A .ai domain is a web address under .ai, the country-code top-level domain of Anguilla, a small British Overseas Territory. The Government of Anguilla manages the extension, with Identity Digital as the technical operator. Anyone in the world can register one, the minimum term is 2 years, and Google treats .ai as a generic domain rather than a country signal.
Two numbers from 2026 explain why the question matters now. The .ai namespace passed 1 million registered names in January 2026, according to the Government of Anguilla. On March 5, 2026, the wholesale price that registrars pay rose from $70 to $80 per year, as Domain Name Wire reported.
What is a .ai domain?
A .ai domain is a web address ending in .ai, the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Anguilla. The IANA root zone record for .ai lists the Government of Anguilla as the ccTLD manager and February 16, 1995 as the registration date. Identity Digital has run the technical registry since January 15, 2025, and .ai domains are available to registrants worldwide.
For most of its history, a single operator ran the .ai registry. Vincent Cate managed it until the move to Identity Digital, which announced its partnership with the government in October 2024. The migration on January 15, 2025 moved over 600,000 domains with “zero-downtime”, according to Identity Digital’s report on the first results of the partnership. The number of registrars selling .ai went from 118 before the announcement to roughly double that.
The appeal is simple. The two letters match the usual short form of artificial intelligence, so a name like example.ai tells visitors what a company does before they read a word of copy. Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory, but the domain itself carries no residency rule and no local-presence requirement.
Which country uses the .ai domain? Key facts at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Country | Anguilla (British Overseas Territory) |
| ccTLD manager | Government of Anguilla |
| Technical operator | Identity Digital, since January 15, 2025 |
| Delegated by IANA | February 16, 1995 |
| Minimum term | 2 years for registration and renewal |
| Wholesale price | $80 per year since March 5, 2026 (reported by Domain Name Wire) |
| Google treatment | Generic, like a gTLD (Google Search Central) |
| Registered names | More than 1 million (announced January 20, 2026) |
| DNSSEC | Signed (checked October 5, 2026) |
.ai domain prices in 2026
A new .ai domain registration costs $165.40 to $171.20 for the 2-year minimum term at the two mainstream registrars we checked on October 5, 2026. No term is shorter than 2 years, so the first bill is at least double the yearly price.
The registry for .ai domains publishes no price list. Domain Name Wire reported the 2026 wholesale increase: the fee rose from $70 to $80 per year on March 5, 2026, a 14% increase. At 2 years per order, the smallest possible .ai registration now costs a registrar $160 at wholesale, before its own margin. Retail prices sit just above that line.
Registrar retail prices for .ai domains
The table shows registrar retail prices in US dollars, checked October 5, 2026. Prices change often, so check the registrar’s own page before you buy.
| Registrar | Registration (per year) | Renewal (per year) | Transfer | Minimum upfront |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Porkbun | $82.70 | $82.70 | $165.09 (includes 2-year renewal) | $165.40 for 2 years |
| Dynadot | $85.60 | $85.60 | $171.20 | $171.20 for 2 years |
| Cloudflare Registrar | At cost, no markup | At cost, no markup | 2-year minimum | Shown only after login |
Cloudflare Registrar added .ai on March 27, 2025 and sells it at cost without markup. Its price is not public without an account, so we could not list it. At any of these registrars, the renewal price matters more than the first bill, because you pay it every 2 years for as long as you keep the name.
Transfers cost about as much as a new registration. A transfer of a .ai domain includes a 2-year renewal, which explains why Porkbun charges $165.09 and Dynadot $171.20 for one. You do not lose time on the domain when you move it, but you cannot move it cheaply either.
Aftermarket prices are a different market
Registered .ai domain names that someone already owns trade at whatever buyer and seller agree. DNJournal reported on February 24, 2026 that bot.ai sold for $1,200,000 in a public sale. It called this the first publicly reported seven-figure .ai sale, 60% above the $750,000 reported for wisdom.ai. Both names are rare, short words. Their prices are not typical and say nothing about what any other name will fetch.
Rules for registering a .ai domain
The .ai registry sets few rules: anyone can register, the minimum term is 2 years, and disputes go through the UDRP. The details below come from the nic.ai registry FAQ and from registrar documentation.
- Eligibility. The registry FAQ sets no eligibility conditions, and registrars such as Dynadot state that anyone worldwide can register a .ai domain. You do not need to live in Anguilla or have a local presence.
- Term. Registrations and renewals run for at least 2 years. There is no 1-year option. The registry does not publish a maximum term, although registrars say you can register for up to 10 years.
- Characters. According to Dynadot, a name can have 1–63 characters, using letters, numbers and hyphens. It cannot start or end with a hyphen, and internationalized domain names (IDNs) are not supported.
- Disputes. Trademark disputes follow the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), the same process used for .com.
- Abuse. The Government of Anguilla may suspend or cancel names used for abuse.
- Security. The .ai zone is DNSSEC-signed, with a DS record in the root zone (checked October 5, 2026).
- Transfers. You need the auth code from your current registrar, and the transfer adds a 2-year renewal.
The practical consequence is about timing and cash. Because every renewal covers 2 years, a lapsed .ai domain costs more to rescue than a lapsed .com. Turn on auto-renew, keep a valid card on file and put the expiry date in your company calendar.
Why .ai became the default address for AI companies
Registered .ai domains grew from 48,272 on July 2, 2018 to 598,007 on January 2, 2025, according to the nic.ai FAQ. The Government of Anguilla reported more than 908,000 .ai domains by October 26, 2025. On January 20, 2026, Premier Cora Richardson Hodge announced that .ai had passed 1 million registrations. That is more than 20 times the 2018 total in under 8 years.
The namespace grew because its two letters match the name of a technology boom. Google’s generic treatment helped too: a company can use .ai worldwide without signaling a link to one country, a choice our study of AI company names measures among leading AI firms.
The curve bends upward in 2023. The nic.ai counts show 143,737 names on July 20, 2022 and 248,609 on June 14, 2023. By July 1, 2024 the total had reached 478,696. Growth continued through the registry change in January 2025, and a year later the total crossed the 1 million mark. No newer official count has appeared since then.
Search demand tells the same story. Our check in Ahrefs Keywords Explorer on October 5, 2026 found 11,000 monthly searches worldwide for “.ai domain”, including 2,300 in the US. The related queries “.ai domain country” and “buy ai domain” drew 2,100 and 1,700 monthly searches. The country query suggests that many people first want to know who owns the extension.
How Google treats .ai domains
Google Search Central lists .ai among the country-code domains it treats as generic top-level domains, alongside .io and .co. The list appears in Google’s guidance on managing multi-regional sites, updated December 10, 2025. For .ai domains, this means Google does not read the extension as a sign that a site targets Anguilla. Google also says the list may change.
In practice, a .ai site can target any country in Google Search, just like a .com. The extension itself gives no ranking boost. Content, links and site quality still decide where the pages rank.
What .ai revenue means for Anguilla
The boom turned a small country-code domain into a large share of public income. Anguilla’s Ministry of Finance put 2025 .ai revenue at EC$230,499,740.50, about US$85.3 million. That compares with EC$104.25 million in 2024 and EC$86.83 million in 2023, as Anguilla Focus reported on March 25, 2026.
The Government of Anguilla’s 2026 budget estimates show EC$253.6 million from domain name registration proposed for 2026. That is about US$93.9 million at the fixed peg of EC$2.70 to the dollar. By our calculation from the 2026 budget tables, domain fees made up about 22% of recurrent revenue in 2024, 39% in 2025 (projected) and 43% in 2026 (estimate).
Buying an expired or taken .ai domain
Expired .ai domains go to registry auctions run by Identity Digital, and the first of these auctions closed on February 25, 2025. Identity Digital reported over $600,000 in auction revenue by March 27, 2025. Names that do not sell move to DropZone, a Dutch auction in which the price falls over 14 days, with bidding open for 1 hour each day. A name that someone still owns can only change hands through a sale and a registrar transfer.
The bidding itself takes place on Namecheap. Domain Name Wire reported in February 2025 that Namecheap holds daily auctions of expiring .ai names, replacing the monthly auctions previously held at Dynadot.
The renewal fee on top of an auction win
An auction price is not the full cost of an expired .ai domain. The winner also pays a renewal fee. DomainInvesting reported in September 2025 that pinwheel.ai sold in a Namecheap auction for $541. With a $185.96 renewal fee, the buyer paid $726.96 in total, and the name was still due to expire about 9 months later. Add that fee to your bid ceiling and check the new expiry date right after you win.
Buying a .ai domain that someone owns
If the name you want has an owner, the purchase follows the same steps as for any other domain.
- Check the name’s history and any trademark conflicts before you make an offer.
- Agree on the price and terms in writing.
- Pay through an escrow service, which releases the money only after the transfer completes.
- Ask the seller to remove the transfer lock and send the auth code.
- Start the transfer at your registrar and pay the transfer fee, which includes a 2-year renewal.
- Confirm the new expiry date and turn on auto-renew.
Risks to weigh before you buy
The main risks of a .ai domain are its cost over time and its dependence on the policy choices of one small territory.
Start with policy. The registry has already raised the wholesale fee once in 2026, and registrants have no say over future prices. Anguilla’s budget leans heavily on the fees. That gives the government a reason to keep the namespace stable, but it also leaves the price in the hands of one territory and its operator.
The .io precedent
The .io domain shows how politics can reach a country code. The UK and Mauritius signed an agreement on the Chagos Archipelago on May 22, 2025, which raised questions about the future of .io. ICANN’s explainer on the Chagos Archipelago and the .io domain sets out how such a change could work. The UK implementing bill lapsed when Parliament closed its session on April 29, 2026, and no replacement bill was announced. As of October 2026, the treaty is signed but not in force.
Even if .io were retired, change would come slowly. Under the ICANN ccNSO policy on retiring ccTLDs, adopted in 2022, the process starts only when a code leaves the ISO 3166-1 list. By default, the domain is removed 5 years after notice, and the ccTLD manager can extend that by up to 5 more years, to a maximum of 10. Nothing in the public record points to a similar change for .ai, and the Chagos question does not affect it.
Search and cost risks
- Google’s list can change. Google treats .ai as generic today and says the list may change. A future change would affect sites that rely on .ai for international reach.
- Renewals add up. At October 5, 2026 retail prices, 10 years of a .ai domain cost $827 at Porkbun and $856 at Dynadot, before any price increase.
- Auction extras. Expired-name buyers pay the renewal fee on top of the winning bid.
- No resale promise. Reported aftermarket sales cover a few rare names. They do not predict the value of yours.
Alternatives to a .ai domain
The main alternatives to a .ai domain fall into three groups. One is a .com, and another is a country code that Google treats as generic, such as .io or .co. The third is a short country-code domain with a clear meaning, such as .si. Each trades some of the AI signal for lower cost, a wider choice of names or a different brand story.
A .com remains the default generic choice, with no tie to any country, though short names are hard to find. The .io and .co extensions sit on Google’s generic list next to .ai. They carry their own trade-offs, and .io still has the open Chagos question.
.si is Slovenia’s country-code domain. For AI companies it reads as SuperIntelligence. That reading is informal, not an official meaning. Google treats .si as a country-code domain for Slovenia, so a .si site starts with a Slovenia signal in Google Search. The registry fee is €10 per registration, the same for all registrars, and terms run from 1 to 5 years. Register.si counted 295,465 .si domains on October 5, 2026. Our complete guide to the .si domain covers the rules and prices.
The contrast with .ai is mostly about cost and signal. A .si name can start with a 1-year term, while .ai requires 2 years at $80 per year wholesale. In exchange, .si gives up the generic treatment that .ai has in Google Search. It fits a brand or product site where a Slovenia signal does no harm. If you need strong country targeting elsewhere, plan local versions or choose a generic extension.
Disclosure: buysidomains.si, the publisher of this guide, sells .si domains. In October 2026, our portfolio listed 10 curated .si domains at fixed aftermarket prices from €900 to €12,000, sold through Escrow.com. Two examples are rapid.si, a one-word name for AI compute or inference, at €12,000, and essai.si, a name for an AI lab or AI writing tool, at €6,000.
Is a .ai domain worth it for your company?
A .ai domain is worth it when the exact name is available at the standard registration price and your brand depends on the AI link. It is harder to justify for a long or hyphenated name, because renewals at the registrars we checked on October 5, 2026 cost more than $80 per year.
Price the full holding period before you decide. The table uses prices checked on October 5, 2026 and assumes they stay flat. The March 2026 increase shows that is not guaranteed.
| Holding period | Wholesale ($80 per year, reported) | Porkbun retail | Dynadot retail |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 years (minimum) | $160 | $165.40 | $171.20 |
| 4 years | $320 | $330.80 | $342.40 |
| 10 years | $800 | $827.00 | $856.00 |
Guidance by reader
- AI founders. If the exact .ai name is available at registration price, it is a fair buy for a company whose product is AI. Budget the renewals, turn on auto-renew and register the matching .com if you can.
- Marketers. The 2-year minimum makes .ai costly for short campaigns. Use a path on your main site, or a cheaper extension, for anything that lives less than a year.
- Domain investors. Holding costs are high and reported sales cover a few rare words. We make no claim about future value. Treat every renewal as a cost you may not recover.
If your first-choice .ai name is gone or too expensive, compare it with a short alternative before you pay an aftermarket price. You can browse curated .si domains for AI companies at fixed prices, or read more on the buysidomains.si home page. Whatever you choose, check the renewal price, the minimum term and Google’s treatment of the extension before you commit.
