.text
Is .text a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.text is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is NextGEN TLDs. Link Freedom Group named .text as a backup string for its .mall 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
None of the 2 is tied to a registry that runs TLDs today. Link Freedom Group and NextGEN TLDs filed 180 applications between them across the round.
Will names sell?
A generic word with niche appeal for messaging and writing tools, but few serious projects would make it their primary address.
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. .text’s closest 2012 strings hold .chat 58K, .email 130K and .call 2.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .chat, held 58,104 names, June 2026. .email held 130,078; .call held 2. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a one-word, verb-and-noun communication-channel generic that any messaging/comms company would put its primary identity on, with value resting on the channel staying culturally live rather than on any brand or community.
Same bet: the plain-English name of a messaging medium itself, sold to the same buyers (carriers, messaging SaaS, and everyone wanting an address that names the channel) and carrying the same registry problem that the word is so ubiquitous it risks reading as descriptive rather than as an identity.
Same shape — an everyday verb for reaching someone over a telecom channel, aimed at comms/telephony operators — but it names an action more than a medium, so its buyer set skews toward click-to-connect services rather than the whole channel's ecosystem.
messaging and SMS-platform companies, writing and publishing tools, and domain-hack buyers chasing words like context, subtext, and pretext
What a .text domain is
.text is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Infrastructure category. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .text domain extension real yet?
.text 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 .text domain?
You can’t yet. A .text 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 .text was .chat, delegated on 4 February 2015.
Is .text a real TLD?
Not yet. .text is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .text 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
- NextGEN TLDs · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T99880 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .mall · Deactivated NTG2671T-T27988 · NextGEN TLDs GmbH · primary”ICANN
“.text · Infra · “Words on the wire.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string is a common English word with two plausible constituencies over the next 5 years: messaging/SMS infrastructure (where 'text' is the verb of the category) and writing/publishing products. By analogy (flagged as analogy) to other generic communication-word gTLDs such as .email and .chat, that demand tends to produce steady low-volume registrations and occasional real product use, not a primary-identity default; those strings did not become the address a serious communications company leads with, and .text likely follows the same path. Working against it: 'something.text' reads like a file reference (the .txt extension association), which muddies it as a web address, a confusion dynamic analogous (flagged as analogy) to the file-extension-collision concerns raised around .zip. Working for it: genuine domain-hack inventory (con.text, sub.text, pre.text, hyper.text) gives it a small but real aftermarket tail. It is not in the 50-69 band because there is no evidence of sustained primary-identity adoption in any category and every use needs explaining; it is not in the 10-29 band because the messaging/SMS sector is a real, well-funded buyer group and the hack inventory supports more than event-driven vanity demand. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and published its full list ahead of Reveal Day (press-corroborated by Domain Name Wire, 2026-08-13); a large-portfolio applicant strategy says little about dedicated category marketing for this one string, which tempers adoption expectations but is treated neutrally. Main market uncertainty: whether messaging-API and SMS companies would actually adopt .text as a public identity rather than registering defensively or ignoring it, since their branding conventions are unknown to me at that level of specificity.