TLD, or top-level domain, simply refers to the letters at the end of the domain.
It is something simple, that can nevertheless make or break your internet presence. A TLD can do one of two things – spell out your website’s purpose or (as is the case with .com) – simply inspire trust. Webtribunal shows the purpose of the site quite clearly – we judge hosting providers.
Have you ever wondered how many .coms are there or what country-code top-level domain is the most popular?
Don’t worry, I’ve got ya.
Let’s start with a few TLD statistics to show you that there’s so much more behind those letters.
Sumptuous TLD Statistics (Editor’s Choice):
- There were 401.6 million domain names registered across all TLDs at the end of Q2 2026.
- That is up 9.1 million, or 2.3%, on the previous quarter, and 8.1% year over year.
- .com alone accounts for 166.6 million of them, about 41.5% of every registered domain.
- There are roughly 1,581 TLD extensions in use: about 1,265 gTLDs and 316 ccTLDs.
- Country-code TLDs total 148.6 million registrations, led by .cn, .de and .uk.
- New gTLDs have reached 52.9 million registrations, up 34% year over year.
- In 2012, ICANN approved 1,232 new TLDs, which is where most of today’s extensions came from.
- GoDaddy remains the largest registrar, with more than 59 million domains under management.
TLD Usage and Growth
Most of the figures in this section come from the DNIB quarterly report, which counts registrations across every TLD. One note on reading them: a registration is not a live website. A large share of registered domains park, redirect or never resolve to anything.
TLDs Usage
- 401.6 million domain names were registered across all top-level domains at the end of Q2 2026, an increase of 9.1 million or 2.3% on the previous quarter. (Source: DNIB)
- Year over year, that is a rise of 29.9 million registrations, or 8.1%. (Source: DNIB)
- In 2012, ICANN approved 1,232 new TLDs. (Source: OnlineDomain)
- There are now roughly 1,581 TLD extensions in total, split into about 1,265 generic TLDs and 316 country-code TLDs, including internationalised domain names. The old count of 1,253 in January 2020 reflected a narrower definition. (Source: DNIB)
- The four largest TLDs are now .com, .cn, .de and .net. The full top ten runs .com, .cn, .de, .net, .org, .uk, .xyz, .ru, .top and .nl, a noticeably different list from the .com, .ru, .org, .net ordering this page used to carry. (Source: DNIB)
- .com holds 166.6 million registrations, about 41.5% of all domains. (Source: DNIB)
- .org has passed 12 million registrations. (Source: Public Interest Registry)
- .xyz is the fourth-largest gTLD, having been the breakout new extension of the previous decade. (Source: DNIB)
New TLDs Usage
- New generic TLDs have reached 52.9 million registrations, up 34.0% year over year, from 28.2 million in January 2022. (Source: DNIB)
- That makes new gTLDs the fastest-growing part of the domain market by a wide margin, against 2.3% quarterly growth for domains overall. (Source: DNIB)
ccTLD Usage
- Country-code TLD registrations totalled 148.6 million at the end of Q2 2026, up 2.3 million or 1.6% on the quarter. (Source: DNIB)
- There are 316 global ccTLD extensions, including internationalised ones, up from 302 in December 2018. (Source: DNIB)
- .cn is now the largest ccTLD, followed by .de, .uk and .ru. This is a significant change: .tk (Tokelau) was previously the largest with 24.7 million domains, on the back of free registrations, and no longer leads. (Source: DNIB)
Two things stand out. Growth is steady rather than explosive, at 8.1% year over year. And the composition has shifted: new gTLDs growing 34% in a year while the overall market grows 8% means the long tail of extensions is taking share, even as .com holds four registrations in every ten.
Market Share
A note on denominators, because this section used to mix three of them. The gTLD and ccTLD shares below are calculated against the 401.6 million total unless stated otherwise, and the new-gTLD shares are against the new-gTLD pool only. They are not comparable with each other.
Generic TLD
- .com holds about 41.5% of all registered domains, 166.6 million of 401.6 million. (Source: DNIB)
- .net accounts for roughly 3.1% of all registered domains. (Source: DNIB)
- .org accounts for roughly 3.0%, having passed 12 million registrations. The figure is approximate because the exact count is reported as a milestone rather than a quarterly total. (Source: Public Interest Registry)
Newly-released Generic TLD
These shares are of the new-gTLD pool, not of all domains.
- .top holds about 11.2% of counted new-gTLD domains. (Source: nTLDData)
- .online follows with about 6.3%. (Source: nTLDData)
- .vip holds about 3.4%. (Source: nTLDData)
- .icu, which grew sharply in 2019, is now at about 1.0%. (Source: nTLDData)
Country-code TLDs
- .cn is the largest ccTLD at roughly 14.1% of the 148.6 million ccTLD registrations. (Source: DNIB)
- .de is second, at roughly 11.8% to 12.0%. (Source: DNIB)
- .uk is third. (Source: DNIB)
The headline is that .com still dominates generic TLDs, .top leads the new gTLDs, and the ccTLD order has changed hands entirely since this page was last updated.
Top Domain Name Registrars
Registrar counts below come from DomainState. The percentages are each registrar’s domains as a share of the 401.6 million total, which is a rough measure: registrars sell mostly gTLDs, while that denominator includes every ccTLD too.
GoDaddy
- GoDaddy has 59,288,304 domains registered, about 14.8% of all domains. (Source: DomainState)
Namecheap
- Namecheap has grown sharply to 16,684,709 domains, about 4.2%, making it now the second-largest on this list. (Source: DomainState)
Tucows
- The Canadian registrar has 8,221,319 domains, about 2.0%. (Source: DomainState)
GMO Internet
- The Japanese registrar has 7,584,641 domains. (Source: DomainState)
1&1 INTERNET
- The German registrar has 5,365,788 domains, about 1.3%. (Source: DomainState)
Network Solutions
- Network Solutions has 4,272,272 domains. (Source: DomainState)
PublicDomainRegistry
- PublicDomainRegistry has 2,957,880 domains. (Source: DomainState)
eNom
- eNom has 2,725,794 domains, about 0.7%. (Source: DomainState)
HiChina
- HiChina has 1,639,016 domains. (Source: DomainState)
The direction of travel is the interesting part. Namecheap has more than doubled since this page was last updated while HiChina, eNom, Network Solutions and PublicDomainRegistry have all shrunk substantially. GoDaddy is roughly flat in absolute terms, which means its share of a growing market has fallen.
TLDs Usage by Country
- China has 5,861,173 registered new gTLDs, about 20.8% of the global total, across 526 TLDs and 24 active registrars. (Source: nTLDStats)
- The USA follows with 3,688,220 new gTLDs, 14.04% worldwide, across 861 TLDs and 254 active registrars. (Source: nTLDStats)
- Japan accounts for 6.02% of global new gTLD registrations, across 524 TLDs and 128 active registrars. (Source: nTLDStats)
China leading is consistent with .cn now being the largest ccTLD. We have dropped this page’s old entries for domains with hidden WHOIS information, which mixed a privacy setting in with a list of countries and came from a dated snapshot.
Top Abused TLDs
- .surf has 2,802 domains, of which 2,023 are spammy or malicious. (Source: Spamhaus)
- .cn has 256,382 domains, 32.8% of which are bad. (Source: Spamhaus)
- Out of 21,774 domains, .tokyo has 17,124 bad ones. (Source: Spamhaus)
- .shop has 56.3% bad domains out of 88,902 in total. (Source: Spamhaus)
- .ooo has 4,306 registered domains, of which 3,227 are bad. (Source: Spamhaus)
“Abused” domains are those used by professional spammers and malware operators. These are historical Spamhaus figures, and abuse rates by extension move quickly, so treat the ratios as illustrative of the pattern rather than current measurements.
The Entertaining Side of TLDs
- .site, launched in 2016, had over 140,000 domain name registrations in a single day. (Source: OnlineDomain)
- Elon Musk purchased the domain name Tesla.com for $11 million in 2016. (Source: OnlineDomain)
TLDs are a key part of branding, and those few letters at the end of a domain say a lot. Dot-com remains the most common choice by a wide margin, but with 1,581 extensions available and the new gTLDs growing four times faster than the market as a whole, it is no longer the only serious one.
If you are choosing one, our domain facts cover registration terms, grace periods and transfer rules, and our web hosting statistics cover where those domains end up pointing.
