ICANN Reveals 1,615 Applications for New Top-Level Domains

ICANN published the list of 1,615 applications for new generic top-level domains on 7 October 2026. ICANN

The publication was scheduled as Reveal Day for 7 October at 18:00 UTC. It followed an application window open from 30 April to 12 August 2026. The window closed on 12 August at 23:59 UTC.

The published data lists the applied-for strings, the text to the right of the dot, and the applying entities. It includes primary strings and any variant or replacement strings, where a variant is an alternate form tied to script or language rules. It also includes contention sets and the public portions of each application.

The count is exact. ICANN received 1,615 applications as of 7 October 2026. ICANN

Application mix

Of those 1,615 applications, 333 were brand applications. That is roughly one in five filings for a string tied to a trademark or company name, rather than a generic word or community identifier.

Community-based applications totaled 16. Self-identified geographic name applications totaled 15. Applications from Applicant Support Program applicants totaled 51.

Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs with non-Latin characters, accounted for 21 applications. Applications for variants accounted for 9.

Those categories decide the evaluation path. Brand strings typically face less risk of direct competition for the same string but carry stricter rules on how the registry is run and used. Community and geographic strings face extra checks, including community or government endorsements where required. Variant cases add review of language tables and similar-looking strings.

Geography of applicants

North America accounted for 864 applications. Europe accounted for 506. Asia, Australia and Pacific accounted for 218. Africa accounted for 16. Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 11.

The numbers sum to 1,615. North America alone is more than half. Europe and Asia, Australia and Pacific together account for most of the remainder. Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean together account for fewer than 30 filings.

The Applicant Support Program figure fits with that geography. The program was designed to lower financial and procedural barriers for applicants from underserved regions and communities. Fifty-one filings used it.

What happens next

The Replacement Period runs from 8 October 2026 at 00:01 UTC to 21 October 2026 at 23:59 UTC. ICANN

String Confirmation Day is 17 November 2026. On that date a final list of applied-for strings will be published.

In practical terms, the period between Reveal Day and String Confirmation Day gives applicants a limited window to adjust replacement strings before the set locks for evaluation, contention resolution, and objections. Contention sets disclosed at reveal identify where two or more applicants seek the same or confusingly similar strings. Those sets will now go to private talks, auctions, or formal procedures under program rules.

From an operations standpoint, the workload ahead is large and clearly defined. Initial string checks, DNS stability review, background screening, financial and technical evaluation, plus extended review for community, geographic, and IDN cases, must run in parallel across more than 1,600 files. Operators who have worked with EPP for registration updates, RDAP for lookup data, escrow, abuse monitoring, and sunrise and claims protections will find the mechanics familiar. The variable is throughput.

The broader context here is choice of namespace architecture. Brand applicants are effectively buying control of a trust anchor at the top level. They can set naming policy by contract instead of tracking second-level registrations across outside registries. That simplifies defensive registration, phishing response, and credential issuance for internal services, at the cost of running or outsourcing a registry. Generic applicants face the inverse trade. They take on contention and sales risk in exchange for selling or assigning names inside a descriptive space.

In my view, the two numbers worth flagging are the smallest ones: 21 IDN applications and 16 community applications. Universal acceptance work has improved how software handles non-ASCII domains and long endings, and infrastructure support is better than ten years ago. Low filing counts point to business friction rather than protocol limits. Builders still weigh user confusion, validation bugs in apps, and support costs before committing to a non-ASCII top level. Community strings show similar caution. The policy path is narrower and the paperwork heavier, which favors well-resourced groups over informal ones.

The optimistic read over time is that a larger, more divided root gives software teams clearer signals to use. A brand ending in a certificate, an email address, or an API endpoint carries policy information that a flat .com name does not. Geographic and community spaces allow local rules without forcing global agreement on every string. None of that guarantees success for any single string. Most new registries live or die on distribution, registrar shelf space, and whether developers accept and validate the names correctly. The strings that survive to delegation will shape naming options for years.

ICANN, led by President and Chief Executive Officer Kurtis Lindqvist, will now move the 2026 Round from intake to processing. For technology teams, the task is concrete. Pull the public portions, map contention, check for collisions with internal namespaces and certificate scopes, and calendar the Replacement Period and String Confirmation Day.