What is .nico?
Brand TLDs operate under Specification 13 of ICANN's registry agreement. It lets a trademark owner keep every second-level name for itself, so you won't find .nico names for sale at any registrar.
.nico entered the DNS root zone on February 10, 2015, 11 years ago. It came out of ICANN's New gTLD Program, the 2012 application round that grew the root from 22 generic TLDs to well over a thousand.
On the technical side, .nico is served by 4 authoritative name servers, 3 of them reachable over IPv6. It is also DNSSEC-signed: the root zone carries a DS record for .nico, which lets validating resolvers check its answers cryptographically. Registration data is published over RDAP and WHOIS (the WHOIS server is whois.nic.nico).
.nico FAQ
What country is .nico?
None. .nico is a generic top-level domain, so it isn't tied to any country.
Who owns the .nico domain extension?
DWANGO Co., Ltd. operates .nico as its registry, under a registry agreement with ICANN.
When was .nico created?
.nico was delegated to the DNS root zone on February 10, 2015.
Is .nico a valid domain?
Yes. .nico is an active top-level domain in the DNS root zone, delegated in 2015, so .nico addresses work in every browser.
Can I buy a .nico domain?
No. .nico is a brand TLD under ICANN Specification 13, so names are reserved for DWANGO Co., Ltd.
Is .nico DNSSEC-signed?
Yes, the root zone holds a DS record for .nico.
Sources
Data from IANA root zone version 2026102000. Last changed August 20, 2019. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
