL2683T-T32254 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-224”ICANN
“.stock · Commerce · “Always stocked, always ready.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49 (usable but limited). The string is a strong single dictionary word with two distinct readings: equities/finance ('stock market') and inventory/retail ('in stock'), and the applicant's own catalog frames it as Commerce with the tagline 'Always stocked, always ready.', leaning into the second reading. By analogy (flagged as such), finance-adjacent TLDs such as .trading, .exchange, .broker, .market and .markets have seen registrations but little evidence of becoming primary identities for serious regulated firms, which overwhelmingly keep legacy domains for trust and compliance-adjacent credibility; over the next 5 years that conservatism is likely to persist. The dual meaning cuts both ways: it widens the buyer pool (fintech plus commerce tooling) but muddies the brand signal, since a visitor cannot tell from the TLD alone whether a site is about equities or inventory. It is not in the 50-69 band because, reasoning from analogy to prior finance and commerce verticals, there is no sign of sustained primary-identity demand or a real aftermarket for comparable strings; adoption would need explaining in both target markets. It is not in the 10-29 band because the word is common, globally understood, and supports plausible serious use by fintech and inventory-software startups priced out of matching .com names, plus some defensive registration by trading brands. Applicant facts are neutral context: the string is one of a very large published portfolio, which says little about dedicated category marketing for this one string. Main market uncertainty: whether trust-sensitive finance buyers, the higher-value half of the audience, would accept a novel TLD as a primary identity at all, or whether demand collapses to the lower-value inventory/commerce reading.