.verified
Is .verified a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.verified is contested: 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Nirvana, Identity Digital and Registered Agents. Stichting Verifieerbaar Internet named .verified as a backup string for its .ver application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
A niche TLD for identity-verification providers, brand-protection teams, and marketers of "verified" credentials or seller programs who want the word itself as a trust badge.
Who is applying, and how much each already runs
One of the 4 is tied to a registry that runs TLDs today. Identity Digital and Registered Agents filed 222 applications between them across the round.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .trust, held 56 names, June 2026. .secure held 2; .safe held 2. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a generic trust-assertion word whose entire value comes from the registry gating who may hold it, so the string functions as a credential badge rather than a category label.
Same bet: a bare English status adjective sold as an assurance claim about the registrant, worthless as a name unless someone vets and enforces the claim behind it.
Same shape — an unqualified assurance adjective that any organization would bolt onto its primary identity — but it asserts an outcome rather than an attested, checkable status, so the vetting burden is fuzzier.
identity-verification providers, brand-protection teams, and marketers of "verified" credentials or seller programs who want the word itself as a trust badge
What a .verified domain is
.verified is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Brand category. 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .verified domain extension real yet?
.verified 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 .verified domain?
You can’t yet. A .verified 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 .verified was .trust, delegated on 6 December 2014.
Is .verified a real TLD?
Not yet. .verified is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .verified is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Stichting Verifieerbaar Internet · first recordedICANN
- 2 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Registered Agents · now confirmedICANN
- Registered Agents · first recordedRegistered Agents Inc
“BPL2623T-T25726 · Bird Pepper, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-241 NI2568-T34516 · Nirvana Inc · primary · contention set 2026-241 RAI2657T-T94481 · Registered Agents Inc · primary · contention set 2026-241”ICANN
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
BPL2623T-T25726 · Bird Pepper, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-241 NI2568-T34516 · Nirvana Inc · primary · contention set 2026-241 RAI2657T-T94481 · Registered Agents Inc · primary · contention set 2026-241 TO2640T-T19948 · Stichting Verifieerbaar Internet · replacement string of .ver · Deactivated
“The company has also applied for six new generic top-level domains through ICANN's 2026 New gTLD Program”Registered Agents Inc
- I place .verified in the 10-29 band (score 28), near its top. The string is an attribute, not a category: it asserts a trust claim about the registrant that the namespace itself cannot substantiate, and over the next 5 years an unrestricted .verified likely sees its signal value erode quickly as unverified parties register it, or worse, as phishing operators exploit the implied endorsement. By analogy (flagged as such), trust-themed strings like .trust and .secure appear to have found only shallow adoption as primary identities, while attribute-style TLDs generally serve as secondary or promotional addresses rather than main brands. It is not in the 30-49 band because I do not see a path to either volume registrations or a credible brand signal without registry-enforced eligibility, and serious projects are unlikely to make name.verified their primary identity within 5 years. It is not in the 1-9 band because a real, if narrow, market exists: verification services, trust-badge landing pages, and defensive registrations by brands, and the applicant's stated portfolio theme of verification (per the verified-facts block) makes a gated, credential-like model at least plausible, which by analogy to restricted community TLDs such as .bank could create genuine within-niche utility. My main market uncertainty: whether registration will require actual verification of the registrant; a genuinely gated model could lift this toward the strong-niche band, while an open model leaves it a decaying trust word.