.zan
Is .zan a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.zan is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is .TOP Registry.
A Chinese "like/praise" pinyin string: memorable for promo and social pages, but rarely a serious primary web identity.
chinese-market marketers, social commerce and fan/endorsement pages that want a "点赞" (zan, "like") hook, plus speculators chasing short pinyin strings
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet almost word-for-word: a romanized Chinese verb of approval/liking, carrying affect rather than naming any product category, offered as an open namespace whose only addressable buyer is the Chinese-speaking registrant who reads pinyin as a word instead of as noise.
The same wager that the social-endorsement gesture itself is a namespace — a bare approval verb with no registrant class behind it, sold on the hope that platforms, campaigns and social accounts want the act of approving in their address rather than a description of what they do.
Another short, abstract, positively-loaded pinyin syllable with no defined use case and a corporate sponsor betting that cultural resonance alone anchors registrations, though its polysemy (new/trust/heart) spreads the meaning where the target points at one specific act of praise.
What a .zan domain is
.zan is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .zan domain extension real yet?
.zan 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 .zan domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .zan name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .zan was .xihuan, delegated on 30 March 2016.
Is .zan a real TLD?
Not yet. .zan is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .zan is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- .TOP Registry · first recordedICANN
“JBTC2662T-T53499 · Jiangsu Bangning Technology Co., Ltd. · primary”ICANN
“JBTC2662T-T37661 · Jiangsu Bangning Technology Co., Ltd. · replacement string of .sou · Deactivated XL2625T-T82038 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary”ICANN
- Band chosen: 10-29 (vanity/narrow). The string reads naturally only in the Chinese market, as the pinyin for 赞 ("like", "praise", the social-media thumbs-up). That gives it a clear hook for marketing, livestream-commerce and fan pages, but the hook is a verb/exclamation, not a category, so it is hard to see a serious project adopting it as its primary identity rather than as a campaign or redirect name. Not the band above (30-49): earlier pinyin generic TLDs from the 2012 round (by analogy, e.g. .wang and .ren) saw registration activity that was largely price- and promotion-driven with weak brand signal and a thin aftermarket; .zan is narrower in meaning than those, so sustained volume beyond promotions is doubtful. Not the band below (1-9): the word is widely understood by a very large audience, it is three letters, and the verified-facts block records a confirmed standard application from .TOP Registry (Jiangsu Bangning Technology Co., Ltd.), an operator active in the Chinese market, which makes distribution through Chinese registrar channels plausible. The record also lists .mei as a replacement string naming this application as primary, which reads as the applicant keeping an alternative; this does not change the market judgment since delegation is assumed. Main market uncertainty: whether Chinese social-commerce operators treat a "like"-themed domain as a durable identity or only as disposable campaign names, and how readily Chinese hosting/ICP licensing is obtained for sites on this string over the next 5 years (unknown).