In 2025, the strongest shift I felt was how “place” came back into the domain conversation, even in a world that works remotely. Global business is still global, but teams are relocating, founders are setting up in new hubs, and customers want immediate trust signals in the markets where they operate. In the GCC, especially the UAE, we saw that clearly. When there is an influx of talent and new company formation, you see the same pattern repeat: businesses want to look local, sell local, hire local, and comply locally. That continued to lift strong regional ccTLDs like .ae because a good local domain acts like a digital trade license. It tells customers, partners, and banks that you are present and serious.

From the events and community side, 2025 was also a big year for “real-world” momentum. Domain Days Dubai and similar gatherings are no longer only about networking. They are about opening markets, building distribution partnerships, and aligning global players with regional realities such as registry policy, compliance expectations, and buyer behavior. More international companies treated MEA as a priority growth region, not a “later” market, and that changed the quality of conversations and the number of meaningful collaborations that came out of the region.

Munir Badr

Another 2025 trend was the industry getting more disciplined about trust and abuse. Customers care about security and verification, and regulators and registries are raising the bar. That is healthy, but it also forces operators to get better at balancing speed and compliance.

Our response was straightforward: we leaned harder into “local-first, globally connected.” At AEserver.com we kept simplifying how SMEs and startups get online in the UAE while reinforcing account security, compliance handling, and clear customer guidance. Through Domain Days Dubai, we invested in bringing more global stakeholders into the region and creating a platform where registries, registrars, investors, and service providers can do business with context, not just headlines.

Above: Munir Badr welcoming attendees to the 2025 edition of Domain Days Dubai in October.

For 2026, I see three forces shaping our category and the industry overall: continued growth of regional digital hubs, rising expectations around trust and verification, and the industry preparing seriously for the upcoming ICANN new gTLD round.

On the regional side, the UAE and the wider GCC are still attracting founders, remote teams, and capital. That keeps translating into new brands and new online projects, and it creates a steady tailwind for ccTLDs like .ae. The reason is practical. When a company is trying to win customers in a specific market, a local domain is one of the simplest ways to shorten the trust journey. I expect the demand for premium local names to stay strong, especially in categories like real estate, fintech, healthcare, hospitality, and B2B services.

Industry-wide, the lead-up to the 2026 ICANN new gTLD round will be a major focus. For many players, it will be a once-in-a-decade strategic moment. There will be opportunity for new strings, brand TLDs, city or community ideas, and for operators who can execute with patience and clarity. It will also create a new wave of partnerships, advisory work, and services around applications, naming strategy, rights protection, registry operations, and go-to-market planning. At the same time, it will raise familiar questions: how to build real usage, how to price sustainably, and how to keep the namespace clean.

The biggest challenge in 2026 will be doing growth without compromising trust. Customers want instant activation, but registries and regulators expect stronger checks, faster abuse handling, and better accountability. Operators who can make compliance feel simple, not painful, will win.

Our plan is to keep building the bridge between MEA and the global domain community through Domain Days Dubai, while strengthening AEserver.com’s role as a trusted local platform. We want to make it easier for businesses to establish a credible presence in the UAE, and we also want to help regional stakeholders participate in the next chapter of the domain industry as the new gTLD round approaches. For me, 2026 is about turning momentum into long-term infrastructure, both for our customers and for the region

In 2025, one of the most significant shifts in the domain industry was the growing recognition of domains as tools of identity, credibility, and digital visibility rather than purely technical assets. Entrepreneurs, creators, and small businesses increasingly view domains as the foundation of their online presence and brand narrative.  

Another important trend was the closer integration of domains with content, social platforms, and community-led initiatives. Short-form video, personal branding, and direct audience engagement have influenced how domains are discovered, positioned, and used, signaling a move toward more holistic digital ecosystems.  

At the same time, education emerged as a critical factor. Many new users entering the digital economy are non-technical and require accessible, human-centered guidance. 

Natalija Japerte

In response, my focus has been on initiatives that improve understanding and confidence in using domains—particularly for entrepreneurs and women-led businesses—so they can translate ownership into real digital value.

Looking ahead to 2026, I see strong opportunities for the domain industry to become more inclusive, education-driven, and user-focused. As digital entrepreneurship continues to grow, there is increasing demand for simplicity, clarity, and practical use cases that connect domains with trust, visibility, and long-term growth.  

A key challenge will be differentiation in an increasingly crowded digital environment. This places greater importance on transparency, meaningful engagement, and storytelling that demonstrates how domains are actively used, not just registered.  

My focus in 2026 is on building bridges between technology, entrepreneurship, and community—supporting initiatives that help users move from domain ownership to confident usage. I believe that lowering entry barriers and amplifying diverse voices will be essential to the industry’s sustainable development.

Sandeep Ramchandani

By far the most significant trend in 2025 was a clear re-acceleration in growth across the domains industry, marking a notable break from the slower, more mature dynamics of the previous few years. After three consecutive years of year-on-year decline in new registrations, even .com showed renewed momentum, returning to growth in 2025 with approximately 11% growth. This was an important signal that demand for digital identity remains resilient, even as the broader internet ecosystem continues to evolve.

At the same time, the shift away from a single-extension mindset continued and, in many ways, accelerated. While .com rebounded, non-.com TLDs, especially new gTLDs, grew at a meaningfully faster rate. This reinforced a longer-term trend observed over several years: businesses and creators are increasingly open to alternatives that better express intent, category, or brand identity, rather than defaulting to a single legacy option.

Two broader forces likely amplified this dynamic in 2025. First, the rapid rise of AI-led business creation significantly increased the pace at

which new projects, storefronts, and digital brands came online. Second, growing concerns around trust, authenticity, and differentiation pushed many users toward domains that are more descriptive and purpose-built. Together, these forces expanded the overall addressable market for domains while also redistributing growth across a wider range of extensions.

From a business perspective, the key question is how durable this growth will be over time? Encouragingly, the rebound seen in 2025 does not appear to have been driven by short-term speculation. Much of the growth was usage-led, with stronger signals around active websites, real businesses, and longer-term intent. As a result, the industry entered 2026 with a healthier balance of volume growth and quality demand, reinforcing the role of domains as the foundational layer of digital identity in an increasingly platform- and AI-driven internet. 

Sandeep chattering with NamesCon Founder Richard Lau at Radix's 10th anniversary
 party held during the 2022 NamesCon Global conference in Austin, Texas.

Looking ahead to 2026, the industry stands at an important inflection point. As a participant that was born out of the first round of new gTLDs, we are naturally following the upcoming next round very closely. A fresh application window will inevitably bring renewed attention to the category, and in our view, that attention alone is likely to provide a lift to the broader new gTLD ecosystem. As conversations, analysis, and media coverage progress through the various stages of the program, focus will gradually shift away from a narrow set of traditional extensions toward a wider set of naming possibilities.

At the same time, we are very conscious that the largest opportunity in front of us does not necessarily lie in new strings, but in fully unlocking the potential of the ones that already exist. Across the industry, many new gTLDs are still early in their lifecycle, and in several cases, adoption has only scratched the surface of what is possible. We continue to see significant headroom in extensions such as .store, .tech, .online, .site, and .fun, particularly as digital creation accelerates and naming conventions evolve.

The opportunity in 2026, therefore, is twofold. First, the next round can act as a catalyst, re-energizing awareness and legitimizing the broader new gTLD category in the minds of businesses, creators, and platforms. Second, incumbents who have already built distribution, brand recognition, and operational scale are well positioned to compound growth by deepening usage, improving retention, and embedding their extensions more tightly into modern creation workflows.

The challenge, however, will be execution discipline. In a world with increasing choice, success will favor operators that focus less on expansion for its own sake and more on clarity of purpose, brand equity, demand generation, and long-term customer value. Those that do so will be best placed to benefit both from the next round and from the continued maturation of the category as a whole.

From where I sit at InterNetX (a European registrar within the IONOS Group), 2025 was the year domains stopped being “just registrations.” They started behaving like critical infrastructure — trust-driven, compliance-shaped, security-heavy, and increasingly connected to new models of digital ownership.  

Highlight #1: RDAP became real life. ICANN sunset the legacy WHOIS service on 28 January 2025, and RDAP became the standard for gTLD registration data. That forced registrars and resellers to revisit tooling, access patterns, and data consistency. We treated RDAP as partner experience: stability first, documentation you can actually build from, and integrations that don’t require a platform rewrite.  

Highlight #2: Trust moved from principle to process. The DNS Abuse Amendments (effective 5 April 2024) set a clearer contractual baseline, and 2025 was when the industry truly ran it at scale. The focus for us is precision: act fast when there’s clear harm, stay transparent with partners, and design guardrails that avoid punishing legitimate customers.  

Simone Catania

Highlight #3: NIS2 turned into day-to-day operations. In Europe, NIS2’s pushed registration data quality being a policy conversation and becoming a resilience control with verification discipline and structured access processes now part of the cost of doing business. Security and compliance are built-in capabilities now.

Highlight #4: Domains became real-world asset on the blockchain. Through our work with D3 and the Doma Protocol, the idea of DNS-aware tokenization moved from theory into roadmap, framing domains as interoperable “domain-as-asset” infrastructure. We launched 2to3.xyz to make the practical implications clear for registrars, resellers, and investors.  

Highlight #5: And to cap it off, we brought the community together at the InterNetX Domain Summit in Frankfurt (June 25–26) — including recording a live “Inside IONOS” episode with domain experts across disciplines, the perfect format for a year defined by big structural shifts.

To help the industry navigate this change in 2026, we’re publishing the Global Domain Report 2026 at InterNetX together with Sedo. The report gives domain experts a clear overview of the most important trends and insights across both the primary market and the aftermarket. It’s a project we produce for the industry—bringing together knowledge and data on domain registration, security, technology developments, and domain sales—so you can make better decisions and run a successful domain business in 2026!

Todd Han

Domains are global, but domain checkout has historically been constrained by local banking rails and regional payment friction. In 2025, we expanded crypto settlement in a way that actually changes outcomes in practice: true wallet-to-wallet Bitcoin and USDC payments, with wallet-to-wallet payouts as well. This reduces failed payments, speeds up cross-border transactions, and makes buying domains feel as modern and borderless as the assets themselves.

On pricing, we doubled down on efficiency and fairness. We offered payment discounts up to 3% for customers paying via crypto and direct debit, and we made our best SuperBulk pricing available to all customers, not just high-volume accounts. 

Looking ahead to 2026, we plan to keep improving our AI-powered appraisal tool, which remains free for anyone to use. Appraisal will always be more art than science, but a strong model can still be a valuable data point—helping investors and end users calibrate price, compare options, and make more confident decisions.

We also focused on making domain transactions feel global in practice, not just in theory. We’ve added a payment link to every domain inside the Dynadot control panel—so a seller can send one simple link to a buyer, and the buyer can complete the purchase using 15 supported currencies and over 20 payment types, including crypto, Alipay, credit card, Payoneer, and PayPal. This improves close rates and makes cross-border deals dramatically easier.

And we’ll continue investing in NameClub as a next-generation aftermarket experience—built around better discovery, higher conversion, and better outcomes for both buyers and sellers.