The headline numbers come from the Domain Name Industry Brief Quarterly Report for Q3 2026 (DNIB.com, sponsored by Verisign), published on 22 October 2026. The registrar figures come from ICANN’s monthly registry reports. Everything was checked on 1 November 2026.
How big is the domain name market?
DNIB counts 411.6 million registered domain names at 30 September 2026. The trend this year has been steady: 392.5 million at the end of Q1 2026, 401.6 million at the end of Q2 and 411.6 million at the end of Q3. Growth also picked up a little. Q2 added 9.1 million names (2.3%) and Q3 added 9.9 million (2.5%). Year on year, Q2 was up 8.1% and Q3 up 8.7%.
Split by type, the four segments in the DNIB report add up exactly to the total: .com and .net at 182.5 million, country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) at 151.4 million, new generic TLDs at 56.6 million and other legacy gTLDs such as .org and .info at 21.1 million. On simple arithmetic from those figures, all generic TLDs together hold 260.2 million names (63.2%) and ccTLDs 151.4 million (36.8%).
.com, .net and the largest TLDs
At 30 September 2026 the .com base stood at 169.8 million and .net at 12.6 million. That makes .com about 41.3% of every registered domain, a share worked out from DNIB’s totals (169.8 ÷ 411.6). Combined, the two grew 3.4 million (1.9%) on the quarter and 10.5 million (6.1%) on the year.
New .com and .net registrations totalled 13.1 million in the quarter, against 10.6 million in Q3 2025. The preliminary combined renewal rate for the two was 74.3%.
DNIB lists the ten largest TLDs as .com, .cn, .de, .net, .org, .uk, .xyz, .ru, .top and .nl. Their renewal rates vary widely, “from 86.3% for .org and 12.5% for .top.” The table below gives the segment totals first, then approximate counts for the largest TLDs read from the bar labels in DNIB’s charts (only the .com and .net figures appear as exact text in the report).
| Segment or TLD | Registrations, 30 Sep 2026 | Change vs Q2 2026 | Change year on year |
|---|---|---|---|
| All TLDs | 411.6M | +9.9M (+2.5%) | +33.0M (+8.7%) |
| .com + .net | 182.5M | +3.4M (+1.9%) | +10.5M (+6.1%) |
| ccTLDs | 151.4M | +2.8M (+1.9%) | +6.6M (+4.6%) |
| New gTLDs | 56.6M | +3.7M (+6.9%) | +13.7M (+32.0%) |
| Other legacy gTLDs | 21.1M | +0.1M (+0.5%) | +2.2M (+11.5%) |
| .com | 169.8M | Exact figure in the report | |
| .cn (China) | about 20.9M | DNIB chart label | |
| .de (Germany) | about 18.3M | DNIB chart label | |
| .net | 12.6M | Exact figure in the report | |
| .org | about 12.2M | DNIB chart label | |
| .uk (United Kingdom) | about 10.7M | DNIB chart label | |
| .xyz | about 10.2M | DNIB chart label |
ccTLDs and new gTLDs
Country-code TLDs reached 151.4 million, up 2.8 million (1.9%) on the quarter and 6.6 million (4.6%) on the year. DNIB’s top ten are .cn, .de, .uk, .ru, .nl, .br, .fr, .au, .in and .eu, and together they hold 56.7% of all ccTLD registrations. DNIB notes that “available data is insufficient to estimate a combined quarterly renewal percentage across ccTLDs”, though among the top ten renewal runs “from 82.2% for .fr to 70.2% for .ru.”
New gTLDs are the fast-growing segment: 56.6 million names, up 6.9% on the quarter and 32.0% on the year. They now account for 13.7% of all registrations. The catch is retention. DNIB’s latest combined renewal estimate for new gTLDs is 28.6%, against 79.8% for the other legacy gTLDs. Fast growth and low renewal go together here. Some country codes are used as general extensions; for one example, see what the .ai domain is.
Domain name registrar market share
There is no reliable public figure for registrar market share across all TLDs. What does exist is ICANN’s monthly registry report for .com, in which Verisign lists the .com domains sponsored by each accredited registrar at month end. The latest published file is for June 2026; later months are not out yet, as the reports appear with a lag of roughly three months.
The June file totals 170,253,825 .com domains. The shares below are calculated from ICANN’s figures (each registrar’s count divided by that total). Each row is one ICANN accreditation, not a corporate group, and covers .com only.
| Registrar accreditation | .com domains, June 2026 | Share of .com |
|---|---|---|
| GoDaddy.com, LLC | 49,152,691 | 28.9% |
| NameCheap, Inc. | 11,865,969 | 7.0% |
| Tucows Domains Inc. | 6,563,298 | 3.9% |
| Squarespace Domains II LLC | 6,035,945 | 3.5% |
| Gname.com Pte. Ltd. | 4,382,843 | 2.6% |
| HOSTINGER operations, UAB | 4,088,971 | 2.4% |
| IONOS SE | 4,005,965 | 2.4% |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | 3,525,525 | 2.1% |
| Squarespace Domains LLC | 3,520,187 | 2.1% |
| Wix.com Ltd. | 3,406,398 | 2.0% |
Together those ten accreditations hold 56.7% of .com, again calculated from ICANN’s figures. The file lists 2,949 registrar rows, 2,903 of them with at least one .com name, so the tail is very long. Grouping by name alone, the three GoDaddy-named accreditations come to 29.2% and the two Squarespace ones to 5.6%.
One caution: ICANN’s .com total for 30 June (170.25 million) is not the same as DNIB’s (166.6 million on the same date). The two are counted differently, so use each figure with its own source and never mix them in one calculation.
The resale market: what can and cannot be measured
Registrations are counted precisely because registries must report them. Resales are not. There is no credible published total for annual aftermarket sales: most domain sales are private and never reported, and public trackers such as NameBio and DNJournal only log the sales people choose to report. Any single “size of the aftermarket” figure you see is an estimate, not a count.
The best hard number is one company’s revenue. Domain Name Wire reported on 30 July 2026 that GoDaddy’s aftermarket revenue for Q2 2026 “grew faster, with 9% growth to $129 million”, down slightly from $130 million in Q1. That is revenue to GoDaddy, the largest venue operator, not the value of all domains sold.
For the reported sales themselves, see the charts in top domain sales of 2026 and top domain sales of 2025. Buying an established name is covered in premium domain names.
What the domain name statistics mean for buyers and sellers
Three practical points follow from the numbers.
Expect the .com you want to be taken. With nearly 170 million .com names registered and a 74.3% preliminary combined renewal rate for .com and .net, most names are renewed rather than released. Buying a taken name means finding the owner and negotiating, as set out in how to buy a domain that is taken.
Volume is not value. New gTLDs grew 32.0% in a year but renew at 28.6%. A fast-growing extension is not proof that its names hold resale value, so check retention before you invest. The trade-offs are set out in is domain investing worth it.
Price from evidence, not market headlines. Because no reliable aftermarket total exists, a seller cannot point to “the market” to justify a price. Comparable reported sales and the name’s own qualities matter more. The Domain Worth Calculator works through those factors one by one and maps them to a value band rather than one exact number. It is not a market appraisal.
Frequently asked questions
How many domain names are registered in 2026?
411.6 million across all TLDs at the end of Q3 2026, according to the Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB.com, sponsored by Verisign). That is up 8.7% on a year earlier.
Which registrar has the largest market share?
For .com, GoDaddy.com, LLC, with 28.9% of .com domains in June 2026, calculated from ICANN’s figures. No reliable share across all TLDs is published.
What share of domains are .com?
About 41.3%, worked out from DNIB’s figures: 169.8 million .com names out of 411.6 million at 30 September 2026.
How big is the domain aftermarket?
No credible total is published, because most sales are private. GoDaddy alone reported $129 million of aftermarket revenue in Q2 2026, which is one company’s revenue, not total sales.
The takeaway The domain name market keeps growing, .com still dominates, and registrar share can only be measured reliably for .com. Resale figures are partial, so judge each name on its own evidence. When you are ready to buy, browse aged domains on the SERPHeroes marketplace, where each listing shows its registry age and an archive spam scan.
