How a new gTLD application is evaluated, in outline
After the window closes, each application is examined. What evaluators look at in general terms, and what it means for a brand waiting on the result.
Submitting an application for a new generic top-level domain is not the end of the process. It is closer to the beginning. For a business sponsor who has paid the fee and signed off the filing, the period that follows can feel opaque. The evaluators are working through criteria that are real and consequential, but their work is not always visible from the outside, and the updates that reach you tend to arrive in the vocabulary of domain specialists.
This article gives a plain-language outline of what happens between application and delegation, what evaluators look at, how third parties can intervene, and what happens when more than one applicant wants the same string. It stays at the level of the kinds of review and leaves procedural detail to your advisers, who work from the program’s own rules.
It also covers what your organization should be doing while the process runs, and how an onchain TLD carrying the same string sits alongside the ICANN process as a separate matter that calls for separate attention.
Application count as reported by the trade press; fee from ICANN's new gTLD program pages.
The stages between application and delegation
The applications now under evaluation belong to the round for generic top-level domains that ICANN opened in 2026, its first new round in more than a decade. The window closed on August 12, 2026, and the trade press reports 1,616 applications going forward. Each of them now moves through the same broad sequence, from a file that has been submitted to a TLD that exists in the DNS. Delegation is the name of that last event: the moment the TLD is added to the DNS root zone and starts to resolve.
- Completeness checkICANN verifies that the application is complete and that the evaluation fee has been received. An application that does not pass this check does not proceed.
- Reveal DayICANN publishes the list of applied-for strings. Applicants and the public can see which strings have been applied for and which are sought by more than one applicant.
- Review of the stringEach string is examined for similarity to existing or applied-for TLDs, for effects on the stability of the DNS and for sensitivities such as geographic names.
- Comments and objectionsThe public can comment, governments can raise concerns, and third parties with the right standing can file a formal objection against an application.
- ContentionApplications for the same string, or for strings judged confusingly similar, are grouped and only one of them can go forward.
- Review of the applicantThe organization behind the application is examined: its standing, its finances and its capability to run a registry or have one run for it.
- Contracting and testingA successful applicant signs a registry agreement with ICANN and its technical setup is tested before the TLD goes live.
- DelegationThe TLD is added to the DNS root zone. The operating phase starts here.
Read this as an outline and not as a calendar. The order of the reviews, and how far they overlap, are set by the program’s rules, and several of them run at the same time across all applications. That matters for planning: your organization’s waiting period is not one queue with one position in it. A file can be clear on one track and held on another.
It also means that “evaluation” is two questions and not one. The first is about the string: does this word, as a TLD, cause a problem for anyone or for the DNS itself. The second is about the applicant: can this organization be trusted with a piece of shared infrastructure. A strong answer to one does nothing for the other.
What evaluators examine when reviewing the applicant
A TLD is not a product an organization buys. It is an operating responsibility that ICANN delegates. The review of the applicant exists because a registry that fails, or is run carelessly, affects everyone who relies on names under it. The review has three broad parts, and each carries real weight.
Standing of the organization and its people
Background screening examines whether the organization and the people who direct it are fit to hold a critical internet resource. It looks at the legal standing of the entity, the history of its principals and whether there are grounds for concern about how the registry would be run. For an established company this is usually uneventful, but it is not automatic. A group structure that is hard to read, or a principal whose record raises a question, produces a request for clarification, and a request takes time to answer.
Financial capacity
The financial review asks whether the applicant has the resources to operate the registry over the long term, and not only to get it launched. Evaluators are not looking for an optimistic business plan. They are looking for evidence that the registry can sustain operations through adverse conditions, including the case where it earns nothing. For a brand that intends to use its TLD only for itself, that case is the normal one: the registry is a cost center, and the question is whether the organization has committed to carrying it.
Technical and operational capability
The technical review covers how the registry will be run: the services it offers, how it is secured and how it stays stable. Few brand applicants build this themselves. Most contract a specialist backend provider, a company that runs the registry infrastructure for several TLDs. Where the program lets such a provider be assessed in its own right, the technical review of an application that relies on it is lighter. It is still a review. The applicant remains the party ICANN contracts with and the party answerable for the registry.
For a business sponsor, the implication is that the organization’s own corporate records, financial statements and choice of registry provider are all material to the outcome, and not only the quality of the applied-for string. These are things your organization controls, which is why they deserve attention during the wait.
What evaluators examine when reviewing the string
The review of the string is separate from the review of the applicant, and for many applications it is where the larger risk of delay or failure sits. The reason is simple: the applicant can improve its own file, but it cannot change what the string looks like, what it means or who else wants it.
The table sets out what is reviewed and why.
| What is reviewed | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Similarity to existing TLDs | Two TLDs that are easily confused make the DNS less predictable for users |
| Similarity to other applied-for strings | Strings that are identical or confusable cannot both be delegated |
| Name collision risk | A string already used on private networks can misdirect traffic once it is public |
| Geographic and protected terms | Names tied to places or to public bodies call for particular care |
| Technical stability | The string must not cause operational problems in the DNS |
Three of these lines deserve a word more.
The similarity check is not limited to exact matches. A string that is close in appearance to an existing TLD, or to another string applied for in the same round, can be judged confusingly similar even if it is not identical. For a brand, this is the review most likely to produce a surprise, because the brand team thinks of its name as distinctive and the evaluator compares it only as a sequence of characters.
A name collision occurs when a string that was used only on private internal networks becomes resolvable on the public internet. Queries that were meant to stay inside an organization can then travel to the wrong destination. A string that carries this risk can face additional review and may need measures to reduce the risk before it goes live.
Geographic names form a further category. Names of countries, of certain places and of terms with recognized geographic significance are treated with particular care, and an application that uses or closely resembles one can expect to need the support, or at least the non-objection, of the public authorities concerned. Brands whose name is also a place name should expect this question.
If any of the terms in this section are unfamiliar, the glossary defines the vocabulary used on this site.
How third parties can object, in outline
Evaluation is not only a conversation between ICANN and the applicant. Once the applied-for strings are public, others have a voice. That voice takes three forms, and they differ in weight.
The lightest is public comment. Anyone can comment on an application, and the comments are available to evaluators. A comment does not stop an application, but it can draw attention to a point that a reviewer then examines.
The second is the voice of governments. Governments take part in ICANN through an advisory committee, and that committee can raise concerns about particular applications. When governments agree among themselves that an application should not proceed, that position carries considerable weight in ICANN’s decision. An applicant whose string touches a regulated sector, a place or a sensitive term should assume that governments will look at it.
The third is the formal objection. A third party with standing files it, an independent dispute resolution provider decides it, and the result can end an application or attach conditions to how the TLD may be operated. ICANN itself does not decide these disputes. In outline, objections fall into a few kinds:
- Confusion. The string is too close to an existing TLD or to another applied-for string.
- Legal rights. The string conflicts with the rights of the objector, typically a trademark.
- Public interest. The string conflicts with widely accepted legal norms.
- Community. A clearly defined community that the string is associated with opposes the application.
Each kind has its own rules on who may file. A trademark owner can object to an application it believes conflicts with its mark. An organization that represents an established community can object where the proposed registry would harm that community. For brand owners, the confusion and legal rights objections are the ones that matter most.
Objections work in both directions for a brand applicant. Your organization may want to object to another application whose string sits too close to your brand, and it may at the same moment have to defend its own application against an objection filed by someone else. The two call for different files and often different advisers. Both are easier when the trademark record, the history of use of the name and the reasoning behind the choice of string have been assembled in advance and are not being reconstructed under a filing deadline.
When more than one applicant wants the same string
The DNS holds one TLD per string. When two or more applications seek the same string, or strings that the review judges confusingly similar, they are placed in what the program calls a contention set, and only one member of the set can be delegated.
This can happen to a brand for reasons that have nothing to do with bad faith. Two companies in different sectors and different countries can lawfully own the same name. A brand name can also be an ordinary word that a generic applicant wants for its own reasons. Trademark law accommodates these overlaps because trademarks are limited by territory and by class of goods. A TLD is not limited in either way, so the overlap has to be resolved.
In outline, contention ends in one of a few ways. An applicant can withdraw, or change course where the program’s rules allow it. An application made on behalf of a clearly defined community can ask for priority, under a demanding test of whether the community is real and whether the string belongs to it. This path is not open to an ordinary commercial applicant. Where nothing else settles the matter, an auction run under ICANN’s authority is the method of last resort.
Two practical points follow for a business sponsor.
The first is about conduct. The program sets rules on what applicants in the same contention set may agree between themselves, and on what they may say to each other. Do not assume that the practices of an earlier round still apply, and do not open a commercial discussion with a competing applicant on your own initiative. Your counsel reads the rules first.
The second is about money. If an auction is a possible outcome, your organization needs an internal view of the most it is prepared to pay, agreed by the people who can commit the budget, well before any bidding starts. An auction is a poor place to discover what a TLD is worth to you. The figure should come from what the TLD would do for the business, set against what it would cost to live without it, and it should be decided calmly.
What can delay an application
An application can slow or stall at several points, and delays add up. It helps to know the usual causes, because some of them are within your control and some are not.
Questions from evaluators. Where a review raises a point that the file does not answer, the applicant is asked to clarify. Each exchange takes time on both sides. The applicants who lose least here are those who can find the right person and the right document quickly.
A string that needs further review. A name collision concern, a similarity finding or a geographic sensitivity can each move a string out of the standard track and into closer examination. The applicant can supply information, but it cannot hurry the examination.
A pending objection. An application subject to a formal objection waits for the decision of the dispute resolution provider. Where the decision is challenged, the wait is longer.
Contention. An application in a contention set cannot reach contracting until the set is resolved. The delay falls on every member of the set, including the one that eventually prevails, and it depends on the conduct of the other members as much as on your own.
Concerns raised by governments. A concern from governments opens a discussion that follows its own rhythm, and it may lead to commitments about how the TLD will be run.
Changes at the applicant. A merger, a change of ownership, a new backend provider or a departure among the named principals can each reopen a part of the review that was thought closed. This is the cause most often overlooked, because the people who decide on a restructuring are rarely the people who filed the application.
Contracting and testing. Passing evaluation is not delegation. The registry agreement has to be signed and the technical setup has to pass its tests. An organization that treats approval as the finish line can lose time at the very end.
The honest summary is that even an application that meets no complication takes a long time, and that one that meets an objection or contention takes longer. Nobody can give you a reliable date. Plan around stages, and treat any timetable you are shown as an estimate.
What your organization should prepare in the waiting period
The waiting period is not idle time. It is when the organization builds the internal capability, legal position and operational readiness that the process will eventually require. The work falls into six areas.
Ownership of the file. Name one person who is accountable for the application inside the organization, and one deputy. Evaluators’ questions, adviser invoices and internal decisions should all pass through them. A long process outlasts job changes, and an application whose sponsor has moved on is the one that answers a question late.
Registry operations. If your application relies on a backend provider, make sure the relationship is under contract and that the provider’s responsibilities and yours are written down. Know who at the provider answers a technical question from evaluators, and how fast.
Financial documentation. The financial review draws on what was submitted with the application, and evaluators may ask for more. Keep financial statements current and keep the evidence of the funding commitment where it can be found. Tell the person who owns the file about any planned change in ownership, financing or corporate structure before it happens, so that its effect on the application can be assessed.
Trademark position. An application for .yourbrand is on firmer ground when the applicant holds registered trademark rights in the string. If your portfolio has gaps, such as registrations missing in important countries or a mark registered in a form that differs from the applied-for string, raise them with your trademark counsel during the wait. In a legal rights dispute, in either direction, the trademark record is the first evidence anyone looks at. Trademark rules vary by country, and your own counsel decides what is worth filing. The page on trademark TLDs explains how a trademark and a TLD relate.
Watching other applications. Reveal Day is the day ICANN publishes the list of applied-for strings. That list shows whether another applicant has sought a string that is identical to yours, close to it or close to one of your other brands. Review it for all three, with your advisers, as soon as it is available to you, so that the whole period allowed for objections can be used if one is warranted.
Internal governance. A registry operator carries continuing obligations under its agreement with ICANN. The policies, people and processes needed to meet them take time to put in place. Decide early who will be allowed to have a name under the TLD, who approves each one and who answers when something goes wrong. For a broader view of where a TLD fits in a brand’s legal work, see the page for brands and legal teams.
One more task belongs to the sponsor personally: keep the business case alive. A project that takes a long time to deliver loses its champions. A short note to the executive team at each stage, saying where the file stands and what the next decision is, costs little and protects the budget.
The onchain TLD carrying the same string
ICANN’s process and onchain registries are separate systems. An onchain TLD is a top-level domain recorded onchain, on a registry such as Freename, as a token held in a wallet. It is not part of the ICANN DNS root, and ICANN does not evaluate, approve or regulate it. The same string can exist in both systems, and nothing in either system checks the other.
This means that a business applying for .yourbrand as a new gTLD may find that .yourbrand already exists as an onchain TLD. On Freename, only the holder of a TLD can issue names under it, such as pay.yourbrand, and there is no annual renewal fee, so an onchain TLD does not lapse for want of payment the way a neglected domain name does. Names under it can be used in the wallets and browsers that support them. That coverage is partial and changes, and an ordinary browser does not open an onchain name without support. The page on what is live lists the capabilities that work, with sources.
The onchain TLD does not block the ICANN application, and the evaluation described above takes no account of it. The reverse is also true: delegation of .yourbrand in the DNS gives your organization no right over the onchain TLD of the same string. The two questions are answered in different places, by different rules. The UDRP, the dispute policy that registrars of ICANN domain names are bound to apply, binds parties in the ICANN system and was not written for onchain registries. What remedies exist against an onchain name depends on the facts and the country, and your own counsel decides.
Honesty about scale matters here. For reaching the general public, the DNS is simply better: every browser, mail system and search engine works with it, and that is what the application is for. The onchain TLD matters for a narrower set of uses, chiefly names in wallets and the applications built around them. Whether that set of uses matters to your brand is a business judgment, and for some organizations the answer is that it does not, or not yet.
Finding out where you stand is simple. The registry record of an onchain TLD is public, and anyone can check it on a block explorer. An applicant can also run its brand through the Namespace Exposure Score, a free tool that produces a score of the brand’s onchain exposure. The comparison of a dotBrand and an onchain TLD sets the two side by side, which helps when explaining to an executive team why the two are not substitutes for each other.
When the ICANN process concludes, and what to do before then
Delegation is not the end of the obligation. It is the start of the operating phase. Once the TLD is in the DNS root zone, the registry operator has to meet the continuing requirements of its agreement with ICANN, which in broad terms cover the security and stability of the registry, the handling of abuse and regular reporting. The practical focus shifts to launch: configuring the infrastructure, deciding which names go live first and applying the policy on who may hold a name under the TLD.
Until then, the concrete step for a business sponsor is a single page, kept current. It states the stage each review has reached, the open questions from evaluators and who is answering them, any application for a string close to yours, the changes planned inside the organization that could touch the file, and the decision the executive team will next be asked to make. If you cannot fill in a line, that line is the one to raise with your advisers first.
Add one line to that page for the onchain question: does .yourbrand exist onchain, yes or no. If it does and your organization decides it wants it, the route is a private acquisition and not a dispute by default. Hush Partners is a private desk for onchain TLDs. An organization can mandate it to find and approach the holder of a TLD, every exchange is covered by a standard mutual NDA, and closing runs through onchain escrow on an aftermarket. The page on brand namespace recovery describes that service, and the desk is reached through the contact form.
Questions people ask
Does passing evaluation guarantee delegation?
No. Passing evaluation leads to contracting, and the TLD is delegated only after the registry agreement is signed and the technical setup has passed its tests. An organization that signs but is not technically ready will wait until it is. Keep your backend provider involved through to the last step.
Can an application be changed after it is submitted?
The scope is narrow. As a general matter, a change that would alter what was evaluated, such as the identity of the applicant or the nature of the application, is treated very differently from the correction of an administrative detail. The program’s rules say what is permitted and how a change is reviewed. Ask your advisers before attempting any change, and before any corporate event that would amount to one.
What happens if an application does not pass?
It depends on why. A gap that the applicant can fill, for example in the financial file, is usually met first with a request for more information. A problem with the string itself is harder to cure, because the string is the one thing the applicant cannot improve. The program’s rules set out what recourse exists, and withdrawal remains the applicant’s own decision. Your counsel will tell you which of these applies to your file.
Does holding a trademark in the string protect the application?
It helps, and it is not a shield. A registered trademark is strong evidence in a legal rights dispute, in either direction. It does not answer an objection made on community or public interest grounds, it does not remove a similarity finding, and a mark in one country does not defeat rights held by someone else in another. Map your trademark position against each kind of objection separately.
Is evaluation the same for a brand as for any other applicant?
The core structure is common to all applications, with adjustments by type. A brand that applies for its own name and intends to use the TLD only for itself, often called a dotBrand, is treated as a closed registry with terms that reflect it. An application made on behalf of a community is tested against additional criteria about that community. Your advisers will know which category your file was submitted under, and it is worth confirming that you do too.
