.wiz
Is .wiz a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.wiz is contested: 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Wiz, Intercap and dotStrategy. Link Freedom Group named .wiz as a backup string for its .qwe 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
Two of the three already run TLDs, 230K names between them. Wiz runs none.
Will names sell?
A playful 'expert' label suited to fun side projects and personal brands; few serious businesses would likely make it their main name.
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. .wiz’s closest 2012 strings hold .guru 61K, .ninja 25K and .expert 29K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .guru, held 60,916 names, June 2026. .ninja held 25,488; .expert held 28,534. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet exactly: an informal, slangy noun for "person who is very good at this" sold as a self-applied credential to individual practitioners and small consultancies, where the value depends entirely on buyers being willing to publicly claim mastery on a word nobody can certify.
The other half of the mid-2010s expertise-slang pair — a short, playful, borrowed-metaphor word for a skilled operator, betting on the same freelancer/dev/creator persona buying an identity that signals competence with a wink rather than a formal title.
Identical job (an expertise-claim TLD whose registrants put their professional identity on the assertion of skill) but a formal, literal register aimed at consultants and service directories, where .wiz and its slang cousins bet on the casual, self-deprecating end of the same market.
hobbyists, tutors, gamers, and self-styled experts who want a playful wizard/whiz identity, plus the occasional brand hunting a quirky short suffix
What a .wiz domain is
.wiz is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .wiz domain extension real yet?
.wiz 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 .wiz domain?
You can’t yet. A .wiz 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 .wiz was .guru, delegated on 6 November 2013.
Is .wiz a real TLD?
Not yet. .wiz is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .wiz 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
- 3 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“DC2669T-T20827 · Dotstrategy Co. · primary · contention set 2026-256 IRI2679T-T96997 · Intercap Registry Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-256 WASD2698T-T76139 · Wiz & Associates, S.A. de C.V. · primary · contention set 2026-256”ICANN
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
DC2669T-T20827 · Dotstrategy Co. · primary · contention set 2026-256 IRI2679T-T96997 · Intercap Registry Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-256 LFGL2683T-T85550 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .qwe · Deactivated WASD2698T-T76139 · Wiz & Associates, S.A. de C.V. · primary · contention set 2026-256
“.wiz · Culture · “A little magic goes a long way.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/joke/narrow), at its upper edge. The string carries real semantic charge: 'wiz' is common slang for an expert and evokes wizardry, so it is memorable and lends itself to personal branding, gaming, tutoring, and whimsical product names. By analogy (flagged as analogy) to persona-slang TLDs such as .ninja, .guru, and .expert, demand of this kind tends to arrive as novelty and promotional registrations, with genuine primary-identity use staying rare and the aftermarket staying thin; renewal behavior for such strings has, by analogy, skewed toward churn once the novelty fades. It is not in the 30-49 band because I do not see a driver for sustained volume-or-price registrations beyond the novelty wave, and the brand signal reads playful rather than credible for a serious primary identity over the next 5 years. It is not in the 1-9 band because the expert-slang meaning and three-letter punchiness give it a genuine, if shallow, market. Applicant context, stated neutrally: the applicant filed more than 300 strings in the 2026 round, and this string sits in its catalog under 'Culture' with the tagline 'A little magic goes a long way.'; a broad-catalog filing pattern suggests the string's fate depends on generic registrar distribution rather than a dedicated community push, which tempers adoption likelihood. Main market uncertainty: whether 'wiz' reads to buyers as a credible expert credential or as juvenile slang; that perception split, plus unknown trademark interest in the 'wiz' string from established brands (unknown; not in the verified facts), is the biggest swing on real demand.