1,615 new domain applications are now public. Check them for your brand, and check again after 22 October

ICANN published the applications for its 2026 round of new top-level domains at 8pm Central European time on 7 October, which was 7am on 8 October in New Zealand. Brand-protection firm EBRAND counts 1,615 active applications from 481 applicants. One more, for .wdo, is still in administrative review, which is why some earlier totals said 1,616.

TLD launch consultant beeverything also counts 1,615, about 16% fewer than the 1,930 filed in 2012. Each application cost US$227,000.

Neither analysis names a New Zealand applicant or a te reo Māori string. That doesn't mean there aren't any. ICANN's application system at newgtldprogram-aps.icann.org/applications can be searched in full, and that's the place to check.

A Māori string would have been unusual this round anyway. Beeverything counts 21 applications for internationalised domain names, the ones using characters outside the basic English alphabet. Nineteen are in Chinese characters from China, one is in Japanese kanji and the other is .québec. In 2012 there were 116, across 12 scripts.

Who applied

Dot-brands, where a company runs a domain ending for its own name, make up 333 applications, or about 21% of the round, according to beeverything. EBRAND lists OpenAI's .openai, .chatgpt and .codex, Anthropic's .anthropic and .claude, Meta's .threads, .llama and .whatsapp, and Microsoft's .copilot. Beeverything adds .taylorswift and .trump, the latter filed by the Trump Organization.

Booking.com applied for .yeah, from its "Booking.yeah" slogan. Beeverything reports that one of Identity Digital's companies has applied for the same string.

DomainGang, reporting Identity Digital's announcement, says the company applied for 216 strings across 13 categories, including .identity. It already runs more than 270. Identity Digital is also the registry operator behind .au.

The strings to watch

EBRAND flags a group of strings built around trust and logins: .official, .login, .auth, .account, .identity and .portal. Depending on how the registries run them, the firm says, bad actors could use them to impersonate brands or phish customers. A fake "yourbank.login" is easy to picture. New Zealand banks, retailers and software firms whose customers sign in online should watch these.

EBRAND also points out that an application doesn't guarantee a domain ending will open to the public. Eligibility rules and rights protections will decide how much risk each one carries, and those haven't been settled yet.

Contests and auctions

Beeverything says 891 applications, 55% of the total, fall into 263 contention sets, where more than one applicant wants the same string. In 2012 it was about 751 applications, or 39%, in 234 sets. EBRAND lists .agent as the most contested string with 13 applicants, followed by .bit with 11 and .hub, .api and .brand with 10 each.

Private deals between applicants are banned this round. Beeverything says a contest can only end in one of three ways: an applicant switches to a backup string, someone withdraws, or ICANN holds an auction. Nearly three-quarters of applications included a backup.

The dates, in New Zealand time

ICANN sets its deadlines in UTC, according to beeverything. Converted:

• Swap window: open now. It closes at 23:59 UTC on 21 October, which is 12:59pm NZDT on 22 October. Until then, applicants can still swap strings, so the list you search today may change.
• String Confirmation Day: 17 November.
• Withdrawal for a 65% refund (US$147,550): by 27 November UTC, which is 12:59pm NZDT on 28 November. After that the refund drops to 35%.
• Public comments and objections: 17 November to mid-March 2027. Beeverything gives 16 March. Check ICANN's own documents for the exact closing date before relying on it.
• Prioritization Draw: first half of 2027.

What to do

For most New Zealand businesses, there's nothing to do once a search turns up nothing. If something does match, the deadline that counts is the objection window, not the swap window.

Search the application system now for your trade marks, obvious variations and any te reo names you trade under. Search again after 22 October, once swaps have gone through, and again on 17 November, when strings are confirmed. If an application uses your mark, talk to a trade mark lawyer about a Legal Rights Objection, ICANN's formal process for trade mark owners to oppose an application, well before the window closes in March.

If you run login pages, keep an eye on the registration rules for .login, .auth and .account when the registries publish them.