Domain Name Statistics: Registrations, Deletions & Drops
How many domains exist, how many are deleted every day, and how many get renewed. Every industry figure links to its primary source and states its reporting period.
Sources: Verisign DNIB Q1 2026 and ICANN March 2026 registry reports; last reviewed July 2026.
How many domains drop every day?
About 84,000 .com domains are deleted every day, and about 95,000 per day across .com, .net, and .org combined, based on the March 2026 ICANN registry transaction reports. These reports count registrar delete transactions: the event that sends an expired name into redemption and pending delete. A small share is restored during redemption (9,439 .com restores the same month, about 0.4% of deletions); the rest drop and reopen for registration roughly five weeks later. In steady state, names deleted per day and names dropping per day are the same stream.
The arithmetic: 2,611,653 .com deletions reported for March 2026 (deleted-domains-nograce, summed across all registrars) divided by 31 days = 84,247 per day on average.
Across the three largest legacy gTLDs: 2,611,653 (.com) + 171,764 (.net) + 155,788 (.org) = 2,939,205 deletions in March 2026, divided by 31 days = 94,813 per day on average. The .net and .org report CSVs are linked from the deletions table.
| TLD | Deleted in March 2026 | Average per day | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 2,611,653 | 84,247 | ICANN report (CSV) |
| .net | 171,764 | 5,541 | ICANN report (CSV) |
| .org | 155,788 | 5,025 | ICANN report (CSV) |
When do those deleted domains actually become available?
Deletion volume tells you how many names come back to the pool; the lifecycle tells you when. Each TLD publishes its own grace, redemption, and pending delete windows, so the same expiration date leads to very different drop dates by extension. The durations below are the registry-documented windows behind shadom.co's drop-date predictions; each TLD page details its model:
| TLD | Registry | Days from expiry to drop |
|---|---|---|
| .nl | SIDN | 40d |
| .gg | Island Networks Ltd | 64d |
| .co | .CO Internet S.A.S | 65d |
| .dev | Google Registry | 65d |
| .app | Google Registry | 65d |
| .page | Google Registry | 65d |
| .de | DENIC | 65d |
| .fr | AFNIC | 65d |
| .me | doMEn d.o.o. | 77d |
| .com | Verisign | 80d |
| .net | Verisign | 80d |
| .org | Public Interest Registry (PIR) | 80d |
| .info | Identity Digital (formerly Afilias) | 80d |
| .biz | GoDaddy Registry (formerly Neustar) | 80d |
| .ai | Identity Digital | 90d |
| .uk | Nominet | 95d |
| .io | Internet Computer Bureau | 125d |
Full breakdown per TLD: TLD drop schedules. To estimate a specific domain's drop date, use the free expiration checker.
Methodology
Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB): the quarterly industry reference for registration base sizes, growth, and renewal rates. Base and renewal figures on this page come from the Q1 2026 report (published April 23, 2026). The 76.3% renewal rate is labeled preliminary by DNIB and is finalized the following quarter.
ICANN monthly registry transaction reports: per-registrar CSVs published for every gTLD with roughly a three-month lag; March 2026 is the newest month available as of this review. Deletion figures use the deleted-domains-nograce field summed across all registrars (deletions outside the 5-day add-grace period, which excludes refunded brand-new registrations). We verified each sum against the Totals row in the source CSV. Deletion counts are the closest primary-source measure of how many domains complete the expiration lifecycle and drop.
What we deliberately do not mix: DNIB's domain base counts differ slightly from the total-domains column in ICANN transaction reports because the latter includes names sitting in deletion states. Base sizes on this page come only from DNIB; deletion volumes only from ICANN.
This page is reviewed when new source data is published (DNIB quarterly, ICANN monthly). Figures state their own reporting period; last reviewed July 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How many domain names are there in 2026?
There were 392.5 million registered domain names across all TLDs at the end of Q1 2026 (March 31, 2026), per the Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief. That includes 163.6 million .com registrations, 146.3 million ccTLD registrations, and 49.6 million new-gTLD registrations.
How many domains are deleted or drop every day?
About 84,000 .com domains are deleted per day on average, based on the 2,611,653 delete transactions in the March 2026 ICANN registry transaction report divided by 31 days. Across .com, .net, and .org together the average is about 95,000 per day. These counts record the registrar delete transaction that sends an expired name into redemption; unless the owner restores it during that window (about 0.4% of .com deletions that month), the name clears pending delete and drops roughly five weeks later.
What percentage of domains get renewed?
The preliminary combined renewal percentage for .com and .net was 76.3% in Q1 2026, per the Verisign DNIB. Put the other way, roughly one registration in four is not renewed, which is what feeds the daily stream of expired and dropping domains.
Where do these numbers come from?
Two primary sources only: the Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief (quarterly, for registration base and renewal figures) and ICANN monthly registry transaction reports (per-registrar CSVs, for deletion volumes). Every industry figure links to its source and states its reporting period, and derived figures show their arithmetic. Per-TLD lifecycle durations are the registry-documented windows detailed on each TLD page. No estimates from blogs or third-party trackers are used.
Watch the domains you care about
Roughly one registration in four is not renewed. If one of those is a name you want, shadom.co tracks its status and predicts its drop date, free for up to 100 domains.