.org Domain Search
Search available .org domains.
Country
United States
Pricing
$7-20/yr
Registrations
12M+
Launched
1985
.org by the numbers
About 230k new .org domains are registered every month, which is 3% of every domain registered across all extensions, up 15% on the same months of 2025. A .org name registered this year averages 12.5 characters, 9.5% contain a hyphen and 12.5% contain a digit. 92% of them are registered for a single year. Namecheap registers 17.5% of new .org domains, and the five largest registrars take 54% between them. About 800k .org domains come up for renewal in May 2027, the busiest month ahead.
230k
New registrations a month
Average across 2026
up 15%
Versus the same months in 2025
3%
Of all new domains registered
Across every extension
May 2027
Busiest renewal month ahead
About 800k come up
Show the monthly figures
| Month | New .org registrations |
|---|---|
| January 2025 | About 200k |
| February 2025 | About 170k |
| March 2025 | About 210k |
| April 2025 | About 210k |
| May 2025 | About 210k |
| June 2025 | About 190k |
| July 2025 | About 190k |
| August 2025 | About 200k |
| September 2025 | About 200k |
| October 2025 | About 210k |
| November 2025 | About 200k |
| December 2025 | About 150k |
| January 2026 | About 180k |
| February 2026 | About 210k |
| March 2026 | About 230k |
| April 2026 | About 260k |
| May 2026 | About 270k |
| June 2026 | About 240k |
| July 2026 | About 240k |
What a new .org name looks like
The typical .org registered this year is 12.5 characters long.
How long people register for
Where they get registered
The five largest registrars take 54% of new .org registrations between them.
What happens to them
Measured across 2025.
Estimates rounded from our own WHOIS observations. Last measured September 2026.
Why choose .org?
Carries four decades of association with non-profits, institutions and public-interest work.
Run by a non-profit registry rather than a commercial one, with stable long-term pricing.
Immediately recognised worldwide, with none of the explaining a newer extension needs.
Strong availability for multi-word and descriptive names compared with .com.
The conventional defensive registration for anyone already holding the matching .com.
Supports DNSSEC through most registrars for added DNS integrity protection.
History
.org is one of the six original top-level domains defined in RFC 920 in 1985, created as the catch-all for organisations that fit none of the other categories. MITRE registered the first one that July. VeriSign ran it until 2003, when the Internet Society's newly formed Public Interest Registry took over. A proposed $1.135 billion sale of that registry to a private equity firm in 2019 was abandoned after ICANN declined to approve it, the closest the extension has come to changing hands.
Timeline
Usage and applications
.org is the default for non-profits, charities, foundations, open-source projects, standards bodies and public institutions. Wikipedia, the Internet Archive and Mozilla all run on it. Nothing restricts it to that use, and plenty of commercial sites and personal projects register .org, but the association is strong enough that visitors read it as a signal about the kind of organisation behind the site. It is also the most common defensive registration alongside .net for anyone who owns the matching .com.
Popular .org domains
wikipedia.org
The free encyclopedia, and one of the most visited sites on the internet.
archive.org
The Internet Archive's library of web pages, books, audio and film.
mozilla.org
The non-profit behind the Firefox browser.
craigslist.org
The classified-advertisements service, on .org since its earliest days.
khanacademy.org
Free courses and practice exercises for students worldwide.
redcross.org
The American Red Cross.
First registered .org domain
mitre.org
1985
Registered by the MITRE Corporation on 10 July 1985, the first .org domain ever created, and still running today.
Registration
Requirements
Open to anyone worldwide. The non-profit association is a convention, not a rule the registry enforces
Registry
Public Interest Registry (PIR), a non-profit subsidiary of the Internet Society
Key milestones
Do I have to be a non-profit to register a .org domain?
No. Anyone anywhere can register a .org, and the registry does not ask what you intend to do with it. The non-profit association is a forty-year convention rather than a rule, though it is strong enough that visitors will read it as one.
Why did the attempted sale of the .org registry cause such an outcry?
Public Interest Registry is a non-profit, and .org is where most of the world's charities and public institutions live. A sale to a private equity firm in 2019 raised the prospect of price rises and policy changes on a namespace many organisations cannot easily leave. ICANN declined to approve the transfer and the deal was abandoned in April 2020.
Is .org better than .com for a charity?
For a charity it usually reads better, because the extension itself signals the kind of organisation you are before anyone reads a word of the page. Most established charities register both and point one at the other.
Does a .org domain rank differently in search results?
No. Search engines do not weight extensions, so a .org ranks on the same signals as any other domain. What changes is click-through: people expect an institution rather than a shop.
Why is .org more expensive than the cheapest new extensions?
There are no loss-leading first-year promotions on .org the way there are on newer extensions. Registry pricing is stable and modest, which means the first year costs roughly what every year after it costs, an advantage over a $1 name that renews at $40.
How much do .org domains sell for on the aftermarket?
Far less than .com, with a low ceiling. The record is poker.org at $1 million in 2010, and the second largest public sale is blackjack.org at $298,000 in 2007. Most .org names change hands for three or four figures.
What was the first .org domain?
mitre.org, registered by the MITRE Corporation on 10 July 1985. It is one of a handful of registrations from that year still in active use.
Is .org safer from abuse than other extensions?
Our own WHOIS observations put the share of suspended .org domains among the lowest of any large extension, well below .com and .net. Cheap extensions attract bulk registration in a way .org does not.
Should I register .org defensively if I own the .com?
It is the most common second registration for exactly that reason. A .org that matches your .com costs little and stops someone else from putting a confusingly similar site next to your brand.
Can a .org domain be taken away if I stop being a non-profit?
No. There is no eligibility test to pass at registration and none to fail afterwards, so nothing about your legal status affects your right to keep renewing the name.