ICANN has published its draft budget for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins on July 1, 2025 in the United States. As reported by Domain Incite, the draft budget assumes that the next year will see neither growth nor shrink of the domain market. For instance, zero growth is expected in the number of transactions (any registration operations) in the “old” gTLDs, primarily in .COM. In new generic domains, growth is predicted to be around one percent. These are average values, with analysts believing that, in the best-case scenario, the number of transactions may grow by about 9 percent, while a negative scenario suggests a decrease to 14 percent.
According to the draft budget, both ICANN’s expenses and revenues will account for about $142 million, or $3 million less than in the budget adopted for the current year. ICANN analysts expect the number of gTLD registries to drop from 1,109 to 1,092 by the end of the next fiscal year, while the number of accredited registrar companies will only grow by 3.
However, the financial indicators included in the draft budget may also be revised: they do not take into account changes in the fees for registrars and registries that were announced earlier but are yet to be given final approval. As is known, ICANN has announced its plans on increasing the per-transaction fee for registrar companies from $0.18 to $0.2. For registries, these fees will go up from $0.25 to $0.258. Additionally, the amounts of fixed payments from registries and registrars to the ICANN budget will rise as well.
Evidently, this increase will directly affect the cost of domain registration in all gTLDs. In this context, the fact that the draft budget calls the increases “equitable, contractually efficient, pragmatic, and repeatable” raises certain concerns.
