Today Chris Niemi from Markmonitor is doing us the courtesy of sharing advices about planning for a DotBrand Application. We thank him for being a member of Le Cercle des .marque, the community that shares experiences, informations and advices about DotBrands.
Chris Niemi is the Manager, Strategic Initiatives, at Markmonitor, a leading corporate registrar. He has been working with customers on ICANN’s New gTLD Program since 2011, delivering services to them and providing support for their dotBrand gTLDs. He is a thought leader on Markmonitor’s Global Industry Relations team and in this guest post he will provide information about timelines to consider regarding the Next Round.
DotBrand Countdown – Application and Launch
The ICANN New gTLD Program: Next Round is moving towards its goal of opening an application window in the second quarter of 2026.
With that said, let’s talk about some time periods and what they mean to you as a possible dotBrand applicant.
DotBrand Timeline: 10 Months Before Application Window Opens
Current estimates are that the application window will open as early as late April of 2026. That is approximately ten months from now. Ten months in the corporate world can be very short, and with budget cycles and fiscal years varying widely from company to company, getting the following in order in that time is key:
Financial Preparation
The $227,500 application fee will need to be submitted as part of the application process during the application window (see below). Talk to your finance group and confirm that all of your prerequisite process steps are completed such that the funds will be available in the application window. For instance, if your fiscal year ends in August of this year, you will want to get going with this process as soon as possible considering the popularity of August as a ‘going on holiday’ month in France.
Stakeholder Planning for Application and Utilization
Working together across functional groups in your organization is paramount as a number of strategic decisions can be made early on, such as:
- Which company name will be the official applicant and owner of the dotBrand gTLD?
- What functional group will own the project internally?
- How do we imagine using our dotBrand when it is first awarded and in the future?
- Will we charge our internal users to register their dotBrand domains?
This planning can take some time, but it will be your North Star during the entire process, so we advise starting now.
Vendor Selection
As running a gTLD requires a number of parties to be coordinated together into a single, sizeable effort, picking vendors is vital. Price, service levels, experience in the space, and other factors can play in this decision-making process. Of course you will want to work with well-established and high-quality partners that ensure high levels of service and support and get the right service package set up to meet your needs as a registry operator, and — a theme is developing — starting soon is important.
Information Gathering
As we approach the application window, the required information and supporting materials (documents, etc.) will need to be gathered.
The application questions are currently in draft form (see the draft in PDF) and will be codified in the final Applicant Guidebook (AGB) [see the full draft posted here] which should be adopted by the ICANN Board in December of this year. Do not hesitate to request your preferred partners to guide you through the information gathering process and compiling and writing a draft application.
All of these activities bring us to the next relevant time period:
DotBrand Timeline: 12 Weeks of Application Window
The application window, expected to open in late April of next year, is a minimum of 12 weeks in duration (roughly 3 months). It could go as long as 15 weeks.
In this window, a final application will need to be submitted, and the application fee paid.
This window will be in the spring and summer months (either April-July or April-August) of the northern hemisphere so consider carefully when you plan to take your holiday next year so as to not miss any deadlines.
While this is the first important milepost, there is still some road to go on the race to a gTLD, which gets us to:
DotBrand Launch Timeline: 2 Years Post-Application
After application comes a number of steps such as pre-evaluation processes,
- community input – in case of multiple applications for a same string, dispute resolution, string evaluation, contention set creation and resolution (including auctions) –
- followed by applicant evaluation,
- application evaluation,
- and contracting with ICANN (see the guide in PDF).
Depending on the number of applications submitted (anywhere from 500 to 3,500) the estimated lifecycle duration of these processes is a minimum of 13-18.5 months. Include additional steps like handling objections, undergoing Community Priority Evaluation, and/or taking part in auctions, and those could add 3-6 months more to this total. Putting those two timeframes together gives us a range of 16-24 months, or up to two years followed by the time it takes to complete delegation and launch.
DotBrand Timeline: 10 months + 12(up to 15) weeks + 2 years
The current timeline as we know it:
- 2025 December – The final Applicant Guidebook is published.
- 2026 April – The application window opens.
- 2026 August – The application window likely closes.
- 2027 – 2028 TBD – Your gTLD is likely launched.

dotBrand Timeline
Prepare – Now – February 2026 – Define budgets, explore use cases, lock in services – Applicant Guidebook finalized by December 2025
Build – March – April 2026 – Detail responses and gather required materials – Align stakeholders to ensure every aspect is accurate and fully supported
Submit – Q2 – Q3, 2026 – Submit application within the 12–15-week window – Ensure timely, thorough submission to maximize likelihood of approval
Launch – 2027 – 2028 – Complete testing and delegation – Navigate final launch steps, providing additional documentation if needed
Image generated by MarkMonitor
All these timeframes are important but boil down to the following:
- Start now (the clock is ticking).
- Do the pre-work (financial preparation and stakeholder planning).
- Pick the right partners (knowledgeable providers are available to help you in this effort).
- Stick with it (it’s a long effort but worth it)!
Reach out to the experts of Le Cercle des .marque for any question !