.digital domain names: registry, rules and buyer facts

The IANA root zone lists Binky Moon, LLC, operating c/o Identity Digital Inc., as the sponsoring organisation for .digital. The ICANN Registry Agreement behind it, dated 6 March 2014, names Binky Moon, LLC as the contracted registry operator under a Base, Non-Sponsored agreement, per the ICANN registry agreement record.

Binky Moon sits under the corporate brand Identity Digital Inc., owned by the private equity firm Ethos Capital, according to Wikipedia's entry on Identity Digital. Identity Digital came together when Donuts and Afilias were unified under one brand in June 2022, following Donuts' acquisition of Afilias' registry operations back in 2020. Nothing in the record points to a separate technical backend provider, it runs on Identity Digital's own infrastructure.

Here's how the three roles break down in practice. The registry (Binky Moon, under Identity Digital) runs the authoritative database for every .digital domain and sets wholesale and premium pricing. A registrar, Namecheap or Network Solutions, say, is the ICANN-accredited business you actually hand your money to, and it bolts its own retail markup and support terms on top of whatever the registry charges. The registrant is you, whoever's name ends up on the WHOIS/RDAP record once the registration goes through. None of these three actually own the .digital string. The registry just holds a contract with ICANN to run it, and running something isn't the same as owning it.

.digital has no registrant restrictions. According to Network Solutions, anyone can register one, individual, business or organisation, on a first-come, first-served basis. You don't need to prove any connection to tech or digital services, despite what the name suggests.

That openness comes from registry policy, not registrar goodwill, so it applies no matter which registrar you use. What does vary by registrar is the finer print: domain privacy options, ID checks at checkout, accepted payment methods. None of that touches who's actually allowed to hold the name.

The closest thing to an eligibility catch is really a pricing issue. Identity Digital classes some .digital names as registry-premium, meaning anyone can still buy them, just at a higher price set by the registry, as TLDBee explains in its breakdown of premium TLD pricing. Standard names have no such markup, and no extra hoops beyond the usual registrar account and payment steps.

.digital sits on the standard gTLD transfer system, so an authorisation code (EPP/TAC) is what actually moves the domain between registrars. ICANN's transfer policy locks a name for 60 days after first registration, after a transfer, and after you change the registrant contact, though this is subject to the transfer policy reforms currently working their way through implementation. Registrars must offer terms of 1 to 10 years, per Namecheap's registration data.

.digital is a standard, non-sponsored gTLD, which means it falls under ICANN's Expired Registration Recovery Policy. That gives you a 30-day Redemption Grace Period after deletion, so the previous registrant can restore the name through their registrar rather than losing it outright. Restore fees aren't published as a fixed figure for .digital; the registrar and registry set them jointly, so ring your registrar and get the actual number before you let a name lapse.

One thing to watch for: some .digital names are registry-premium. Identity Digital sets higher registration and renewal prices on these, and that premium status sticks with the name through a transfer, per tldbee's explainer. Registry-wide renewal prices have also shifted recently, so whatever renewal quote you saw a year ago is probably stale now.

The sources we checked do not name specific live websites built on .digital, so none are cited here. Consistent with the registry's own positioning of .digital within its technology-industry grouping alongside strings like .software and .technology (per Identity Digital), the extension is aimed at tech firms, software vendors, IT consultancies and digital marketing agencies. Hobbyists and general consumer brands are not really the target market here.

A few practical points before you go live. IDNs are not supported on .digital, per Namecheap, so stick to standard Latin characters, numbers and hyphens. Hyphens also cannot sit in the third and fourth character positions, per GoDaddy. The sources we checked do not identify any registry-imposed HTTPS or HSTS requirement specific to .digital, so treat certificate setup as a standard hosting task rather than something the registry mandates. Because .digital is a newer gTLD rather than an old warhorse like .com, some spam filters and older email systems still give mail from it extra scrutiny, so test deliverability before you lean on it for transactional email. It works well as a primary domain for a genuinely tech-focused brand, and just as well as a secondary domain redirecting to an existing site. Keep the name itself literal: pair .digital with something vague or abstract and you end up with a domain that sounds generic rather than descriptive.