Verisign is raising the price of .net. In a securities filing dated August 27, the company announced “an increase to the registry-level wholesale price for new and renewal .net domain names from $10.91 to $12.00, effective March 1, 2027,” per its agreement with ICANN. The step works out to just under 10 percent, and it will reach every registrar, reseller and hosting bundle that carries a .net name.
Key facts
- Change: .net wholesale from $10.91 to $12.00, new registrations and renewals alike.
- Effective: March 1, 2027, about six months after the announcement.
- Basis: the .net registry agreement allows Verisign a price increase of up to 10 percent a year, as Domain Incite notes; this one uses 9.99 percent.
- Scale: 12.5 million .net registrations per the DNIB Quarterly Report for Q2 2026; 11.6 million resolving names by our own zone tracking.
- Last increase: February 2024, per Domain Incite.
A Contractual Step, and Six Months to Reprice
The 8-K itself is a single line, signed by Verisign’s general counsel, with no accompanying commentary. None is really needed: under its .net registry agreement with ICANN, Verisign may raise the wholesale fee by up to 10 percent per year, as Domain Incite notes in its report, and this rise comes to 9.99 percent, nearly all of that headroom. Domain Incite also records the timing context: this will be the first .net increase to take effect since February 2024.
The six-month runway to March 1, 2027 is the operationally relevant part for the channel. Registrars and hosting resellers have two full billing quarters to reprice .net plans, update bundle margins and decide how much of the $1.09 per name per year to pass through. Registrants typically can renew multi-year at current pricing before an increase takes effect, subject to their registrar’s terms.
For hosting providers the increase lands in familiar places: plans that bundle a free first-year domain absorb the new wholesale directly, renewal price lists need a March 2027 line, and multi-brand resellers have to decide whether to move all TLD tiers at once or let .net drift upward alone. None of that is dramatic at $1.09 per name; all of it is bookkeeping that six months of notice makes comfortable.
An Extra $1.09 Across Twelve Million Names
.net remains the fourth-largest TLD in the world, with 12.5 million registrations as of June 30 per the DNIB Quarterly Report for Q2 2026, and one of the stickiest: the same report estimates its recent quarterly renewal rate at 78.7 percent, the highest among the top ten gTLDs. By our own zone tracking, 11.6 million .net names resolve, making it the third-largest extension we observe. Across a base that size, the new price is worth up to roughly 13.6 million dollars a year in additional registry revenue if the base holds, by our arithmetic.
| # | TLD | Registrations, Q2 2026 | Renewal estimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | .com | 166.6M | 74.9% |
| 2 | .cn | 20.9M | – |
| 3 | .de | 18.0M | – |
| 4 | .net | 12.5M | 78.7% |
| 5 | .org | 12.0M | 77.1% |
Renewal estimates are DNIB’s; the report does not publish them for the ccTLDs .cn and .de. Source: The DNIB Quarterly Report Q2 2026.
Domain Incite’s observation about the base is the other half of the picture: .net’s zone count does not tend to fluctuate much despite regular price increases. High renewal rates and a stable base are what make a contractual price step valuable to a registry, and why most registrants will meet the change only when a renewal comes due.
About the Data
The price change comes from Verisign’s Form 8-K of August 27, 2026, read in full. Registration and renewal figures come from the DNIB Quarterly Report for Q2 2026; resolving-name counts come from our Market Insights zone tracking, monthly snapshot of July 24, 2026. The 10 percent contractual cap and the February 2024 timing of the previous increase are reported by Domain Incite. The revenue arithmetic is ours: $1.09 across 12.5 million names.
