ICANN has published its annual report reviewing the development and impact of internationalized generic top-level domains (gTLDs). As of June 2025, there were 1,440 gTLDs in the DNS root zone, of which 151 are delegated as IDNs – 61 country-code domains and 90 generic domains.
Chinese script accounts for 49% of all IDN registrations, making it the most widely used. The Latin script, supporting languages with diacritics and additional characters (such as é in French, ñ in Spanish, or ß in German), follows at 28%. In total, IDNs represent 37 languages across 23 scripts.
As of June 2025, there were 1.396 million second-level IDN registrations across all gTLDs, a 4.84% decline from the 2024 figure of 1.467 million. If fact, from the table provided, we can conclude with regret that IDN registrations have been slowly but steadily decreasing since December 2017. To counter this trend, ICANN is taking active measures. For instance, Version 6 of the Root Zone Label Generation Rules has been finalized, expanding supported scripts to 27. The draft is now open for public comment.
Additionally, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) and the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) have prepared draft policies to advance internationalized domains, both of which have been submitted to the ICANN Board for review.
The report also reaffirms the critical importance of Universal Acceptance (UA), ensuring that all domain names and email addresses – regardless of length, language, or script – are properly accepted, processed, and displayed by online systems. Universal Acceptance remains one of ICANN’s key strategic priorities, and the organization continues collaborating with the global internet community to promote and raise awareness of its significance.
