.water
Is .water a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.water is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 8 October 2026. It is XYZ Registry. Identity Digital named .water as a backup string for three of its applications: .board, .slot and .roofing. ICANN deactivated those backups, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. EchoStar named .water as a backup string for its .connect application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Link Freedom Group named .water as a backup string for its .links 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
Three of the 4 are tied to a registry that runs TLDs today. Identity Digital, Link Freedom Group and XYZ Registry filed 513 applications between them across the round.
Will names sell?
A clear word for water brands, utilities, and eco projects, but those buyers stick with mainstream endings, so demand stays shallow.
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. .water’s closest 2012 strings hold .energy 29K, .food 27K and .solar 10K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .energy, held 28,937 names, June 2026. .food held 27,168; .solar held 10,063. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: an undifferentiated mass noun for an essential physical resource, where the registrant pool is split between a real commercial sector (utilities, suppliers, engineering, equipment) and a values/advocacy constituency, so the string's worth rests on the category being big enough that nobody owns the word and everybody wants it.
Also a bare essential-commodity noun spanning a fragmented industry plus consumer and public-interest users, with the same catch that a word this generic and this close to a human necessity attracts scrutiny about who deserves to run it rather than any single obvious anchor tenant.
A resource-sector noun sold to installers, suppliers and sustainability-minded brands, but narrower than .water because it names one technology vertical rather than a universal substance with utility, municipal, consumer and NGO claimants all at once.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and XYZ Registry face each other in 77 contests this round, .water included.
- Identity Digital × XYZ Registry
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- XYZ Registry × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × EchoStar
- XYZ Registry × EchoStar
water-sector companies and sustainability projects: bottled-water and beverage brands, water-tech startups, treatment and utility firms, conservation nonprofits, and hydration or wellness lifestyle brands
What a .water domain is
.water is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .water domain extension real yet?
.water 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 .water domain?
You can’t yet. A .water 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 .water was .energy, delegated on 1 November 2014.
Is .water a real TLD?
Not yet. .water is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .water is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Identity Digital · fact correctedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now deactivated backupICANN
- EchoStar · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- XYZ Registry · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
The source’s 6 linesHide the lines
EDCL2689T-T77393 · ECHO Domain Co L.L.C. · replacement string of .connect · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T60285 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .links · Deactivated PTL2645T-T57902 · Pirin Tablet, LLC · replacement string of .roofing · Deactivated PTL2645T-T81659 · Pirin Tablet, LLC · replacement string of .slot · Deactivated PTL2645T-T84550 · Pirin Tablet, LLC · replacement string of .board · Deactivated XL2625T-T73994 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary
“.water · Lifestyle · “Flow with essentials.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/narrow), at its top. The string is a common dictionary word with a real semantic hook, and the water economy is broad (utilities, treatment technology, beverages, conservation), so some registrations and occasional genuine use over the next 5 years are plausible. But the likely buyers are structurally conservative: utilities and municipal water bodies tend toward legacy and government-adjacent namespaces, and consumer beverage brands protect trademarks rather than build primary identities on niche endings. By analogy (flagged as analogy) with environmental and single-noun lifestyle TLDs such as .earth, .eco, and .green, adoption of this kind of string has tended to be modest, mission-driven, and rarely primary-identity at scale, with a thin aftermarket. That analogy keeps it below the 30-49 band, which requires volume or price-driven registration flow plus at least a usable if weak brand signal; there is no visible mechanism here to generate volume, and the operator context (a portfolio applicant with a lifestyle positioning, per the verified facts) suggests broad speculative coverage rather than a sector-anchored registry push, which informs adoption likelihood neutrally but does not suggest concentrated demand-building. It sits above the 1-9 band because a genuine, nameable buyer set exists and single-word matches (drink.water-style constructions, city or brand + water) have plausible one-off appeal. Main market uncertainty: whether water-tech and sustainability startups, the one segment culturally open to novel endings, adopt it as a primary identity or treat it as a redirect vanity.