.icu Domain Search
Search available .icu domains.
Country
Luxembourg
Pricing
$1-20/yr
Registrations
560k
Launched
2018
.icu by the numbers
About 39k new .icu domains are registered every month, which is 0.5% of every domain registered across all extensions, level with the same months of 2025. A .icu name registered this year averages 10 characters, 34.5% contain a hyphen and 38% contain a digit. 100% of them are registered for a single year. Zhengzhou Century Connect Electronic Technology Development registers 31% of new .icu domains, and the five largest registrars take 62.5% between them. About 120k .icu domains come up for renewal in July 2027, the busiest month ahead.
39k
New registrations a month
Average across 2026
flat
Versus the same months in 2025
0.5%
Of all new domains registered
Across every extension
July 2027
Busiest renewal month ahead
About 120k come up
Show the monthly figures
| Month | New .icu registrations |
|---|---|
| January 2025 | About 39k |
| February 2025 | About 35k |
| March 2025 | About 33k |
| April 2025 | About 43k |
| May 2025 | About 37k |
| June 2025 | About 46k |
| July 2025 | About 42k |
| August 2025 | About 45k |
| September 2025 | About 45k |
| October 2025 | About 46k |
| November 2025 | About 38k |
| December 2025 | About 32k |
| January 2026 | About 17k |
| February 2026 | About 21k |
| March 2026 | About 26k |
| April 2026 | About 25k |
| May 2026 | About 30k |
| June 2026 | About 69k |
| July 2026 | About 87k |
What a new .icu name looks like
The typical .icu registered this year is 10 characters long.
How long people register for
Where they get registered
The five largest registrars take 62.5% of new .icu registrations between them.
What happens to them
Measured across 2025.
Estimates rounded from our own WHOIS observations. Last measured September 2026.
Why choose .icu?
Three letters that read as a phrase rather than an abbreviation.
Among the cheapest extensions available anywhere.
Very wide availability, including short and common words.
No restrictions of any kind on who may register.
Run by a registry that specialises in short strings.
Supports DNSSEC through most registrars for added DNS integrity protection.
History
.icu was delegated in 2015 and became ShortDot's first launched extension in 2018, read as "I see you". It grew faster than almost any new extension before or since, at one point passing five million registrations, and then lost most of them just as quickly when promotional cohorts came up for renewal. It remains the clearest illustration in the industry of what dollar pricing does to an extension's numbers in both directions.
Timeline
Usage and applications
.icu reads as "I see you" and is marketed for personal sites, portfolios and anything visual. The registration data is the most extreme we measure in one respect: 38% of new .icu names carry a digit and 34.5% carry a hyphen, the highest hyphen share of any extension in our records by a wide margin. Both signals together mean a large share of what is registered is machine-generated. The extension's history of adding and then losing millions of names is worth knowing before you build on it.
First registered .icu domain
nic.icu
2015
The oldest .icu registration in our WHOIS records, dated 17 February 2015, a registry operational name created at delegation, three years before the public launch.
Registration
Requirements
Open to anyone worldwide with no restrictions
Registry
ShortDot SA, based in Luxembourg
Key milestones
What does .icu stand for?
"I see you". It is read as a phrase rather than an acronym, which is unusual for a three-letter extension and part of why it caught on so quickly.
Why did .icu lose so many domains?
Because most of them were registered on dollar promotions and never renewed. The extension climbed past five million names and then gave most of them back when those cohorts hit their first renewal at full price. It is the clearest case study of promotional pricing in the industry.
Why do so many .icu names have hyphens?
34.5% of new .icu names carry a hyphen in our records, the highest share of any extension we measure, and 38% carry a digit. Together those are the fingerprints of names generated in bulk rather than chosen by a person.
Who runs .icu?
ShortDot SA, a Luxembourg registry founded in 2017. .icu was its first launched extension, and it also operates .sbs, .cfd, .cyou and .bond.
Is .icu safe to build a business on?
The extension is stable as infrastructure. It is not going anywhere. The concern is reputation rather than reliability: with this much bulk registration, links and email from .icu attract more filtering scrutiny than they would elsewhere.
Why is .icu so cheap?
Promotional first-year pricing is the entire growth strategy for extensions of this type. Renewal costs considerably more, which is exactly why the registration numbers rose and fell so sharply.
What was the first .icu domain?
The oldest in our WHOIS records is nic.icu, dated 17 February 2015, a registry operational name created at delegation, three years before the extension opened to the public.
Can anyone register a .icu domain?
Yes. There are no residency, nationality or business requirements.
Is .icu good for a portfolio site?
That is the marketed use and the phrase suits it. Weigh it against the extension's reputation, for a portfolio meant to win professional work, a cleaner extension may do less arguing on your behalf.
How long do people register .icu for?
Every new .icu registration in our records was taken for a single year. Given the extension's renewal history, that is a meaningful pattern rather than a detail.