After 15 weeks, ICANN’s 2026 round of new general top-level domain (gTLD) applications officially closed at 23:59 UTC on August 12th. A total of over 1600 main applications were received, including over 1100 secondary applications with alternative strings. Most applications were submitted in the last few days of the window.
This marks the first time in over a decade that ICANN has opened such a large-scale application period for new gTLDs, a significant milestone for the global domain name industry. However, this only represents the completion of application material submission; the final number of valid applications will only be confirmed after ICANN has received full payment of the assessment fees.
The official rules for assessment fee payment are clear: payment must be made before the later of two deadlines: August 19th at 23:59 UTC; or the seventh day after the invoice is issued at 23:59 UTC. For example, if an invoice is issued on August 14th, the payment deadline is 23:59 UTC on August 21st; failure to pay by this date will render the application invalid.
Closing the application window is just the beginning of the process. Subsequent steps include administrative verification, eligibility assessment, string conflict comparison, and objection handling. New domain extensions will not be immediately available. ICANN will publicly release a list of submitted strings, and only after a complete review process will qualified extensions gradually enter the registry’s operational phase, bringing more new domain extension options to the internet.
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