.vip Domain Search

Search available .vip domains.

Country

United States

Pricing

$4-25/yr

Registrations

1.9-3M

Launched

2016

.vip by the numbers

About 110k new .vip domains are registered every month, which is 1.5% of every domain registered across all extensions, up 50% on the same months of 2025. A .vip name registered this year averages 8 characters, 6% contain a hyphen and 72% contain a digit. 99% of them are registered for a single year. Dynadot registers 41.5% of new .vip domains, and the five largest registrars take 88% between them. About 150k .vip domains come up for renewal in May 2027, the busiest month ahead.

110k

New registrations a month

Average across 2026

up 50%

Versus the same months in 2025

1.5%

Of all new domains registered

Across every extension

May 2027

Busiest renewal month ahead

About 150k come up

New .vip registrations by month
Show the monthly figures
New .vip registrations by month, January 2025 onwards
MonthNew .vip registrations
January 2025About 80k
February 2025About 53k
March 2025About 67k
April 2025About 85k
May 2025About 72k
June 2025About 92k
July 2025About 65k
August 2025About 87k
September 2025About 88k
October 2025About 79k
November 2025About 100k
December 2025About 130k
January 2026About 84k
February 2026About 58k
March 2026About 100k
April 2026About 130k
May 2026About 140k
June 2026About 130k
July 2026About 120k

What a new .vip name looks like

The typical .vip registered this year is 8 characters long.

Contains a hyphen6%
Contains a digit72%
Four characters or fewer2.5%

How long people register for

One year99%
Two years0.4%
Three years or more0.5%

Where they get registered

Dynadot41.5%
GoDaddy26.5%
Gname.com12.5%

The five largest registrars take 88% of new .vip registrations between them.

What happens to them

Parked or listed for sale0.4%
Using Cloudflare DNS24%
Suspended by the registrar0.1%

Measured across 2025.

Estimates rounded from our own WHOIS observations. Last measured September 2026.

Why choose .vip?

Three letters that read as exclusivity in most languages without translation.

A natural home for loyalty tiers and member-only areas, kept separate from the main site.

Short, so the full address stays compact.

Very widely adopted in China, which matters for any brand selling into that market.

Strong availability for short names, including many under five characters.

Supports DNSSEC through most registrars for added DNS integrity protection.

History

.vip launched in May 2016 with one of the fastest openings any new extension has had, more than 200,000 registrations in its first week and $5.5 million in wholesale sales inside three weeks, the large majority from China. Minds + Machines ran it until 2021, when GoDaddy Registry bought the company's portfolio of thirty extensions for $120 million.

Timeline

May 2016
General availability opens on 17 May and passes 200,000 registrations within a week.
Jun 2016
Minds + Machines reports $5.5 million in wholesale .vip sales in the first three weeks.
Apr 2021
GoDaddy Registry agrees to acquire the Minds + Machines portfolio, including .vip, for $120 million.
Jul 2021
The transfer of the Minds + Machines extensions to GoDaddy Registry completes.
2026
Registrations run in the low millions, still weighted heavily towards China.

Usage and applications

.vip is used for membership tiers, loyalty programmes, fan clubs, member-only portals and anything a brand wants to frame as exclusive. The great majority of registrations come from China, where the three letters carry particular weight in consumer marketing. Our WHOIS observations show a clear pattern in the names themselves: around seven in ten new .vip domains contain a digit and the average name is only eight characters, which is characteristic of numeric branding conventions common in the Chinese market rather than of English-language naming.

Registration

Registration period1 to 10 years
Renewal period1 to 10 years
Transfer lock60 days
WHOIS privacyAvailable through most registrars

Requirements

Open to anyone worldwide with no restrictions

Registry

GoDaddy Registry (acquired from Minds + Machines Group in 2021)

Key milestones

2016-05-17
Minds + Machines Group
General availability opens; 203,720 registrations within five days.
2016-06
Minds + Machines Group
$5.5 million in wholesale .vip sales reported after three weeks.
2021-04
GoDaddy Registry
Agreement to acquire the Minds + Machines portfolio of thirty extensions for $120 million.
2021-07
GoDaddy Registry
Completion of the transfer, bringing .vip under GoDaddy Registry.

What is a .vip domain actually used for?

Most often a membership tier or loyalty programme, a separate address for the member-only part of a business, kept distinct from the main site. It is also used for fan clubs and personal brands where exclusivity is the pitch.

Why are so many .vip domains registered in China?

The three letters carry particular marketing weight in Chinese consumer branding, and the extension was promoted heavily there from launch. It took more than 200,000 registrations in its first week in 2016, the large majority from Chinese registrants, and the concentration has persisted.

Why do most new .vip names contain numbers?

Around seven in ten do, by our records, and the average name is only eight characters. Numeric names are a normal branding convention in the Chinese market rather than a sign of anything wrong, but it does mean the extension looks very different from a Western-facing one like .app.

Did every .vip domain really get registered on the same day?

Not every one, but the pattern is striking in the data: a large cluster of the oldest surviving .vip domains all carry a creation date of 17 May 2016, which is the day general availability opened. That is what a heavily anticipated launch looks like in the registration record.

Who operates .vip now?

GoDaddy Registry. Minds + Machines launched and ran the extension from 2016 until GoDaddy acquired its thirty-extension portfolio for $120 million in 2021.

Is .vip a good fit for a luxury brand?

It depends on the register you want. .vip is explicit rather than understated, so it works for a loyalty tier or a members' area and reads as loud for a house that trades on restraint.

How much does a .vip domain cost to renew?

Renewal is close to the registration price on .vip, unlike extensions that discount the first year to a dollar. That makes the long-run cost easier to predict.

Can anyone register a .vip domain?

Yes. There are no residency, nationality or membership requirements despite what the name suggests, and no documentation to file.

Should I register .vip defensively?

Worth considering if you run a membership or loyalty programme and a lookalike site would cause real confusion among your customers. Otherwise it is low on the list of defensive registrations.

Does .vip affect search rankings?

No. Extensions carry no ranking weight of their own. What matters is whether the audience you are selling to reads those three letters as a promise or as a red flag.