.use
Is .use a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .use in its own right, as of 7 October 2026. Link Freedom Group named .use as the backup string of its .air application.
Nobody has applied for .use in its own right.
Will names sell?
A generic verb ending with no obvious home category; workable for cheap utility names, but few serious projects would brand on .use.
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. .use’s closest 2012 strings hold .how 4K, .click 873K and .now 27K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .how, held 3,596 names, June 2026. .click held 873,213; .now held 27,481. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a category-free English function word with no vertical, no community and no natural primary-identity holder, whose entire value is that the label to its left completes a phrase across the dot, so the registry is selling grammar rather than a market.
Same bet in verb form, a short universal action word run as an open registry for anyone wanting a call-to-action-shaped name, which only works if registrants treat the string as syntax instead of a topic they belong to.
Another contentless utility string monetized purely on phrase construction, sharing the target's structural weakness of having no defensible constituency, since no business's primary identity is 'now' any more than it is 'use'.
developers and tool-makers wanting a verb-flavored utility name (including wordplay on middleware idioms like app.use), plus budget registrants who want a short generic ending rather than a brand statement.
What a .use domain is
.use is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. Nobody has applied for .use in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .use domain extension real yet?
.use is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .use domain?
You can’t yet. A .use 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 .use was .how, delegated on 16 August 2014.
Is .use a real TLD?
Not yet. .use is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .use as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now replacementICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T58273 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .air”ICANN
“.use · Infra · “Put it to work.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 30-49, usable but limited. The string is a high-frequency English verb, which gives it broad surface compatibility (anything.use parses as an instruction) but no category anchor: no industry, profession, place, or product class claims it, so the brand signal stays weak and demand skews toward price-driven or novelty registrations rather than primary identities. It is not in the 50-69 band because verb-style generics analogous to .use (think of the broad-verb endings like .work or .run, judged qualitatively from analogy, exact figures unknown) have tended to produce registration volume without a durable base of serious primary-identity use or a meaningful aftermarket; nothing about .use suggests it would outperform that pattern in the next 5 years. It is not in the 10-29 band because the word is genuinely generic and readable in a sentence, supports left-of-dot phrases (easy.use, ready.to... style constructions are clumsier, but single-word pairings work), and has a plausible developer-culture hook via the ubiquitous app.use middleware idiom, which could seed a small but real tech-tool niche beyond pure vanity. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and lists this string under category Infra with the tagline 'Put it to work.'; a very large portfolio applicant typically implies standardized registrar distribution rather than bespoke category marketing, which for a string this generic likely means volume-and-price positioning, reinforcing the band. Main market uncertainty: whether the developer wordplay angle (app.use, api.use style names) converts into any sustained cohort of real tools using .use as primary identity, or whether it stays a one-time novelty.