.ai Domain Statistics 2026: How Many .ai Domains Are Registered, Prices and Sales Data
The numbers behind the most contested extension in tech, pulled from registry reporting, Verisign's industry data, and our own live inventory. Nothing here is estimated for effect.
Search available .ai domains
Returns only names that are available right now, each with its asking price.
Short answer
More than one million .ai domains were registered as of 2 January 2026, up from roughly 107,000 in 2020. The registry charges $80 per year with a hard two-year minimum term, so $160 is the floor at every renewal, up from $140 before 5 March 2026. .ai is the country code extension for Anguilla, and registration fees have grown into a large share of that territory's public revenue. On the aftermarket, three and four letter .ai names trade in the five and six figures while ordinary compound names sit in the four figures.
Last updated July 2026. Sources are named next to each figure below.
The .ai Numbers That Matter in 2026
If you only read one table, read this one. Each row has a date attached, because domain figures go stale quickly and a number without a date is not a fact.
| Metric | Figure | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| .ai domains registered | More than 1,000,000 | 2 January 2026 | Anguilla registry reporting |
| .ai registry price | $80 per year, two-year minimum ($160) | Effective 5 March 2026 | Registry price change, up from $70 |
| .com registry price | $10.26 per year, rising to $10.97 | Increase effective 1 November 2026 | Verisign announcement, April 2026 |
| Total domains, all extensions | 392.5 million | 31 March 2026 | Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief |
| .com registrations | 163.6 million | 31 March 2026 | Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief |
| .ai share of all domains | About 0.26 percent | 2026 | Calculated from the two rows above |
That last line is the one people find surprising. For all the noise, .ai is roughly a quarter of one percent of the registered domain universe. Scarcity is the whole story with this extension.
How Many .ai Domains Are Registered, Year by Year
The shape of this curve explains current prices better than any argument about AI hype. Registrations were flat for a decade, then went vertical after ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022.
| Year | .ai domains registered | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | About 107,000 | Baseline |
| 2022 | About 148,000 | Steady growth, pre-ChatGPT |
| 2023 | About 359,000 | Up roughly 142 percent in one year |
| 2025 | About 800,000 | More than double 2023 |
| 2 January 2026 | More than 1,000,000 | Roughly ten times the 2020 count |
A note on precision: published counts for 2023 vary between about 354,000 and 359,000 depending on the source and the exact measurement date. The trend is not in dispute, but treat any single year's figure as approximate.
.ai Domain Prices: The Two Costs People Confuse
Almost every argument about .ai being expensive collapses once you separate the recurring registry fee from the one-time aftermarket price. They are different orders of magnitude and they move for different reasons.
1. The recurring registry fee
The .ai registry raised its wholesale price from $70 to $80 per year effective 5 March 2026, a 14 percent increase. The detail that catches people out is the term: .ai has a hard two-year minimum at registration, at renewal, and at transfer. There is no one-year option anywhere in the lifecycle.
So the real floor is $160 every two years at wholesale, up from $140 before the increase, plus whatever margin your registrar adds. Budget for it as a two-year commitment, because that is what it is.
2. The one-time aftermarket price
This is where the money actually goes. With just over a million .ai domains in existence and every short or obvious name long gone, buying a good one means buying it from whoever registered it first. Three and four letter .ai names sell in the five and six figures. Single dictionary words run high five figures and up.
Two-word compounds are the part of the market most companies can actually afford, and they generally sit in the four figures.
For context on the recurring side: .com's registry fee is $10.26 per year and rises to $10.97 on 1 November 2026, announced by Verisign in April 2026. That makes .ai roughly eight times more expensive to hold, per year, than .com. For a single company domain the absolute difference is small. For anyone holding a portfolio, it compounds fast, and it is the main reason speculative .ai registration slowed while aftermarket prices did not.
Where the Money Goes: .ai and Anguilla
.ai is the country code top-level domain for Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the eastern Caribbean with a population of roughly 16,000. Unlike many country codes it has no local presence requirement, so a company anywhere can register one. That accident of alphabetical assignment turned into one of the more remarkable public finance stories of the decade.
In 2023 Anguilla earned EC$87 million from .ai registrations, about $32 million, which amounted to roughly 22 percent of total government revenue that year. Reporting in January 2026, when registrations crossed the one million mark, put the more recent annual figure at more than $70 million. For a territory of that size, domain registration fees now sit alongside tourism as a primary source of public money.
This matters to buyers for one practical reason. A registry that funds a meaningful share of a government's budget has both the incentive and the political cover to keep raising prices, which is exactly what happened in March 2026. Plan renewals on the assumption that $80 per year is a floor rather than a ceiling.
What Is Actually Available: 202 .ai Names by Length
Registry totals tell you how crowded the namespace is. They do not tell you what a buyer can realistically get. This table is our own live inventory, counted the day this page was updated, and it shows the shape of the attainable market better than any industry report.
| Name length | .ai names available here | What that tells you |
|---|---|---|
| 3 characters | 0 | Fully absorbed years ago; five and six figure aftermarket only |
| 4 characters | 0 | Same story; pronounceable four-letter .ai is a trophy asset |
| 5 characters | 5 | The first length where anything is reachable |
| 6 characters | 8 | Short enough to feel premium, priced in four figures |
| 7 to 8 characters | 39 | Where most single dictionary words sit |
| 9 to 10 characters | 71 | The heart of the two-word compound market |
| 11 characters and up | 79 | Descriptive compounds; cheapest way onto .ai |
single-word .ai names in stock, the pattern that behaves most like a trademark. Browse one word .ai domains.
two-word .ai compounds, the deepest and most affordable segment. Browse two word .ai domains.
The shortest .ai names we currently hold
Questions People Ask About .ai Domain Data
Short, checkable answers to the questions that bring people to this page.
How many .ai domains are registered?
More than one million. The .ai registry passed the one million mark as of 2 January 2026. For scale, that is up from roughly 107,000 in 2020 and about 359,000 at the end of 2023, so the namespace has grown close to tenfold in six years while the number of AI companies competing for names grew faster still.
How much does a .ai domain cost per year?
The registry wholesale price is $80 per year, effective 5 March 2026, up from $70. Because .ai enforces a two-year minimum term at registration, renewal and transfer, you pay a $160 floor per cycle rather than an annual fee. Your registrar adds its own margin on top of that.
Why are .ai domains so expensive?
Two costs get conflated. The registry fee is roughly eight times .com's $10.26, which is noticeable but not dramatic. The real expense is the aftermarket, where just over a million existing names meet demand from every AI company that wants a matching address. Scarcity, not registry greed, sets the price of a good name.
Is .ai a country code domain?
Yes. .ai belongs to Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It has no local presence requirement, so any company worldwide can register and hold one. That openness is exactly why an extension assigned to a territory of about 16,000 people became the default address for AI startups.
Are there any short .ai domains left?
Not at registration price. Every three and four letter .ai combination is taken, and the ones that trade do so in the five and six figures. The shortest .ai names reachable at four-figure prices start around five characters. See short .ai domains for what is currently in stock.
Will .ai domains keep going up in price?
Nobody can promise that, and be suspicious of anyone who does. What is documented is the direction so far: registrations grew roughly tenfold in six years and the registry raised its wholesale price 14 percent in March 2026. Buy a .ai name because your product needs it, and treat any appreciation as a bonus rather than the plan.
Where to Go From Here
The full .ai and AI-branded catalog with prices on every card.
The shortest .ai names in stock, and what three and four letters really cost.
The deepest and most affordable segment of the .ai aftermarket.
Single dictionary words, the pattern closest to a defensible trademark.
Agent-word names for agentic AI products, mostly on .ai.
Spread the aftermarket price over monthly payments and launch today.
Stop Reading Numbers, Start Checking Names
Every .ai name in our inventory shows its price openly, transfers through Escrow.com, and can be paid monthly if you would rather not write one cheque.
Browse Available .ai Domains